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Published December 23, 2015
As Congress waits to hear President Obama's jobs plan later this week, the head of the Democratic National Committee dodged questions about labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa's contentious remarks about the Tea Party.
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tried to deflect specific questions about Hoffa's comments, in which he told a crowd in Detroit that America faced "a war on workers, you see it everywhere - it is the Tea Party," and urged the crowd to "take these son-of-a-bitches out." Hoffa made the comments while introducing President Obama.
'I know you'd like to focus on language - that's not what the American people are focused on," Wasserman-Schultz told "Fox and Friends" Tuesday. "The American people are focused on job creation."
The DNC chair has previously been vocal about calling for civil political rhetoric, in the wake of the shooting of her friend and colleague Rep. Gabby Giffords last year.
"I think all of us need to be more careful about the words that we choose to use," she told CBS in January.
But when pressed on Hoffa's rhetoric, Wasserman-Schultz fired back, "are you kidding me? Really? You take a walk with me to some of the Tea Party rallies."
"How many times have you called out coarse language at Tea Party rallies on this network?" she later asked host Gretchen Carlson. "Almost never."
The White House has, so far, not commented on Hoffa's remarks. President Obama had also called for civil discourse in the wake of Giffords' shooting, urging Americans to speak "in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds" at a memorial service for the shooting victims.
Wasserman-Schultz declined to comment further on Hoffa's remarks on Tuesday.
"The American people, like President Obama understands, want us to focus on working together - when I went home, my constituents asked me to come back to Washington and help continue to get this economy turned around," she said. "That's my official response."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dnc-chair-dodges-questions-on-hoffa