Democrat warns it’s just a ‘matter of time’ before a Republican ‘picks up a weapon and kills someone’

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, is warning that "it is a matter of time before a less responsible follower of Donald Trump, or a less responsible Republican is going to pick up a weapon and kill someone."

Congressman Himes, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, made those remarks Wednesday on MSNBC while talking with host Nicolle Wallace about Republican pushback against President Joe Biden's just-passed infrastructure bill.

"What really scares me about this, and I'm not using that term loosely, is the language, the death threats," Rep. Himes said. "You know, the Republican party today is saying that you're destroying America, that the Republicans who voted for this," the infrastructure bill, "are 'traitors,' that it's 'communist.' Remember communists were generational enemies of the United States."

"You're hearing this from somebody who lived through January 6th," he continued, referring to the insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"It is a matter of time before a less responsible follower of Donald Trump, or a less responsible Republican is going to pick up a weapon and kill someone. And I never imagined that I would be concerned about that. But here we are. I think that's a very real threat. And if the Republicans can't tamper back their, dial back their rhetoric, that's where this is going to end."