Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said there was no question President Donald Trump’s campaign was working on getting entertainer Kanye West on state ballots to peel away votes from Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden.
Mitchell said, “I want to ask you about Kanye West. I never thought I would be saying that to you, Mr. Leader, but there we are. He’s now on the ballot in Colorado and Oklahoma. We’re told that a Republican operative from the Trump campaign delivered his petitions in Wisconsin. Now, I know his family has said he suffers from bipolar and that this is not serious, but let’s face it, what happened in three states in 2016 by, you know, 80,000 votes, decided an election, decided a presidency, Jill Stein on the Green Party ticket. Could this be a Trump campaign effort to try to siphon off votes from Joe Biden in battleground states?”
Clyburn said, “I don’t think there’s any question about that. I think we all saw what was going on there in Wisconsin, where he was getting help getting on the ballot. But, you know, African-Americans, most especially, know what this campaign is all about. They’ve seen these kinds of tactics before.”
He continued, “We saw that here in South Carolina. I have been saying for years now that this whole Russia influence, I think their trial run was in the United States Senate race right here in South Carolina. So we’ve seen this before. We fell victim to it when we didn’t know where it was coming from or what was going on. We now know, and we’re not going to make that mistake again. If you fool me once, that shame is on you. You fool me twice, that shame would be on me. We ain’t going to be shamed in this election.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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