This past week, while the House took their final vote approving articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, he was holding an angry rally in Michigan where he suggested — among other things — that the state’s late Democratic Congressman John Dingell could be in hell. He made that remark while complaining about the state’s current Democratic Congresswoman and John’s wife Debbie Dingell’s support for impeachment. Now, Debbie has again responded to the president’s public belligerence, and — in an appearance on Fox News Sunday, no less — she put the president in his place as obnoxiously and inappropriately acting out.
During the president’s rant about her late husband, he pointed to his approval of lowering flags to half mast after John’s passing as a supposed reason that Debbie should oppose impeachment, but as she pointed out — her late husband earned his honors and was not even especially in debt to Trump.
Host Chris Wallace asked how she felt when she heard the president’s remarks, and she explained:
‘It just sort of kicked me in the stomach. It was a politicization of something that didn’t need to be. And by the way, John Dingell earned. He was buried at Arlington Cemetery because he was a World War II veteran. And that had been discussed with the Army a year before… He called me to tell me he was lowering the flags. And to this day, and to this minute, I am grateful that he did it. He was kind and empathetic and it meant a lot to somebody was hurting and loved her husband.’
As Wallace noted, many members of Congress, even including some of the president’s supporters, have acknowledged his comments about John as inappropriate — which is a low bar but where the president has dragged the country nonetheless. There has been no White House acknowledgement of any presidential misconduct. In fact, officials including press secretary Stephanie Grisham and Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short have adamantly defended the remarks as just “counterpunching.”
This weekend on Fox, Debbie continued:
‘We have to learn in our country that you can disagree, agreeably. I understand that this impeachment was a very personal issue to him, but I think there are lines that you don’t cross, and I think he crossed a line there. I don’t need an apology; I don’t want an apology… What I do want is for people to take a deep breath and think, going forward, that their words have consequences, that they can hurt, and how do we bring more civility back to our political environment.’
Watch:
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI) responds to President Trump's attack on her late husband. She calls for more civility in political discourse: "We have to learn in our country that you have to disagree agreeably." "#FNS #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/91ZnDEnjO0
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) December 22, 2019
In a different universe, the president of the United States would themselves make that kind of call for civility — but that’s not exactly going to happen with Trump in the White House. He has continued to occupy himself with outlandishly lashing out at his opponents at just about every opportunity. To him, Democrats investigating his clearly documented corruption are out of their mind and just pursuing a witch hunt, no matter how much evidence gets publicly laid out.
