Culture

Van Jones On Trump’s Damning Refusal To Accept Election Results: ‘You Can’t Polish This Turd’

Late Wednesday night, Van Jones won the post-debate cable news coverage in a few ways. First up, he was absolutely outraged at Donald Trump’s admission that he’d essentially refuse to accept election results unless he won the race. This was classic Trump, who always has to win, but Jones — along with much of America — found Trump’s answer to be a damning one: “This is a really sad night. I’m just gonna say it. This is a very sad night for the country. You can’t polish this turd.” This led to Anderson Cooper offering up, “Technically, you cannot polish any turd.”

Yes, this is where Trump has taken news coverage, to the discussion of polishing turds. But the metaphor was an apt one.

Jones continued with a discussion of how Al Gore respected the results of the 2000 election despite the closeness of the race and the humiliation of losing Florida. And Gore told his voters to respect the outcome too. In contrast, Jones explains that Trump stands as a “the nominee of a major party, for the first time in our history, signaling to the American people” that the process and the U.S. Constitution are worth nothing. Jones labels this refusal to accept unfavorable election results as “an appalling lack of patriotism.”

Jones later surmised that Trump should invest in a “self-kicking machine” when this election is over, but things got a little lighter. While Jones listed several instances of Trump’s lies throughout the debate, he quoted old-school LL Cool J: “He lied about the lies that he lied about.” Watch the clip below.