A handful of GOP lawmakers made their way to Washington, D.C. recently to attend and promote the Great American State Fair, organized by the President Donald Trump-linked group Freedom 250, but in doing so, “accidentally” exposed the event for its numerous shortcomings, The Daily Beast reported.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), for instance, took to social media to attack his own state’s government for not participating in the fair, posting a photograph online of himself standing on the National Mall lawn. The “awkward post,” the Beast noted, depicted Baumgartner standing in front of “only a handful of people visible behind him.”
Other GOP lawmakers engaged in similar “self-owns,” as the Beast described them. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) posted a video online from the fair asking Americans to attend the event, but in a manner in which he “all but [begged] people to let his office help them get there.” The video also “came with the unfortunate visual aid of Moore standing in an almost empty park, with an empty Ferris wheel turning behind him,” the Beast’s report reads.
“Contact our office if there’s any help that you need to organize things or tours or get more information,” Moore said in the video he published online. “Please, please reach out. We’d love to help out in that way.”
The Great American State Fair faced challenges weeks before it opened to the public last week after artists backed out of the event en masse after learning of its connections to Trump. In the four days since opening, the fair has been plagued with power failures that stalled a Ferris wheel and melted ice cream supplies.
Investigative reporter Eric Flack also revealed that the state exhibits at the fair ranged wildly in quality, with some states’ exhibits amounting to two chairs in a small, shared booth.