Former congressman Joe Walsh on Friday defended his controversial comments he made on Twitter in the wake of fatal shootings of Dallas police officers, in which he said Obama should “watch out” because “real America is coming after you.”
Walsh, a one-term Representative from Illinois, tweeted the comments Thursday night after a shooting during an anti-police brutality protest in Dallas killed five police officers. In other tweets, Walsh blamed Obama for the violence. “10 cops shot. You did this Obama,” Walsh tweeted.
The former congressman said Friday, however, that he did not intend to incite violence towards the president or anyone else, according to the Associated Press. “That’s just stupid, and even worse than that, that would be wrong and reprehensible,” Walsh said.
“I don’t believe we go kill people,” he told the AP. “I mean that we march and we boycott and we protest and we stand with our cops.”
The original post telling Obama to “watch out,” since deleted, went viral as celebrities and other Twitter users chastised Walsh, with many bringing the post to the attention of the FBI and Secret Service twitter accounts.
Walsh told AP that at least 1,000 people had contacted him saying he had been reported to authorities.
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