Meijer to Dems After DCCC Supported His Opponent: ‘Don’t Expect to Be Able to Hold on to that Sense of Self-Righteousness’

Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) discussed his GOP primary loss to Trump-endorsed John Gibbs earlier this week after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) promoted his opponent.

Meijer, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, said he wasn’t going to “whine” about the DCCC “meddling” but did tell Democrats to not “expect to be able to hold on to that sense of self-righteousness and sanctimony” after supporting a Trump-backed candidate.

“I will be honest — it’s impossible to know,” Meijer replied when asked if the DCCC made the difference in the close race. “I can Monday morning quarterback all day long. I’m not here to whine about the DCCC coming in and meddling, but just to point out that any party that pretends to have a set of principles, any party that pretends to have a set of values and that comes in and boosts exactly the same type of candidate that they claim is … a threat to democracy, don’t expect to be able to hold on to that sense of self-righteousness and sanctimony. Don’t expect to have Republicans who will look at that and say, ‘You know, I know I’m going to get heat from my own side.'”

“I never expected the other side to as well double down in a cynical ploy to put forward the candidate they think is less electable,” he continued. “I think the challenge in this moment, and this is not why I want to complain about my own defeat, I lost, that’s on me, but it’s to say what type of a system are we going to have if candidates step forward and realize that they can just be ejected by both sides of the aisle, that there is no incentive to try to be a productive member, that you will never find any semblance of comfort or safety in doing the job, that it all will come down to partisan benefit no matter what the consequence.”

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