California Democrat Will Rollins recently wrote that "loving your neighbor" shouldn’t depend on politics, but the congressional candidate has called Republicans and his opponent, Rep. Ken Calvert (R., Calif.), "extremists" who want to "tear down our democracy."
Following former president Donald Trump’s failed assassination attempt, Rollins called for national unity and an end to political violence in an op-ed the Orange County Register published Tuesday. He boasted about volunteering to help the Secret Service protect Trump in 2019 as a federal prosecutor.
"But loving your neighbor—and your fellow Americans—should never depend on whether they plan to vote for [President] Joe Biden or Donald Trump, Will Rollins or Ken Calvert, or the red team versus blue," Rollins wrote. "The path back to our collective humanity lies in one direction—forward, as one country—and we cannot allow this violence to define America’s next chapter."
"As leaders, it is our responsibility to take the temperature down and bring our nation together," he said in a separate statement.
But those comments are a stark contrast from remarks Rollins made earlier during his rematch campaign against Calvert. He posted one about two weeks before his op-ed was published.
"One of us wants to protect our democracy, the other is okay watching extremists burn it down," Rollins wrote June 30 in response to Calvert wanting to drop charges against Jan. 6 rioters. "The choice is clear."
"Today, the elected GOP is ruled by extremists like Ken Calvert who will lie, cheat, and do anything to tear down our democracy," he posted Feb. 8.
On his campaign website, meanwhile, Rollins wrote that "politics are too often dominated by extremism" with "fringe politicians" bent on getting the most clicks. He says that’s led to violence like mass shootings and targeted acts of hate.
Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, lost his bid against Calvert for California’s 41st Congressional District in 2022 by less than 5 percent of the vote. He was considered one of the top overperformers in the nation, and recent voter registration shows Democrats have a slight advantage, Politico reported.
"If Trump is the nominee, and we’ve got a House of Representatives that is unwilling to certify the results of a democratic election, everything America stands for collapses," Rollins said when he announced his run in May 2023.
And in February, he told MeidasTouch Network, "If you’ve become somebody who defines whether you believe in the rule of law or law enforcement according to whatever one man tells you, who refuses to accept the outcome of Democratic elections, you may want to seek some professional help to get back into reality and recognize that this country is about more than one person."
Rollins’s campaign manager, Coby Eiss, didn’t address the candidate’s past comments. Instead, he criticized Calvert and promoted Rollins’s record of "protecting a former president" and "prosecuting insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol, leading to the deaths of police officers."
"He’s the one working to bring the temperature down while upholding our country’s values in Congress," Eiss told the Washington Free Beacon. "Instead of seeking to stoke more division, I hope Calvert and his allies reflect on last weekend’s heinous assassination attempt like Will did."
After the attempted assassination, Calvert said he hopes "we can all join together as Americans to pray for those affected by the shooting and give thanks to our Secret Service and law."