Keeping Them Honest
tonight, the former
president is once again
asking who you're going to believe, me
or your lying eyes.
Once again,
he is pretending
he didn't say something absurd
and absurdly
dangerous for a once
and possibly future president to say.
As you've likely heard, early
Saturday morning,
he posted a rant of sorts
on his social media site
responding to the release of
internal Twitter emails from 20, 20
about Hunter
Biden's laptop
in a New York Post story at the time.
The relevant part
reads, A massive fraud of this type
and magnitude
allows for the termination
of all rules, regulations and articles,
even those found in the Constitution.
Now, a lot of reporters and commentators
have substituted
the verb suspend for terminate.
But he didn't say suspend.
He said, quote,
allows for the termination
what pieces of the constitution
he would actually terminate.
Again, the verb that he used,
he did not say.
It is certainly startling, yes.
To hear
a former president,
any former president or a public official
for that matter, mumbling about
terminating the Constitution.
You know,
the document
that our entire system is based
on, the thing public officials, members
of the military
swear to uphold
and defend the document
that people have died to protect.
What's not startling is that today
the former president is pretending
he never said what he just said.
And we all read
in another social media rant today,
he wrote, quote,
The fake news is actually trying
to convince the American people
that I said I wanted
to terminate the Constitution.
There's simply more disinformation
or lies,
just like the Russia, Russia, Russia
and all the other hoaxes and scams.
Keeping Them Honest, though,
the old post is still up.
You can check it out.
It's not been deleted.
It hasn't been changed.
I'm quoting again
because the words are exactly
the same as they were on Saturday.
A massive fraud of this type
and magnitude
allows for the termination
of all rules, regulations and articles,
even those found in the Constitution.
So he's lying.
Of course, the lie is plain to see.
Of course.
And of course, just like last week
when it was him dining with anti-Semites
and a white nationalist, many, though
not all Republican lawmakers
and party members
are finding it
hard to simply condemn what he said
straight up
without all kinds of hemming and hawing.
Alaska Senator
Lisa Murkowski called it
a betrayal of his oath to office
and an affront to the republic.
The former vice president, though,
put what
his old boss said
into a kind of a nameless,
faceless, timeless vacuum
I must tell you that
I think
everyone that serves in public office,
everyone that aspires to serve
or to serve again,
should make it clear that we will support
and defend
the Constitution of the United States.
Okay. Yeah, everyone should.
But what about the actual guy
who actually just broke that rule?
And then lied about it?
He doesn't say Senator
John Kennedy doesn't
even go that far to him.
This is a matter of interpretation.
I disagree with the president.
The Constitution
can be amended.
The Constitution can be interpreted
but the Constitution can't be suspended.
Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim
Scott said nothing
when asked today
about the former president's statement.
Senator Roger Marshall tried
a new verse of the old song, didn't see
that tweet
I don't
know what
President Trump said
about the Constitution.
I just don't think that's the issue.
I don't think that's
what you all should be talking about.
Yeah.
Now, what we should be talking about
when told about the comments
by CNN Center
Marshall, still do
not condemn them, saying, quote,
I don't know if that's been
taken out of context
or what or where it came from.
Again, just in case,
you know, came directly
from the mind
and social media account
of the former president.
Congressman Dave Joyce of Ohio
tried a variation on the theme
and then would not rule out
voting for the former president in 2024
Well you know when President
Trump was in office
I didn't make a habit of
speaking out of his tweet this year.
I don't know what came out on this
whatever his new social platform is but
you know
people were not
interested in looking backwards
at a Donald Trump
was your nominee in 2006 and 2020
you voted for him in 2016 and 2020.
Now he's talking about
suspending the Constitution.
Can you support a candidate in 2024
who's for suspending the Constitution?
Well again, it's early.
I think there's going to be
a lot of people in the primary
I think at the end of the day
you will set
whoever the Republican then
to pick out fallen behind
because that's even if it's Donald Trump
as he's called for suspending
the Constitution.
Well, again,
I think it's going to be a big field.
I don't think Donald Trump's
going to clear out the field
like he did in six.
That's not what I'm asking.
I'm asking you
if he's the nominee, will
you support him?
I will
support whoever the
Republican nominee is.
By the way
it's a pretty big field in 2016.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
who has also not ruled out
voting for the former president again
has yet to weigh in on this.
The same for House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,
by the way.
The same Kevin McCarthy
who says he plans to have his members
read the Constitution out loud
when the new Congress convenes
Joining us now, CNN
political commentator,
one time campaign
adviser to the foreign press,
and David Urban,
also CNN senior political commentator,
former senior adviser
to President Obama, David Axelrod.
David, Urban, can
I mean, how can Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy Square
having Republicans read the Constitution
from the House floor,
it being that important
with the former president
wanting to terminate the Constitution?
I would say that's a bad timing, right?
Inopportune timing on that.
Kevin McCarthy's part
in making that announcement.
