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'Why is that so hard to answer?' GOP candidate squirms as CNN host forces him to admit Trump lost
January 21, 2022
A Republican congressional candidate from Alaska finally conceded that former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election on Friday — but not until after being asked the question no fewer than four times by CNN host Alisyn Camerota.
Camerota was following up on a story about another candidate for Alaska's only House seat, Greg Brelsford, who recently left the GOP to become an Independent, citing "attacks on democracy."
On Friday, she interviewed GOP candidate Randy Purham.
"So you heard one of your opponents, who was saying that basically he's tired of all the re-litigating of Donald Trump's election loss," Camerota told Purham. "Are you one of the Republicans he was speaking of who believes Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 presidential election?"
"I'm not going to say that he did not lose, but we realize there are some irregularities with the election," Purham responded, before Camerota cut him off.
READ MORE: Typo-filled Trump voting machine order likely written by one of his 'lunatic friends': legal expert
"Just to be clear, do you think he lost?" the host said.
"Marginally," Purham responded.
"But you believe that Donald Trump lost the election, and Joe Biden is the rightful president of the United States?"
"To a degree," Purham said.
"Why is that so hard to answer?" Camerota asked.
"It's not hard to answer," Purham responded. "There's a lot of issues that we've seen with the election, and we see how things are turning out right now with this administration, so —"
"But that's different, Mr. Purham," Camerota said, again cutting him off. "That's different if you don't like certain policies in the administration, it's different than whether or not you can say definitively that Donald Trump lost and Joe Biden won."
"I can, and I have," Durham said, finally appearing to acknowledge Trump's defeat.
Watch below.
It takes multiple questions to get the Republican candidate to say definitively that Biden won: \nQuestion: Do you think he lost?\nParham: Marginally\nQuestion: But you believe Trump lost and Biden is the rightful President \nParham: To a degreepic.twitter.com/iGuX6P6Yeq— Acyn (@Acyn) 1642798365
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Friday is the misleadingly named "March for Life," an annual event where the anti-choice brigade descends on Washington D.C. to march, speechify and party for the cause of forcing childbirth as punishment for sex. Anti-choicers are the OGs of right-wing trolling, which is why Friday's marchers are willing to brave the grim winter weather just to attach their misogynist march to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This year's theme — "Equality Begins in the Womb" — is an even nastier troll, hijacking the language of social justice while fighting to deprive every human with a uterus of their basic human rights.
Trolls being trolls, of course, the marchers are no doubt be especially giddy this year, as nearly every legal expert believes this will be the year that the Supreme Court, with its three Donald Trump appointees, overturns Roe. So expect lots of sanctimonious speeches praising the Republican justices for their supposedly "pro-life" ways and waxing poetic about how the GOP supposedly stands for "life." But remember that this empty posturing was always trollish nonsense from a party that opposes universal health care. It's especially grim in the face of the ongoing GOP war on the COVID-19 vaccine and their efforts to prolong the pandemic, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of lives are lost in the process.
After all, it was just last week that these supposedly "pro-life" justices nullified President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate on private employers. The ranks of those turning out for the March for Life are flush with people who have spent the last year discouraging vaccination and fighting every effort by the Biden administration to vaccinate Americans. In turn, more Americans died of COVID-19 in 2021 than in 2020, despite the introduction of vaccines that dramatically reduce the chance of dying of the disease. This remains true even in the face of the highly contagious omicron variant, as evidence collected by New York City's health department shows.
The March for Life itself appears to be taking a carefully neutral stance on the matter of vaccination, but dig even an inch deeper, and it becomes clear how central the supposed "pro-life" movement has been to the right's anti-vaccination campaign and so many unnecessary deaths.
Lifesitenews, the pre-eminent anti-abortion website that provides live coverage of the March for Life, is absolutely blanketed with vaccine disinformation. On the front page alone is a false story claiming the vaccine is dangerous for children, another false story claiming that the vaccine causes miscarriages, and multiple stories celebrating anti-vaxxers and fear-mongering about vaccine mandates.
Multiple speakers scheduled for this "pro-life" rally have also stood against life-saving mandates and other efforts to slow the death rate from COVID-19.
Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Kristen Waggoner has repeatedly spoken out against vaccine mandates as "unlawful" and claimed (falsely) that they will lead to massive staffing shortages. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., pushed for a law to block Biden's vaccine mandate, calling it "overreach of federal authority, unconstitutional, and disrespect Americans' rights." And while the top-billed speaker — has-been actor Kirk Cameron — has been largely silent about vaccines, he repeatedly had trolling events to protest temporary lockdowns meant to prevent the spread of the disease pre-vaccine.
The list of March for Life sponsors is a similar murder's row of anti-vaccine groups.
The Thomas More Society has been offering legal support for people trying to evade vaccine mandates. The Heritage Foundation filed a brief with the Supreme Court demanding an end to Biden's vaccine mandate. Concerned Women for America declared vaccines an "outright violation of Americans' civil liberties."
It's easy to call these people hypocrites. After all, to protect the "lives" of mindless embryos, they want to force women to lose jobs and educational opportunities, be trapped in abusive relationships, and give their bodies over to the lengthy and often downright dangerous process of childbearing. But when it comes to ending a pandemic that is killing over a thousand Americans — real people, with minds and desires and loved ones — a small shot and a day off work to recover is treated as a bridge too far. To call them "hypocrites," however, is to assume that their posturing about "life" ever had any validity to it whatsoever. It never has.
On the contrary, there's a dark consistency between the anti-vaccination and anti-choice worldviews. Both are hostile to preventive health care, especially in light of the anti-choice movement's turn in recent years towards fighting contraception access. And, despite anti-vaccine conservatives trolling by stealing the "my body, my choice" language, their opposition to vaccines is very much a strike against bodily autonomy rights. Ultimately, they're claiming a "right" to spread COVID wherever they want and to violate the basic right of others to go to work, to the store, or anywhere else without an undue threat of contagious disease.
And both are wholly intertwined with the GOP's authoritarianism.
The deliberate stoking of the pandemic by right-wing forces has ultimately been about — and very successful at — sabotaging Biden's presidency by eroding his ability to fight the pandemic. That's not about "life." If anything, there appears to be no limit to the number of lives, even Republican lives, that Republicans are happy to sacrifice to undermine Biden. As with everything on the right, it's about power: The power to force pregnancy on others, the power to force COVID-19 on others, and ultimately, the power to force Republican control on an American population that rejects them.
The anti-choice movement has always been the vanguard of American authoritarianism, and now their sadistic and power-hungry worldview has taken over the entire Republican Party. The relationship between the anti-choice ideology and the pro-COVID one is just the latest troubling indicator of where this is all headed.
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Trump supporter arrested after charging police line at DC 'March for Life’: report
January 21, 2022
An apparent supporter of former president Donald Trump was arrested in Washington on Friday after reportedly charging a police line during the anti-abortion March for Life.
"A Washington DC police official confirms to The Daily Beast that one Trump hat-wearing woman was arrested today at the 'March for Life' after she charged the police line near the hate group Patriot Front and a taser fell out of her coat," the Daily Beast's Zachary Petrizzo reported.
Petrizzo posted a photo of the woman wearing a pink Trump hat, seated on a curb apparently in handcuffs, and surrounded by police officers.
He also posted multiple videos documenting how members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front "derailed" the march.
"The hate group Patriot Front has shown up at the DC anti-choice march," Petrizzo reported. "The white nationalist organization now appears stuck in the middle of the march route. The ‘March for Life’ has been derailed by the white nationalist & neo-Nazi hate group Patriot Front."
Later, he wrote that members of Patriot Front were "wandering through DC as their leader attempts to organize a U-Haul pick up."
"A UHaul came to pick up flags near Capital One Arena and now the neo-Nazi marchers are getting on to the DC metro," he reported.
Earlier this month, Patriot Front members similarly tried to infiltrate an anti-choice march in Chicago.
In December, hundreds of Patriot Front members marched through DC to the Capitol, sparking concerns as the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection approached.
More below.
The hate group Patriot Front has shown up at the DC anti-choice march.pic.twitter.com/i8t6VKhZAX— Zachary Petrizzo (@Zachary Petrizzo) 1642789420
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