The president delivered a bombastic speech last week blasting “MAGA Republicans” as a threat to democracy. His reasoning was that these Republicans refuse to “recognize the will of the people” and “accept the results of a free election” and should therefore be considered “semi-fascists.”
If that’s true, President Joe Biden ought to fire his press secretary, who is guilty of the same crime.
Karine Jean-Pierre is an election denier thrice over. In December 2016, she pushed the debunked Russian-collusion hoax and claimed former President Donald Trump worked with the Kremlin to “steal” the 2016 election.
“Stolen emails, stolen drone, stolen election … welcome to the world of #unpresidented Trump,” she wrote on Twitter.
A few years later, in 2019, Jean-Pierre claimed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp “stole” the state’s gubernatorial election from Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.
“Yes – the race was stolen,” she wrote on Twitter in reply to someone else.
And again, in 2020, she said: “Reminder: Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams.”
When confronted about these comments this week, Jean-Pierre refused to admit that she had denied legitimate election results. In fact, she claimed it was “ridiculous” to compare her election denials to Trump’s “extreme” rejection of the 2020 election.
“I was talking specifically at that time of what was happening with voting rights and what was in danger, of voting rights,” she insisted. “I have said Gov. Kemp won the election in Georgia. I’ve been clear about that. I have said President Trump won the election in 2016. And I’ve been clear about that.”
Jean-Pierre’s past comments were, in fact, quite clear: She believed Trump and Kemp were illegitimately elected and denied that they won their elections fairly. And according to Biden, anyone who “refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won” is “a threat to democracy.”
If he really means that, he’ll start by making an example out of Jean-Pierre. She should be fired — immediately. She is, after all, one of the “extremists” tearing the very “soul of our nation” apart, according to the president’s definition. Plus, she’s bad at her job and, at best, makes Fox News’s Peter Doocy look really good at his. And at worst, she gives credence to Trump’s crazy election conspiracy theorizing. Because if Democrats can question and deny the results of an election, why can’t he?
