Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) threw CNN’s Kasie Hunt for a loop when he referred to a straightforward question about the 2020 election as a “game.”
During the Senate confirmation hearings of many of President Donald Trump’s nominees, Democratic senators have asked the nominees who the winner of the 2020 election was. The nominees have typically acknowledged that Joe Biden was the president, but have avoided saying Biden won or Trump lost the election. Quite infamously, Trump has falsely claimed that the contest was rigged against him. For the most part, humoring this delusion has become necessary for Republicans to remain in Trump’s good graces.
Kennedy joined Wednesday’s edition of The Arena, where Hunt played a clip from the confirmation hearing of Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The president has nominated him to be the next Director of National Intelligence.
In the clip, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) asked, “Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election?”
“Uh, Senator, I’m not an election denier,” Clayton responded. “Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.”
Elsewhere, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) asked the nominee, “Who won the 2020 election?”
Clayton claimed he “answered” the question, but at no point did he say Biden “won” the election.
“He did not want to straight say that President Biden won the 2020 election,” Hunt noted to Kennedy. “Why not?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Kennedy replied. “But there’s this little game, if you followed all the committees, it happens every time we have a nominee in Judiciary, where the Democrats… want the nominee to use the magic words that Trump lost the election. And the nominees, understandably, in my opinion, don’t want to play that game. I haven’t.”
“But how is it a game?” Hunt interjected. “I mean, it’s just what happened.”
“No, it is a game. Kasie,” Kennedy protested. “So, it’s a game of words by my Democratic colleagues.”
Kennedy then turned the matter on its head by defending the nominees, noting that none of them had claimed Trump won the 2020 election.
“Sure, but again, I mean, we live in a democracy where, in the past, everyone called the winner to concede and say, ‘Congratulations on your win. It was a tough loss for me.’ What does it say about where we are that you think that this is a game of words? I mean, when did this get so hard?”
“Well, look, I’m biased, but I think the Democrats have made it hard,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about the fact that Joe Biden was the president. And I haven’t heard a single nominee by President Trump say Donald Trump won the election and Joe Biden didn’t.”
Watch above via CNN.
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