Colorado's Sen. Cory Gardner, who begrudgingly endorsed Donald Trump, was put on the spot by MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell after she asked him to defend Trump when he said a U.S. citizen shouldn't get a lawyer,
After playing video of Trump's noxious statements yesterday, Mitchell said, "Donald Trump is apparently not understanding constitutional protections for bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami, at least the right to a lawyer, medical treatment."
After introducing Senator Cory Gardner, she asked about Trump's statements. "Are we saying this man who was in a shootout with the police, was injured, will be interrogated when he recovers should not be given medical care and should not get a lawyer?"
Sen. Gardner said (like most Trump surrogates that are in Congress) this was the first time heard these words and replied, "I think he's expressing frustrations of the American people who continue to face the real live threat of terrorism. Not just abroad but in the United States homeland."
Sen. Gardner, Donald Trump is running to be President of the U.S. and not some reality talk show host host or contestant. He doesn't get to make remarks that are against U.S. law and the Constitution that he's running to uphold.
Trump is supposed to have at least a basic understanding of our constitutional rights and not make statements that whip up fear, hatred and antipathy among his supporters, purely for political gain.
Mitchell rightly pointed out, "Yet we should be able to combat terrorism without violating the constitution."
You would think that should be the case and the standard for the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.
As with most Trump surrogates, they never answer a question directly, but veer off into another topic and Sen. Gardner was no different.
Instead of answering Andrea's question, Sen. Gardner launched into a tirade about President Obama's final U.N. speech.
He criticized Obama's deal with nuclear deal with Iran and Cuba's human right's issues and said, "I think the American people are so frustrated about today. an American policy that appears to have left our nation weaker than it was eight years ago."
Mitchell replied, "Would you suggest we cut off relations with China, the biggest economy other than ours and most populist nation in the world because of their human rights abuses and jailing of people?"
Cory responded that we must be tougher with China and then shifted to North Korea.
Which then was followed up with another lie about Obama's administration, he said, "We have a president who acknowledged his policy was one of leading from behind..."
No, President Obama never said that at all.
That idea was bandied about years ago and came from a Ryan Lizza article.
An article in USA Today titled "Obama never said ‘leading from behind’" noted today that neither Obama nor any other top aide ever publicly used the term to describe the administration’s foreign policy approach. Of course, nobody has ever claimed the phrase was used publicly.
It originated from Ryan Lizza‘s New Yorker piece, which quoted a presidential "adviser" using the phrase to characterize Obama’s thinking leading up to the U.S. involvement in the Libya war.
How about answering Mitchell's questions, Senator? The one about Trump shredding our Constitution?
He's not able to, much like most Trump surrogates when they are faced with facts against lies.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn made believe she didn't know the topic she was brought on CNN to discuss, because she had no answer for the lies.
