ADVERTISEMENT

Cohen (D): Trump is 'Torching the Entire Structure of Government' Like the Notre Dame Fire

April 15, 2019

Rep. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) said President Donald Trump is doing to the Constitution what Monday's devastating fire did to the Notre Dame Cathedral in France, saying he is "torching the entire structure of government."

Cohen appeared on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the pending release of the Robert Mueller report later this week. During the interview, he said he believes there is a case President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.

"I filed articles last year. I haven't brought them up this year, but we are getting so far along in seeing what this president has done and what he's done to the Constitution, what he's done to the people's respect for our government," Cohen said. "What he has done to the Constitution and the rule of law is as bad as [what] that fire did to Notre Dame."

"He's torching the entire structure of government and the people's respect for it and the Congress needs to act," Cohen added. "The facts were supposed to be in the Mueller Report. We'll get them. We'll find the court and we'll go to the court, and I think we'll be allowed to see them because the redacted testimony, the grand jury testimony can be seen and there's precedent for it being given to Congress."

This isn't the first time Cohen has made a hyperbolic comparison about Trump.

In 2017, he compared Trump to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who brutally ruled Cuba for nearly five decades, and he described Trump as a "cancer" on the United States. Cohen also got in hot water when he joked then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) should jump off a bridge while she was running for U.S. Senate.