President Donald Trump put out a challenge to his fellow Republicans in an election year: "Get tougher" and stop trying to stay "politically correct."
"The Republicans have to get tougher, and I'm telling them all the time, because they're sitting back; they want to be politically correct and think, 'Oh, it's terrible to say something bad,'" Trump told host Sean Hannity in a Fox News town hall taped live Thursday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Talking about the quelling an assault on America's statues amid social injustice protests leading to civil unrest and riots, Trump continued: "'No, no, no,' I told them: 'You'll see if anybody attacks.
"You'll see what's happening and we told them: 'Every night, we are going to get tougher and tougher," he said. "And at some point, there's going to be retribution, because there has to be.
"These people are vandals, but they're agitators, but they're really, they're terrorists in a sense. I think you will be extremely impressed."
Trump called on Republicans to join him in getting tough on the violent rioters who are hijacking peaceful protests.
"I love the Republicans, I told you, they came for me 100%; I'm at 96% approval rating in the Republican Party," Trump said. "But I said, 'You're going to have to get tougher. You can't be politically correct anymore,' because we are really fighting something that is very dangerous."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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