‘Bonfire of credibility’: GOP insider says Dem attacks on Trump will drive his vote
GOP insider Scott Jennings told a CNN panel on Friday that he's going to end up voting for former President Donald Trump — in part because he's so outraged at how Democrats have aggressively attacked Trump's comments on Liz Cheney.
Trump said at a recent campaign event that Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman who has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris from the right, should be staring down "nine barrels shooting at her ... when the guns are trained on her face." He has since tried to clean up his comments in the face of outrage from pundits and political opponents, denying that he was literally talking about a firing squad.
"You worked for the Bush-Cheney administration," anchor Wolf Blitzer said to Jennings. "You know Liz Cheney, and I believe you do respect her. Is this kind of talk from a former and potentially future President of the United States acceptable to you?"
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"I do know Liz Cheney, and I do respect her, and I don't begrudge her views on this," said Jennings. "But I personally think that any fair review of this remark is really simple. He was making a crude, if well-worn, argument that often comes from the anti-war left, and that I heard repeatedly during the Bush years about politicians who vote to authorize wars, being forced to fight in them. It's called the chickenhawk argument. It's been around probably since Vietnam or maybe before."
"So I actually disagree with the argument," said Jennings. "I think it's a bumper sticker way of dealing with complex matters of national security. So here I am, a Republican who disagrees with Trump, but I'm absolutely appalled by the disinformation about what he actually said. It started with a deceptively edited clip this morning and took off like wildfire he did not call for her to be put in front of a firing squad. That did not happen. Even his most persistent critics, some of them today, have admitted as much. I think this episode, Wolf, to be honest, goes on the ever-expanding bonfire of credibility of the hysterical anti-Trump left."
In fact, he added, "I think the people pushing this today ... are one of the principal reasons I'm going to wind up voting for Trump. I don't like — if you want to criticize this man, there's plenty. You do not have to make things up to criticize Donald Trump. And I think some of it, frankly, was spun up to distract from a terrible jobs report."
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