GOP Senator: Trump tweet not a 'death threat' against Schiff

James Lankford.
(Image credit: Screenshot/CNN)

Sen. James Lankford didn't seem too perturbed by a tweet President Trump sent Saturday, in which the president said the House's lead impeachment prosecutor Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has not "paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our country."

Lankford told CNN's Jake Tapper during Sunday's edition of State of the Union that he doesn't consider the tweet a "death threat," which Tapper said Schiff has been receiving. Tapper wondered why Lankford wasn't bothered by Trump's words when he was offended by Schiff's comment earlier this week about how he had heard Republican senators were warned they're heads would end up on a pike should they defy Trump. Lankford said it's because Schiff's insinuation that GOP lawmakers act only out of fear invalidates their work.

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On the other hand, Schiff, whom Trump described as "probably a very sick man," told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday's edition of Meet the Press that he's pretty sure Trump was issuing a threat of some sort. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.