The admission comes amid top Democratic leaders encouraging activists to harass Republicans, with one former top official under President Obama telling people recently to kick their political opponents.
Nicole Wallace, the host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” said on Thursday that she told Bush to attack Trump after a heated debate during the presidential race.
“I told Jeb Bush after that debate that I thought he should have punched [Trump] in the face,” Wallace said. “He insulted your wife.”
Wallace, who worked for Bush when he was Florida’s governor, claimed Bush asked her what he could have done after Trump derided him, calling him “low-energy” among other things.
“I think you should have punched him in the face and then gotten out of the race. You would have been a hero,” Wallace said.
It’s not the first time Wallace has called for violence against Republican officials. Speaking with a reporter on her show in May, Wallace asked about press secretary Sarah Saunders: “How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck?”
Wallace’s admission came just days after Eric Holder, the attorney general under Obama, told a crowd that he disagreed with Michelle’s Obama maxim, “When they go low, we go high.”
Another top Democrat leader, former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, recently said that Democrats can not be civil to Republicans unless they gain power back. Currently, Republicans control the presidency, the Senate, and the House.
Top Republicans have condemned the rhetoric.
