‘WHY?’ Ex-Trump Spox Stuns CNN Morning Crew By Objecting To One Trump-Related Question
Ex-Trump White House spokesman Mike Dubke stunned CNN’s morning show crew by insisting GOP lawmakers shouldn’t be asked a particular question related to ex-President Donald Trump, calling it “a setup.”
Trump is scheduled to meet with congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill Thursday, many of whom he has not seen since the January 6 attack, and for the first time since becoming a convicted felon.
On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt and her co-stars were astonished when Dubke insisted those lawmakers should not be asked if Trump will accept the results of the 2024 election.
Dubke tried for several minutes to defend his position but wound up stopping mid-answer with an exhausted “alright, I’ll stop”:
JEFF MASON: It makes me think of that quote from Mike Johnson, who says that of course, President Trump will respect the outcome of the election. Well, that is objectively false. He can’t say that. He doesn’t know that.
We saw how President Trump reacted to the results of the election in 2020. He has certainly not come out and said, I will respect whatever the outcome is in 2024. You can’t as an individual, as a journalist, as a politician, just accept that from from the speaker. You can’t.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: (laughs, points at Dubke)
KASIE HUNT: (amused tone) Yeah, Mike?
MIKE DUBKE: Not that I really I really have a problem with this question being asked over and over and over again of of basically–.
KASIE HUNT: Why?
Every Republican?
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Why?
Because it is a hypothetical. I mean–.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: WHY?
No, no, no, we go back to 2020 and that is a that is a different election. But in terms of this question being being asked, I think it’s a set. I frankly, I’m just saying it’s a set up. It seems —
KASIE HUNT: It wasn’t a question before there was a violent rally–.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Right!
KASIE HUNT: –At the Capitol to try to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Correct. And Trump himself has subsequently said that he will not accept the results of the election. So I don’t know how that’s a hypothetical or a set up. When that’s a fundamentally dangerous thing to say–
MIKE DUBKE: Asking Donald Trump that question fair, it’s a fair question. For asking every Republican that comes, not every Republican, but a vast majority of Republicans that come on the air, not just this network, but other networks. And ask that question, whether or not they should come, a- come up with a better answer. But secondly, it does for.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: A better answer is “yes.”
MIKE DUBKE: Yeah, I agree with you. But for the voters out there that are attracted to Donald Trump, that are attracted to the populist message that want to throw the bums out, that believe that there is corruption, that there are elitists for all of that from the media, it sounds like just a re- just a just an elitist question to to politicians. I’m just calling that out. That’s all I’m trying to say.
KASIE HUNT: Let me pull in something that we got from the Trump campaign yesterday. Elliot, because the fundraising email says “Haul out the guillotine.”
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Oh, dear. Well, and I think the, the, the unfortunate thing about the guillotine reference is that, you know, given January 6th and gallows and nooses that were images, they are now–
KASIE HUNT: Hang Mike Pence, they were chanting Hang Mike Pence!
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Even even if we’re going to quibble about the legitimacy of what were they really chanting or was it sarcastic or whatever, it was literally gallows on January 6th. And an image like that sticks in people’s minds, you know?
But Mike, to your point, it’s this is Donald Trump’s hold on the party. We were talking about this in the last segment before the break, which is that against rationality and political sound judgment, folks still seem to fall in line.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Yes. And but so when Republicans who are supporting him are interviewed about him, I don’t understand how it’s a set up or an unfair question to say. Do you support the fact that he has said he will not accept the results of the election?
MIKE DUBKE: No, I mean that the question is.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: That is central to Donald Trump’s case here.
MIKE DUBKE: –asked will you accept the results. So, I mean, I know we’re quibbling over language here and we can obviously we can move on.
But this is a I do, I well, I do because I do think at least part of what I’m trying to express here is that there is a segment of the population that hears those questions, and then they they feel like, well, this whole thing is a is a setup to try to is a gotcha question.
That’s all I’m trying to say. And there is a segment of the population that you’ve got to take into account when you’re looking at this. And I think the Republican Party, alright I’ll stop.
KASIE HUNT: I just want to say, as someone who was at the Capitol on January 6th, I do not find these questions to be at all hypothetical!
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
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