Mandela Barnes Won’t Apologize for Mocking GOP Congressman Who Was Shot and Almost Killed

In 2017, a progressive activist tried to assassinate Republican members of Congress when he opened fire at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va. Steve Scalise, the House GOP whip, was shot and nearly died. Mandela Barnes, the Democrats’ 2022 U.S. Senate candidate in Wisconsin, tweeted at the time that Scalise was “taking one for the team” by continuing to support the Second Amendment after the shooting. 

Scalise tells Punchbowl News that Barnes’s tweet was disgraceful: 

“That’s disgraceful. It says a lot more about his lack of character to be in essence condoning political violence. All of us should be standing up against political violence.

“To say something like that, [Barnes] really needs to look in the mirror and reevaluate his lack of character.”

Barnes’s statement responding to Scalise includes no apology: 

“This is a very personal topic for me as someone who has experienced the pain of losing friends and loved ones to gun violence. My comments came from a place of frustration with politicians like Ron Johnson who see gun violence happen everyday and turn their backs on solutions that would keep people safe.”

Imagine the reaction in the media if Barnes were a GOP Senate candidate who had mocked Democratic representative Gabby Giffords after she was shot and almost died.