'I'm not a senator!' CNN anchor rebuts Republican's odd defense of overmatched colleague
CNN's John Berman on Friday pressed a Republican congressman Sen. Darline Graham's widely mocked debate answer — then called out the hole in his logic.
The anchor first asked Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) the same national security question posed to Graham during her South Carolina debate, asking whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues for the U.S.
McCormick answered fluently, citing that roughly 70 percent of the world's trade wealth flows through that corridor and noting Taiwan's TSMC produces about 90 percent of the world's advanced semiconductors, and Berman then showed video of Graham's response to the identical question: "I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not that informed on national security... it's not my thing, not my area of expertise."
Asked directly whether that answer was good enough for a sitting U.S. senator, McCormick declined to say yes or no, and he instead described politics as having "a huge learning curve," recalled his own inexperience when he first ran for Congress, and argued that lawmakers "learn from the experts" over time, comparing the job to "a PhD course" in economics, technology, military affairs and foreign policy.
McCormick added that anyone could be "gotcha'd" on a policy question, telling the anchor, "I promise you, if I get into the weeds with you and you're really informed, I can stump you on a few things."
"There's a ton of stuff you could stump me on," Berman replied, "but I'm not a U.S. senator, and Taiwan, you know, if you're running to be senator from a state like South Carolina, which has a few military bases, it's an unusual answer not to have available at a debate."
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