Judy: As midterm election season
kicks into high gear, GOP
candidates have increasingly
tied their fates to the lie that
the 2020 presidential election
was stolen.
While in Washington, more
communications sent by
Republican officials on and
around January 6 are coming to
light.
It's a good time to check in
with our politics Monday team.
That's Amy Walter of the cook
political report with Amy Walter
and
Tamara Keith, of NPR.
Very good to see both of you on
this Monday evening.
Hello, politics Monday.
Amy, I will start with you.
If we needed any more proof that
president trump looms large in
this year's midterm elections,
we saw it in last night's
Georgia first Republican primary
debate, gubernatorial
candidates, David perdue-brian
Kemp.
Perdue began the debate by
saying that the 2020
presidential election was
rigged, that president trump
actually won reelection.
Then it became a theme
throughout much of the rest of
the debate.
Here is a short excerpt.
>> He said it was a clean
election.
>> I never said that.
I have never said that.
Ever.
>> Do you deny it was a clean
election?
You are putting words in my
mind.
>> Excuse me, I am not done yet.
The difference between you and
me is the fact that you think
that Jon ossoff and John Biden,
or Biden, won fair and square.
That's the the difference
between the two of us.
You are telling the people in
Georgia that's what the truth
is, and you want us to swallow
that and move on.
>> Well let me remind you, I can
speak for myself, and thata™™s
not what I've said.
I've always said there is fraud
in every election.
Judy: You have both of these
candidates talking about fraud.
What does it say about where
Republicans are right now?
Amy: Only one of them has been
endorsed by Donald Trump, and
that is David perdue who also
lost his bid for reelection in
the runoff election in January
of this year.
Many report -- Republicans would
like to move on from the 2020
election.
Donald Trump does not want to
move on from the 2020 election.
He wants to keep relitigating
it.
He is making sure that those who
did not support him in
overturning the election or not
certifying the election in their
state will suffer the
consequences.
However, voters, at least what
we see in polling in Georgia,
are not interested in
relitigating it either.
.
They agree with perdue, the
former senator, that the
election was fraudulent.
A Donald Trump really won the
election.
They like Donald Trump a lot.
But they also like the governor.
Accusations about -- that David
perdue is making that, the
governor did not stand up enough
to protect the election, kind of
fall flat when it is, as Kemp
noted often in this debate.
That it was the reason Democrats
had the majority in the senate
right now which is because David
perdue lost that race.
A good reason why David perdue
lost that race, as to the other
Republican in the runoff, is
because then president trump
went around during the runoff
saying how terrible the election
was and how it was stolen and a
bunch of Republicans did not
show up to vote.
Judy: If it is an argument that
did not work in 2020, why do
Republicans think it will work
this time?
Tamara: Right now, they are in
the primary.
In the primary, all that matters
is how close can you hug Donald
J. Trump?
Candidates up and down the
ballot in states, but especially
states like Georgia and
Pennsylvania, states where the
former has not given, like a dog
with a bone he has not given up
on relitigating the election.
He put out a statement saying he
would support an effort to
overturn the election in
Wisconsin, and said any real
Republican needs to support that
effort.
It's 2022.
And he is still doing that.
And showing that you can at
least nod to fraud, or at least
say that you have concerns with
the election, or somehow if you
are not going to go full board
and say it was completely
fraudulent and rigged, if you
are a Republican, you have to at
least acknowledge, before you
can talk about anything else.
It is a litmus test in the
Republican primary to say that
you are cool with trump.
>> The governor signed into law
earlier this last year voting
legislation that would do things
like restricting the number of
drop boxes and there is tighter
voter id now on absentee
ballots, things like that.
Obviously, it had an impact in
terms of actions, reactions from
the governor, and he most
recently signed legislation
about having a handgun and you
don't need a permit to do so.
Getting on the right side of
conservatives by doing those
things, and it makes the
argument that he has not done
enough to protect trump harder
to make that some.
Judy: Clearly this is not the
only state where those arguments
are taking place.
Let's turn to something else,
where president trump is very
much present in these stories
that have come out of the last
few days.
House Republican leader Kevin
Mccarthy in this new book, he is
on a recording telling a fellow
Republican that he plans to tell
president trump he needs to
resign.
We just played some of the clip
of what he said earlier in the
program.
He is denying that.
He is saying that is whatever,
it is not anything I said.
But now, you see more reporting
today, texts from house members
who, on the day of January 6,
were saying, to mark meadows,
the chief of staff, please tell
the president to calm people.
This is not the way to solve
anything.
This is congressman Timmons, the
president needs to stop this.
Congressman Loudermill of
Georgia, it is really data on
the hill, they have breached the
capitol.
They are on the record,s the
text are there, this is material
turned over to the January 6
committee.
But where is it going?
Everyone of these members is
saying that this -- it was not
something they really meant.
Amy: In some ways, it all makes
sense in that these were text
messages sent when they were
under attack.
.
They were literally under
attack.
People died that day.
Their place of employment had
people charging, looking for
members of congress, and
shouting about hanging.
It was utterly frightening.
.
They were evacuating and they
were texting because they
thought the president of the
United States could do something
to tell his supporters to go
home. Took him hours and hours to it. He did a mediocre job of telling
them to go home, at best.
But very quickly, Republicans
started shifting away from that.
If you look at other text
messages, Marjorie Taylor Greene
said, we think it was antifa, a
false flag.
Immediately, even before the
dust was settled, before the
glass was cleaned up,
Republicans were, and allies of
the president, were shifting.
Trying to find ways to explain
this away.
Kevin Mccarthy publicly gave a
speech on the floor of the
house, very critical of the
former president.
Within weeks of trump leaving
office, he was down at
mar-a-lago kissing his ring,
going to get trump's support for
the midterms.
In these days, partisan
politics, winning is everything.
The calculus was that trump
remained a huge force in the
party.
Judy: Is this like cotton candy?
It just disappears if you look
at it long enough?
Amy: For those Republicans, it
does.
At the moment, we were talking
to plenty of people who thought
all right, this is it, this is
the end.
There were many things the
president did or is involved in
that we thought were going to
mark the end of his candidacy or
his tenure.
Did not come to pass.
But surely, something like this
was going to be -- was going to
stick.
And you literally watched our
after our, and you could see it,
you are right, in these texts.
It was not just saying maybe it
is antifa, but continuing to
press meadows on these
accusations of fraud, that they
are going to find these machines
that have been ranked and
algorithms.
All of those conspiracy theories
starting around that same time.
Judy: It means all the more
attention to what the January 6
committee has to say when they
hold their hearings, which we
believe will be -- which will be
in the month of June.
We will be watching.
Politics Monday, Amy Walter,
Tamra Keith, thank you both.
Amy: You're welcome.