Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh deleted a tweet threatening President Barack Obama late Thursday night but insisted Friday morning that the president’s words “have gotten cops killed.”
At least two snipers opened fire on police officers in Dallas on Thursday night during protests over two recent fatal police shootings of black men, police said.
Tony Gutierrez
AP
Walsh, who represented Illinois' 8th congressional district from 2011 to 2013, wrote that his original tweet “wasn’t calling for violence, against Obama or anyone” but that the president’s rhetoric was to blame for the shooting in Dallas Thursday night.
Five officers were shot and killed in a sniper attack in downtown Dallas Thursday amid a demonstration for the black victims of two police shootings that occurred earlier this week. Walsh, responding to the shootings, tweeted shortly before midnight Thursday with the most recent death toll.
“This is now war,” he wrote. “Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.”
Walsh quickly deleted that message but left up several others telling people to “wake up” and “stand w[ith] our Cops.”
Walsh also lumped Obama in with “cop haters” in another tweet, who he said Americans should “stand up [and] against.”
Walsh’s tweets are not the first time he has courted controversy. The now-radio show host was reportedly kicked off his own broadcast briefly two years ago when he attempted to say a racial slur on air, Gawker reported.