Rep. Adriano Espaillat on Omar attack

The president criticized Congresswoman Omar during a speech in Iowa made just hours before the attack. He later suggested in a phone call to ABC News that she staged the incident, saying, quote, "She probably had herself sprayed," end quote. Here's what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz told CBS News's Matt Gutman when asked if the president is to blame. Certainly. It's the tone that's in this country. This has all been said. I think it goes back years of this type of political rhetoric. The president constantly attacks Representative Omar, attacks her citizenship, attacks the very decency of it. And we've asked him time and time again to stop it. I don't believe he's capable of stopping it.

New York Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat is here with me in studio to speak about this recent political violence. He is also the Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Congressman Espaillat, thank you so much-- Thank you for having me. --for being with us today. I want to get your take on all of this. We heard Representative Omar blame President Trump directly. I'm curious if you believe President Trump is to blame, his political rhetoric, for some of the violence we're seeing and if you've experienced any of this harassment. Well, first, words matter. And the president's words are often words that provoke people into committing certain crimes and certain actions. And so, yes, I think that this is the first time that we see a president be unhinged in his words. And I think that they're having an impact, a negative impact, on how people are reacting. And in this case, my colleague Omar, Congresswoman Omar, it may have been cider liquid now, but God forbid, should it have been something else, something deadly. We would be having another conversation right now about it. Now, CBS News obtained internal emails showing House Democratic leadership has advised members like you to avoid travel to Minnesota and Minneapolis. What was your reaction to that? Well, I was in Minnesota about two weeks ago. And we went there for a hearing. I didn't see any danger. I think that we should not restrict. We should take the measures that we need to take to protect ourselves. But I think that when I visited Minneapolis, there was plenty of security there. And I didn't see or sense any danger. If anything, the danger is from ICE. Somebody that looks like us will step out, and we'll get stopped, frisked, we get profiled, and we get cuffed and detained. Now, you are one of more than 170 House Democrats co-sponsoring a resolution to impeach DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. President Trump says she's not going anywhere. Even if this makes it out of the House, it does face steep odds in the Senate. What's the point of this effort? Under her watch, the agency, ICE, has gone rogue. It is an agency that's gripped by a culture of violence. They're masked. They're anonymous. They don't have a first name or a last name. They don't respect sensitive locations, like houses of worship, schools, or hospitals. They're involved in an action that is often sort of like militarized. It's like a paramilitary operation the likes of what we see in some Latin American countries. And so this agency is out of control. We must dismantle it and have a full discussion as to how it's going to continue to move forward. But what do you say to those who believe that Secretary Noem is simply implementing the president's border and immigration strategies, which American voters, the majority of which, elected him to do? Isn't this exactly what President Trump said he would do? Her take and words on the killing, the recent murder of the nurse, the--

Alex Pretti. --Alex Pretti was totally unacceptable, categorizing him as someone that's sort of like a criminal, without even having the report or the investigation before her words were out there, I think, impacting the men and women of the agency, and of course, distorting the reality of what really happened.

And just in the last few seconds, we know that there is a potential government shutdown pending. Democrats have released this list of immigration reforms they want Republicans to agree to. Is this issue worth shutting the government down over? I think that if ICE is not dismantled, and we have a real discussion as to the future of the agency, that we must vote the way we feel we should vote. And for me, that is not supporting the funding, which is what fuels this aggressive behavior. Window dressing measures are not going to do it for me. It requires a deeper look at the agency, rescinding the funding, making sure that they don't use militarized tactics, ensuring that, yes, they unmask and that they protect sensitive locations, but at the same time that the culture of violence is dismantled. We'll watch this closely over the next few days. You have an open invite to come back here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Anytime, Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.