Rep. Moskowitz says House Oversight Committee investigation into Trump rally shooting has bipartisan support
MIAMI — Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democratic member of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, said Sunday that the congressional committee will investigate the circumstances and security measures that were in place before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Moskowitz said the committee's chairman, James Comer, has bipartisan support in his call for the investigation.
"I support the chairman's call for an investigation," Moskowitz, who is from Florida, told CBS News Miami. "The American people have a right to know and we have to get to the bottom of how this happened — period."
The Oversight committee, which has jurisdiction over the Secret Service, has invited the agency's director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing on July 22.
As a former emergency management director, Moskowitz said an "after-action review" needs to be done to determine what failures led up to the gunman being within Trump's vicinity during his rally on Saturday.
When asked what he was thinking when he saw the shooting on TV, Moskowitz told CBS News Miami that he was shocked by the "horrific" images he saw in real time, saying it brought back memories of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where another young man with a rifle shot and killed 17 people in February 2018.
Moskowitz added that as the rhetoric has been building up on both sides of the political spectrum, although it's not confirmed whether politics was a factor for the gunman.
Americans "have to recognize that all of the rhetoric from everybody bares some responsibility," he said.
"How politics is today is: you must hate the other side and you must dehumanize them at the same time. And, I've just never believed in that. That's not how I was taught and I have been doing this almost my entire life," he said.
Moskowitz said there is nothing wrong with "spirited debate," but there is no place for "disgusting language" in the public discourse.
"This is an all-sides sort of thing," he added.
Moskowitz said he has been praying for Trump and his family and that he is glad that the former president is okay. He said the messages Trump has been sharing on social media have "shown leadership." He was also happy that President Biden "appropriately" reached out to Trump and addressed the nation.
Moskowitz said Americans need to figure out "how to bring the temperature down" and that he believes that Trump will have a "unique role" in doing it.
"It's really going to be up to him where he wants this to go," he said.
When asked about whether he has been on phone calls between Democratic leaders regarding whether Biden should step out of the presidential election, Moskowitz called those discussions "irrelevant."
"President Biden is the president. President Biden is running for reelection," he said. "Donald Trump is his opponent and together, we're going to have to figure out how to unite and heal the country."
"We cannot continue to go down this path. Otherwise, what we saw [Saturday] night will not be an isolated incident -- it will get worse," Moskowitz continued, recalling back when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was shot during the 2017 congressional baseball game.
He went on to say that he has been working with other members of Congress to draft letters and resolutions in response to Saturday's events.
"We've had disagreements but we have to figure out how to bring the temperature down," Moskowitz said.