Conservative columnist tells television hosts to end the interview if Republicans deny Biden won

The old Washington joke goes the shortest distance is between a lawmaker and a television camera, but a conservative columnist is urging hosts to take a new tactic when interviewing elected officials.

Writing for the Washington Post Monday morning, conservative Jennifer Rubin told hosts that it's time to pull the plug when an official denies that President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election. It comes a few days after the Post did a list of all elected officials in the House and Senate and whether they consider Biden to be the president-elect. Just 27 did, prompting President Donald Trump to take to Twitter to demand a list of all 27 officials. There's a drop-down menu, which seemed to be lost on the outgoing president.

Rubin's frustration came after watching ABC News' George Stephanopoulos interview Republican Sen. Mike Braun (IN), who willingly lied about the election, undermined democracy, and refused to "take responsibility for the damage he is doing." She explained that at some point she wished that Stephanopoulos would simply end the interview altogether and explain "to his audience Braun was lying and pointed out that he is among the majority of Republican senators willing to undermine a democratic election."

There was once a time when a detailed fact-check would have been helpful, but Rubin said that such a strategy only serves to repeat the lie. Just as ABC News would refuse to put a COVID-19 denier on television, they should refuse to allow an official to continue if they refuse to acknowledge the truth of the election.

"The best way to explain to voters how just how nutty and irresponsible Republicans are behaving is to put saner Republicans on to explain that President Trump and his toadies are misleading voters," Rubin wrote. "The best spokesmen for contesting Trump’s tin-pot dictator mentality, which deems any election that he does not win as illegitimate, are other elected Republicans."

CNN's Jake Tapper interviewed Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan on Sunday for his show, "State of the Union," in sharp contrast to Stephanopoulos, where he welcomed on-air a Georgia official willing to denounce threats of violence and correctly state that Biden won.

"The follow-up the media needs to start asking Republicans defending the election results is this: If Republicans on the ballot are supporting the lies and also undermining democracy, shouldn’t you oppose them too?" Rubin requested.

When it came to Chuck Todd's interview with Georgia Republican election official Gabriel Sterling, Rubin characterized him as "lamely" replying to questions about Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler denying the election results. Sterling said that for the senators, “There’s nothing else that makes sense.”

"Actually what makes sense is that Perdue and Loeffler are willing to lie to the public and undermine democracy because they are cowards and self-promoters," Rubin schooled. "They fear angering Trump and the MAGA base. However, these politicians have free agency and are responsible for their actions. They can choose to conduct themselves honorably. They simply do not want to."

After seeing MAGA violence in full form, Sterling still said that Democrats "would do more to damage this country." It was a claim Rubin simply couldn't take. She called it a cop-out and demanded to know how Democrats could destroy the world with a 50-50 Senate split, but propagating election denial isn't a problem.

"The media should consider a simple approach to interviewing a Republican official or candidate," Rubin closed. "First ask, 'Do you recognize Joe Biden won and that there is zero evidence of fraud that could have changed the result?' If the answer is no, inform the audience this is delusional and send the guest home. If the official does recognize the election results and acknowledges that refusing to accept the election results is undemocratic and anti-American, press him to justify why he can still support candidates that engage in such deplorable conduct. And do not let up."

Read her full take at the Washington Post.