I don't think he anticipated
that the former president
would call
for suspending the Constitution.
But clearly, it's outrageous right.
I mean,
is so many people
you've just articulated,
you know, Anderson,
you take an oath to
uphold, to defend the Constitution,
you put your hand in the Bible and say,
I will fight to defend this document,
these principles.
And for the former president
to say he's going to suspend it
because of a personal grievance
about the election,
it's just, you know, it's outrageous.
So I think that, you know, it's
not that hard to say that.
But, in fact,
you know,
does it
does it have an impact
on the Trump voters in the 2024 primary?
I think it's not going to have an impact
on the Trump 20, 24 primary voters.
I think that there's those riders
as I've been saying
30% of the Ride or Die
Trumpers are still with them.
They don't
they don't care what he says
and they just they just chalk it up to
oh you know
it's more hyperbole
by by the former president
David Axelrod,
what does it say
that even among those Republicans
speaking out against the comments
by the former president,
you have said that they
are disqualifying.
Yes.
Well, listen, Anderson, first of all,
I feel like you and I and maybe Dave
have had this conversation.
Many, many I know it's horrible.
I've even see,
I actually
was thinking a lot
about how to even describe this
because I don't want to give in
to sort of this, you know, daily.
I don't want to get it back
into this daily outrage machine.
Of like, you know, this is what he does.
I don't know why we're surprised by it.
I mean,
this has played out multiple times,
but continued the man,
the man provoked an insurrection
against the U.S. government.
The man lied about an election
and sold
that lie and continues to relentlessly
But remember the Tea Party movement
and all the folks dressed up
like people from 1776,
and they talk about the importance
of the Constitution
and people on January six
talking about the Constitution Yes.
Now, he says we can terminate it, but.
Yeah.
And you should go back
and read some of the quotes
of the founding fathers
about the demigods.
They feared
because they sound
very much like Donald Trump.
You know, Kevin McCarthy.
What he ought to do
is rather than reading the Constitution
on the floor of the House,
you ought to go down to Mar a Lago
and read it in the dining room
where he met
with the President Trump
a week after the insurrection,
because he's the person
who really needs to hear
what the Constitution says.
But in terms of your question,
it is very clear
that that Republicans still fear
Donald Trump.
And, you know, what's remarkable about it
is that
we just went
through a midterm election
where people gave a resounding verdict
on this whole election denial nonsense,
this dangerous election denial stuff.
And defeated candidates who were carrying
the Trump banner
and carrying the election denial banner.
And yet here we are again.
And still the party leaders won't
won't denounce Trump,
won't take them on frontally
because they fear
the base, they fear primary voters.
And in Kevin
McCarthy's case, he's
still trying to get the votes
to become speaker of the House.
So he you know, Donald Trump
has that party.
He's holding that party hostage
right now.
David Urban, I mean, it is like having
a drunk relative who
yells out obscenities
or incredibly inappropriate things
and you don't know what to do about them.
And so ever people just ignoring him.
I mean, soon
he'll be like wandering around
with an onion tied to his belt
talking about,
you know, movies used to cost a nickel
Well,
there's no question
that I just felt there.
The current the current
the current president
did say
turn on the Victrola at one point
I'm not too distant to go, so
we're not too far afield.
But, Anderson, to David's point,
where he raises
it's a good point,
right into your point
about the outrage machine.
And we're
we just got drubbed
as a Republican Party.
We just got drubbed
because independents told us
that they feared Trump and Trump,
too, Trumpy candidates.
And and, you know, as we looked at 24
the Senate has,
you know a third of the Senate's up
so 33 Senate senators are running.
Of those 33 23 are Democrats right so.
Or Cox for the Democrats so the Democrats
have a very unfavorable map
in coming up here in 2024.
And I'm very fearful
that if we don't try to
you know
turn the ship around in the water
that we're going to snatch
defeat from the jaws of victory
once again.
But David Axelrod
I mean it is extraordinary
the former president
he announced he is running for president
I don't know what, three weeks ago.
And I think the launch is going right.
I mean,
since then he's dined with,
you know, an anti-Semite
and an actual neo-Nazi or, you know,
yeah, I guess an actual neo-Nazi.
And yes.
And now he's talked about
terminating the constitution
or at least parts of it.
I mean,
how is that campaign going as a former
as if somebody knows about campaigning?
Well,
it's an unorthodox strategy,
I'll say that.
Listen, I don't think he I think he is
he's sort of blunderbuss
into the election.
He he felt wounded by the
by the results of the election.
He didn't want to appear
weakened, defeated.
So he announced his candidacy right away.
There was no plan. There was no thought.
And basically, you know,
he is operating from his feral instincts
here.
And,
you know, he is repeating behavior
that got him
in trouble in the first place.
So I think the reality remains
what David Urban said, which is he
still has a grip on
a third
or maybe a little more
than a third of that Republican primary.
And that gives him a lot of leverage.