Rep. Steube fires back at Trump critics over July 4 address: 'They will criticize anything he does'
Trump on Saturday vowed to 'safeguard our values' from enemies within, singling out leftists, looters and agitators
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rep. Greg Steube defended President Trump’s Fourth of July speech Sunday amid withering criticism from liberals who called his remarks divisive instead of unifying.
"Well, liberal Democrats are going to criticize the president on everything that he does," the Florida Republican told "Fox Report Weekend" anchor Jon Scott.
"I mean, just look at the last several years with a Democratic house, and every single thing that he's tried to accomplish, they have tried to thwart it," he went on, "so it doesn't surprise me at all that Democratic senators are criticizing just about everything he did."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SEN. BLACKBURN CALLS TRUMP JULY 4 SPEECH 'ONE OF THE BEST THAT HE HAS GIVEN'
Trump on Saturday vowed to "safeguard our values" from enemies within — leftists, looters, agitators, he said — in a Fourth of July speech packed with all the grievances and combativeness of his political rallies.
"We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters and the people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing," he said. "We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Steube praised the president's speech and slammed Democrats who took issue with his failure to mention the nearly 130,000 people who are known to have died from COVID-19 in the U.S.
"They will criticize anything he does, and I just think it is disrespectful to the office of the president and the type of things he's trying to do put America first," Steube said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Later addressing Florida's coronavirus surge after reporting over 11,400 new cases Saturday, the House Judiciary Committee member said that the "staggeringly" high number likely was due in large part to the increase in testing capacity in the state.
"We're testing over 200,000 people a week in Florida. That's a staggeringly high number, so of course, your number of positives are going to be higher," he explained.
Steube also claimed most of the new cases appeared to belong to a much younger age group, many of whom were asymptomatic.
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"If you look at it from a health-care perspective of the serious nature of the cases that we have, yes, more people are testing positive," he explained, "but your more serious cases are staying about the same, because it is the younger population of people that are testing positive."
As far as ICU capacity and hospitalizations went, Stuebe said, "those numbers have stayed flat."
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and Jon Scott contributed to this report.