Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the recently elected House Democratic leader, was asked on Sunday about his history of challenging the legitimacy of election results.
While in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” anchor George Stephanopoulos questioned Jeffries regarding criticism by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called Jeffries a “past election denier” last week. In reality, Jeffries has openly questioned Donald Trump’s administration and argued the Supreme Court has “zero legitimacy.”
“It’s regrettable that Republicans have chosen to center their attention on me. House Democrats will prioritize problem-solving for the American people,” Initially, Jeffries stated.
But Stephanopoulos pressed the point.
“However, you did declare that history will not ever recognize Donald Trump as a real president,” he pressed. “How do you respond?”
Instead of apologizing, Jeffries criticized Republicans, utterly ignoring the reality that his own rhetoric demonstrates that he is guilty of the very behavior he was decrying.
“The Republican playbook is as follows: facts are irrelevant, and hypocrisy is not a limitation on their actions. In many circumstances, they consider shamelessness to be a superpower,” he stated, before apologizing for his previous election denial.
“My assessment of the situation has been fairly straightforward. I voted in favor of Donald Trump’s election being certified. Despite many constituents and others throughout the country urging me and others not to do it, I attended his inauguration and found ways to work with the Trump admin. as the main Democrat in negotiating significant criminal justice reform,” he continued.
Jeffries appeared to justify his election-denying comments after defending himself.
“I will never be afraid to criticize the past president,” he said.
It’s unclear how Jeffries’ language differs from Republican allegations that Joe Biden is not the rightful president because of election problems in 2020.
In all circumstances, Trump and Biden were duly elected, and the election results were not tainted. Therefore, questioning the validity of either election is identical and cannot be differentiated or justified.
Ironically, if Republicans’ supposed election-denying is proof of hypocrisy and even that “facts do not matter” to them, does Jeffries become a hypocrite that ignores the facts? Shamelessness is a true superpower.
