We’re closing in on a year since the 2020 election, which wasn’t as terrible for Republicans as it could have been but was bad for one of them: former president Donald Trump, who lost to Joe Biden by over eight million votes. Ever since then, Trump and a number of loyalists have claimed, without proof, that voter fraud robbed him of a second term. Some of them are even getting sued to kingdom come. And it’s probably not great that some prominent GOP leaders still refuse to admit Biden won fair and square.
One of them is Steve Scalise. The House Minority Whip went on Fox News, surely hoping for a softball interview. Instead he got Chris Wallace, who has long had no problem grilling Republicans — Trump among them — on issues that actually matter.
Steve Scalise on Fox News Sunday repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/EME1lBK1vA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2021
At one point during the interview, Wallace asked him, point blank, if Trump’s re-election was stolen from him, tacking on another query: Does questioning the legitimacy of elections, including those considered to be safe by authorities, as last year’s was, “hurts or undermines American democracy.”
Scalise, of course, didn’t answer it point blank. Instead, the congressman — one of a number of Republicans who voted against the certification of the election, even after the Capitol attack — “didn’t follow their state passed laws that govern the election for president.”
But Wallace wasn’t having that. He inferred that what he was really saying was yes. “So you think the election was stolen?” he asked. Again, Scalise dodged it. So Wallace tried one more time.
“I guess the question is: Do you think the election was stolen or not? Last time, I promise. I understand there are irregularities and things that needed to be fixed,” the veteran anchor continued. “Do you think the election was stolen?”
But Scalise wasn’t budging, which is to say he wasn’t answering his question. But surely there’s nothing to worry about when prominent Republicans refuse to say whether or not America’s voting system works.