CNN political director David Chalian said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) was “deeply cynical and clearly hypocritical” for spending money to promote Rep. Peter Meijer’s (R-MI) opponent, Trump-backed challenger John Gibbs, who defeated Meijer in a GOP primary Tuesday.
Guest anchor Pamela Brown said, “All these candidates, these election deniers who won. How big of a reaffirmation was last night in terms of Donald Trump’s lasting hold on the Republican Party and the message that the lie that he has been putting out there that the 2020 election was stolen?”
Chalian said, “Well, we saw Donald Trump’s continued sway hold on the party in two different ways … Peter Meijer, the congressman from Michigan, losing his Republican primary. So Republican primary voters in that district were willing to join Donald Trump on his revenge tour to get rid of these ten Republicans who voted to impeach him in the aftermath of January 6. John Gibbs, the winner in that district with Trump’s backing there. And then the election denial piece that you’ve talked about, I mean up and down the ballot in Arizona from the secretary of state’s race to the Senate race, you see here, and Kari Lake, we should note not yet a projected winner. She has a slight lead. We’re still waiting for more votes in the gubernatorial primary, but this could be an entire slate of candidates where Donald Trump is at odds with the establishment and supporting these election deniers, some of whom are in position to potentially be overseer of elections.”
Former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said, “What is interesting in Michigan, this guy Gibbs who beat Meijer, Meijer voted to impeach Donald Trump, the Democratic Party itself put money into the Gibbs campaign because they thought he’d be the weaker candidate and they were able to defeat Meijer who actually stood up and voted to impeach Trump. Now, you go figure that one out. That’s kind of wacky and not good for the future of the way we do elections in this country.”
Chalian said, “Deeply cynical and clearly hypocritical from what Democrats have been putting forth as a message.”
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