Robertson again calls for Chavez's assassination: “Not now, but one day”

On Hannity & Colmes, Pat Robertson once again called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, “Not now, but one day, one day.”


During the February 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Christian Coalition founder and 700 Club host Pat Robertson reiterated his call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

When co-host Alan Colmes asked Robertson, "[I]f he [Chavez] were assassinated, the world would be a safer place?" Robertson answered, “I think South America would.” When Colmes later pressed Robertson, asking, “Do you want him [Chavez] taken out?” Robertson retorted, “Not now, but one day, one day, one day.” Earlier, Colmes had asked, “Should Chavez be assassinated?” Robertson explained that “one day,” Chavez will “be aiming nuclear weapons; and what's coming across the Gulf [of Mexico] isn't going to be [Hurricane] Katrina, it's going to be his nukes.” Co-host Sean Hannity agreed that “the world would be better off without him where he [Chavez] is, because he is a danger to the United States.”

Earlier that day, on the February 2 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, Robertson addressed his original August 22, 2005, appeal, in which he had said: “We have the ability to take him [Chavez] out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.” During the interview, co-host Robin Roberts asked Robertson to explain his comments on Chavez, his condemnation of the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania -- who voted a school board out of office after it imposed an intelligent design curriculum -- and his statements regarding former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, in which he suggested that Sharon's stroke was the result of Sharon's policy, which he claimed was “dividing God's land.” Robertson replied:

I'm very passionate about certain things, and unfortunately, my passion maybe runs ahead of me. And in the context of what I'm saying, it isn't quite as strong as it sounds, but I am passionate about certain things and it's not politically correct at all.

From the February 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: Should Chavez be assassinated?

ROBERTSON: Well, one day he's going to be aiming nuclear weapons; and what's coming across the Gulf isn't going to be Katrina, it's going to be his nukes.

COLMES: Would you feel better going back to the original comment that if he were assassinated, the world would be a safer place?

ROBERTSON: I think South America would. He is -- he is -- got hit squads. He's a very dangerous man.

COLMES: So, you're not taking back the comment. You believe assassination of Hugo Chavez would be in the best interests of the world.

ROBERTSON: Well, rather than going to war. One day, we're going to have to go to war, I'm afraid, if he continues his policy, you know. But, I don't know. I wrote him a letter. I apologized to him.

COLMES: But, wait a minute. If you say you apologized to him, what you just said seems to contravene that, because you just now said --

ROBERTSON: I know. I know.

COLMES: -- you think it'd be better if he be assassinated.

ROBERTSON: Alan, the whole thing we've got to deal with is that, one day, if he continues his course of trying to mobilize Marxist powers in South America, it's going to be a clear --

COLMES: He's very popular with his country.

ROBERTSON: Well, yes and no. But he does --

HANNITY: He's building up weapons against the United States, isn't he?

COLMES: He's extremely popular. Eighty-percent of his country --

ROBERTSON: He's also calling for the destruction of George Bush. He calls him a war criminal.

COLMES: Do you want him taken out?

ROBERTSON: Not now, but one day, one day, one day. My premise is, and I think as -- you know, until that comment came out, everybody thought Chavez [added link] was a fellow having to do with table grapes in California. Now --

HANNITY: I think one thing we could say is, the world would be better off without him where he is, because he is a danger to the United States.

ROBERTSON: Extreme danger.