Former Gov. Chris Christie created a firestorm on ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, with what he had to say about the Jan. 6 Committee. Christie pointed out that, to many Republicans, the Committee doesn’t have any credibility. That’s because they don’t have any real Republicans on the Committee to make any points against the Democratic narrative.
The January 6 committee was “resigned to having a credibility problem because of the membership of the committee and the way that was done,” Christie opened by saying.
“There are lots of Republicans across this country who just say, there’s nobody there to argue the other side. Kinzinger and Cheney don’t argue the other side to the extent that there is [sic] some arguments there,” Christie added before both anchor George Stephanopoulos and Brazile jumped down his throat.
That comment sparked outrage from host George Stephanopoulos and fellow panelist Donna Brazile, both of whom have been Democratic operatives.
Stephanopoulos claimed there was “no other side,” and Brazile demanded to know, “What is the other side?” Christie spoke about the ability to grill the witnesses, something they would normally have at a hearing, which is missing here. Instead, he said, accurately, it was a television production. Brazile just kept shouting at Christie and would barely let him get in a word edgewise.
When he finally got the chance to speak, Christie said, “There are lots of people inside the White House who now have convenient memories about things that didn’t have memories about them before.” But, the Trump team/Republicans weren’t given that option because that’s not allowed, to challenge the narrative. You’re not allowed to know that Trump spoke about acting “peacefully and patriotically” at his rally before the riot. You’re not allowed to question why Democrats didn’t conduct this like a normal hearing.
But this is the Democrats’ view in general. Trump is guilty of pushing an “insurrection”–because they say so. He isn’t entitled to a defense. It doesn’t matter what he said, or what evidence might rebut their presumptions. They don’t believe in the rule of law, just the rule of the narrative. That’s why everyone on the Committee — including the Republicans — was already solidly anti-Trump, picked for their bias. That’s why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in an unprecedented move, rejected members who were picked by the Republican side who might have questioned the Democrats.
The last person who should be talking about “credibility” is Donna Brazile. Can anyone forget how Brazile divulged debate questions to Clinton camp officials during the Democratic primaries in the 2016 race? Even the left excoriated her with headlines like this:
But Christie accurately noted it’s because of that basic unfairness about the formation of the Committee, that most of America have turned the Committee off. They know it’s about trying to get Trump, not about the riot or the rule of law.
“[I]t’s very hard for Democrats to be able to make this a cutting issue, especially in the light of huge inflation, gas prices, crime in the streets, open borders, drug overdoses, those things are things that are affecting people’s everyday lives and they don’t see it that way,” Christie reasoned.
That’s the bottom line. Democrats are pushing issues that aren’t the top issues of concern to voters. They thought they would use Jan. 6 to smear Republicans. But people know it’s a biased show; it’s backfiring on them because voters don’t think they care about anything else, including the issues that are most important to Americans.