In the face of an effort by conservative media and Republicans to brand the political left as radical and violent, attorney Michael Avenatti made the case for the Democratic Party to get even tougher.
“If you want to fight for this republic, if you want to take this nation back, you’re going to have to engage in a brutal campaign,” Avenatti said at the Politicon conference Saturday. “I’m not talking about violence, but I’m talking about the fact that we need somebody that goes toe-to-toe with [President Trump]. We can’t wait for him to elevate the discourse.”
Avenatti, who is weighing a presidential campaign in 2020, criticized his potential rivals in the Democratic primary as qualified and well-studied but not sufficiently pugilistic.
“Part of the problem is that we don’t have enough Democrats that will actually stand toe-to-toe with this bully Donald Trump and fight for the rights and values of this republic,” he said.
Avenatti continued: “There’s only one way that these tweets and this behavior and this conduct and this misogyny is going to end, and it’s only going to end if you displace Donald Trump from the presidency of the United States.”
Avenatti, who has been a popular presence at Politicon, was asked to pose for pictures with fans and hounded by the media at the event Saturday.
Comedian Kathy Griffin said she wishes she’d had an advocate like Avenatti last year, when she faced widespread criticism for a satirical photo of her holding the president’s bloody head.
Asked by moderator Jonathan Capehart if she ever regrets some of her attacks on members of the Trump administration, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Griffin replied, “No, fuck her. She’s a liar. She lies to the globe every day.”
