- Sen. Mike Lee called Tesla dealership attacks 'domestic terrorism' during Charlie Kirk's podcast.
- Lee criticized Democratic leaders for not condemning the violence, noting that Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is one of the few Democrats who has publicly spoken against the attacks.
- The Utah senator criticized Jimmy Kimmel's commentary on the Tesla incidents.
TPUSA co-founder and podcaster Charlie Kirk spoke to Utah Sen. Mike Lee on the latest episode of his show, posted Friday afternoon, to discuss the recent attacks launched on Tesla dealerships.
Kirk said he and his staff receive death threats daily and asked Lee for his thoughts.
Lee called the vandalism and attack “domestic terrorism.”
“They want people to be in fear. That’s why they do it,” he said.
People committing violent crimes or damaging property in the name of political activism have “been trained by the radical Left to think there will be no consequence for doing this, that they’ll be applauded, that they’ll be rewarded,” Lee said.
Lee believes this most recent movement has grown to the extent it has because Democratic leaders are not condemning the behavior loudly enough.
“We haven’t seen politicians on the Left, elected office holders in the Democratic Party in any significant numbers, coming out and saying, ‘Stop this madness. End this. Stop the death threats, stop the painting of the swastikas, the vandalism, all forms of violence.’ You’ve seen that not at all,” he said.
Lee mentioned that Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is one of the few in his party who has publicly condemned the attacks.
Sen. Lee criticizes Jimmy Kimmel’s Tuesday show, and Kimmel comes back with more, Thursday
Kirk then played a clip of ABC late night show host Jimmy Kimmel jokingly telling viewers not to vandalize Teslas on his show Wednesday.
“This isn’t funny. It’s not cute. It shouldn’t be allowed on public airwaves, and I’m frankly stunned that his network hasn’t called him out on it, hasn’t apologized, hasn’t taken some action against him from doing this,” Lee said of the Kimmel episode.
Kimmel addressed the Tesla attacks again during his Thursday night show, taking things one step further.
“While no one should be setting anything on fire, ever, people are mad at Elon Musk for randomly and gleefully putting thousands of Americans, including veterans, out of work. But the MAGA gang — which has been very against any kind of violent protest since January 7, was it? 2021? That’s when they started being against it. They are highly upset," Kimmel said.
Toward the end of the segment, Kimmel added, “Well, let me see if I can explain it for you: when you pull out a chainsaw to celebrate firing thousands of people, they get mad! This poor guy. You do one, maybe two Nazi salutes and everybody gets all bent out of shape.”
Lee told Kirk that Kimmel’s original episode insinuating that viewers should take violent action against the car company was “shameful.”
“Look, regardless of what your political views are, as an American, you should be able to look at this objectively and say, ‘Violence and acts of violence aren’t a good thing,‘” Lee said.
Lee describes Democratic senators’ attitudes toward the Tesla attacks
Kirk asked Lee what the general sentiment among Democratic senators has been like on Capitol Hill about the Tesla madness.
“They haven’t been inclined to talk about it, and then when Democratic politicians do talk about it, they don’t announce it,” Lee responded.
Lee then referenced a speech Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gave at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Tuesday.
There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with Walz monitoring certain stocks and “figur(ing) out what kind of stock prices make him happy and make him sad,” Lee said.
“It’s weird though,” he continued, “given that his own state’s retirement fund is pretty heavily invested in Tesla, as I understand it. So he’s celebrating the diminution in value of his own state workers, his own state retirees retirement benefits.”
The senator asked, “Why wouldn’t he take that opportunity to say, ‘Regardless of whether you want to celebrate when Tesla stock prices go down, knock it off with the violence.’ He didn’t do that.”
“There’s a reason he didn’t do that,” Lee said. “And I fear what it means for the future of our country, and Democrats should fear what that means for the future of the Democratic Party.”