House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told CNN Monday that he called Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) last week after Gosar tweeted a now-deleted anime video depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and attacking President Biden.
"He took the video down and he made a statement that he doesn't support violence to anybody. Nobody should have violence [against them]," McCarthy told CNN. "I called him when I heard about the video, and he made a statement that he doesn't support violence, and he took the video down."
Though McCarthy reached out to the Arizona lawmaker, he did not publicly comment on the situation until Monday, nor did he "directly condemn Gosar's behavior, only noting Gosar had deleted the tweet after their conversation," writes CNN.
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Gosar had previously defended the video as a "truly a symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy," and, in a Sunday newsletter to constituents, further condemned the backlash it's been receiving, having said he finds the "faux outrage infantile and the hyperventilating and shrill accusations that this cartoon is dangerous to be laughable or intentionally hyperbolic," per CNN and Newsweek.
On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said House Democratic leadership is taking punishment for Gosar "very seriously," though she doubts McCarthy will do anything about it. Senior Democrats have been privately discussing censure as one option, though a final call has yet to be made, per Politico.
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