Barr says he hopes Biden and the Democrats follow through with scaling back political rhetoric

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Sunday that President Biden’s sentiments of scaling back the political rhetoric were noble, adding the hopes they follow through after calling former President Trump “Adolph Hitler, a racist and a fascist.”

Barr appeared as a guest on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Sunday, when the host asked the former attorney general about Biden’s remarks following the attempted assassination of Trump, as well as other things like whether the FBI should be trusted to do a clean investigation and whether Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be fired.

Watters opened up the interview asking Barr, “Why can the media call Trump a Nazi who’s going to imprison all of their children and expect everybody to say, ‘oh, you know, it’s just a both sides deal?’”

Barr said when someone is “demonized to the extent Trump was being demonized,” a target is placed on him, though he would not put complete blame on Democrats because “both sides engage in extreme rhetoric occasionally.”

“What was bothering me was that the thrust of the Democratic narrative for this election year had become that [Trump] was a mortal danger to our democracy, and if he wins, the country is going away,” Barr said. “When you take that position, you know, that is an apocalyptic and hysterical position that's bound to lead to violence eventually.”

On Sunday evening, Biden spoke from the Oval Office and suggested the political violence has to stop. Watters asked Barr if he foresees the Democrats scaling back the rhetoric.

Barr said Biden’s sentiments were “very noble,” and that he hopes Biden follows through because if they believe the rhetoric has gone too far, they will scale it back.

“What he said about, you know, differences in policy, fine, you can attack your adversaries, you can attack their character on their policies and so forth. But they demonize him, calling him Adolf Hitler, a racist and a fascist,” Barr said. “It’s ridiculous. He’s not the threat to democracy that they’re portraying. He was president for four years and he carried out excellent policies, and it was all done lawfully.”

Watters asked the former attorney general if he trusts the FBI to do a clean investigation into the attempted assassination on Saturday, which Barr said they should be given a chance.

Still, he said there was a lot to investigate, including the Secret Service agents in the detail.

“There’s no question in my mind that they’re loyal and brave, and that they would take a bullet for President Trump,” he said. “But there was obvious…screw ups there that have to be looked at carefully.”

Barr also said the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda is destructive of meritocracy and is affecting the confidence levels of agencies like the Secret Service.

Finally, Watters asked Barr if he would fire Secret Service Director Cheatle.

Barr told the host he would fire her, “simply for having a tin ear and not coming out and being visible and saying something” about how an assassination attempt was able to happen.

“I think it's still important to start the discussion and the transparency with the American people and the way they handle today by trying to just brief Milwaukee and not saying anything about it, was so ham handed that I would fire her just for not understanding how the responsibility of government officials, to interact with the public,” he said.