These Republican Senators can’t actually defend anything Trump says, so they have to lie about it instead. As we already discussed here, Trump called any negative reporting of him “illegal” earlier this week when Trump was asked about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel over his remarks about the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin made an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union this Sunday, and even though host Dana Bash had just played a clip of what Trump said, Mullin twisted himself in knots denying reality, and continuing to push Trump’s election denialism, rather than admitting Trump wants to criminalize anyone who dares to criticize or report negatively on his administration.
BASH: I want to move on to sort of a different version of what we have seen this week from the president. He claimed that 97 percent of stories about him on newscasts are negative. And he said: “I think that’s really illegal.” Here’s a little bit more of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When somebody is given — 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, that’s no longer free speech. That’s no longer — that’s just cheating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Senator, he really seems to be redefining free speech as speech that is only favorable to him.
