Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) says he agrees with former President George W. Bush‘s assessment of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and argues that senators should not try to come up with an “alternative view” of the violence.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Blunt, “Ron Johnson called the insurrectionists people that loved this country. Former President Bush called them hostile forces. What’s your view of this?”

“I’m much more in agreement with the George W. Bush view of this,” the Missouri senator responded.

He called Jan. 6 a “terrible day for America” and “absolutely unacceptable.”

“We need to understand that’s an underlying principle of what happened on January 6th that we don’t need to try to explain away or come up with alternative versions of. We all saw what happened. We know what happened. We know we can’t let that happen again,” he added.

Watch the video below:

During an interview with the Texas Tribune, Bush addressed the violence at the Capitol as he said, “I was sick to my stomach … to see our nation’s Capitol being stormed by hostile forces. And it really disturbed me to the point where I did put out a statement, and I’m still disturbed when I think about it.”

“It undermines rule of law and the ability to express yourself in peaceful ways in the public square. This was an expression that was not peaceful,” he added.

Advertisement

Bush’s comments came after Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) claimed that he did not feel threatened as hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. He explained, “Even though those thousands of people were marching on the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned.”

“Had the tables been turned, Joe, this could mean trouble. Had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned,” he added.

Johnson also at one point claimed that those who stormed the Capitol were “fake Trump protesters.”