WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 05: MAGA hats sit on a table during the election night watch party for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the Palm Beach County Convention Center on November 05, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. Today, voters cast their ballots to determine whether Republican nominee former President Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will become the next President of the United States. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

‘Trump lied about an election being stolen’: A Republican strategist calls out former Speaker of the House over election hoaxes

A Republican just called out Kevin McCarthy for denying what many Americans have known all along: that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy.

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During a panel at the DealBook Summit in New York City, former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said that the key to Trump’s election win was that “independents [believed] the greatest threat to democracy was Joe Biden getting reelected.” McCarthy went on to say, “Independents, not Republican or Democrat. So what you say, you can believe, but that’s not what the American public believes.”

GOP strategist and Never Trumper Sarah Longwell was not having it.

Longwell posted a clip of herself on X ripping into Trump, saying that the president-elect “lied about the election being stolen and then picked a mob on the Capitol,” much to the chagrin of the other GOP panelists. In his characteristically aloof fashion, McCarthy rolled his eyes at Longwell, causing her to shift her target to the former Speaker himself. Longwell lambasted McCarthy for his involvement in Trump’s election hoax, saying that McCarthy “resurrected” Trump and lended credence to false election beliefs.

Retorting on McCarthy’s point concerning what “the American public believes,” Longwell pointed out that there is a “disconnect between what the American people are alleging and what’s true.” She went on to call Trump the most “corrupt human being that America has ever elected” and tore into McCarthy once more.  “And, Kevin, you helped him. You’re the one who went and got him.”

McCarthy smirked and said “you’re welcome” in an attempt at irony. Longwell didn’t let the former Speaker’s mocking tone stop her, but went on to point out that he “enabled” Trump’s 2024 election win. She then tore apart his notion that Joe Biden’s Justice Department was “the problem” instead of “Donald Trump and the fact that he tried to overturn an election.”

“I don’t know if people let you get away with that in rooms all the time, but you should never be allowed to get away with it,” Longwell concluded. McCarthy attempted to laugh off the remark, but the words evidently hit home, and the remaining panelists scrambled to change the subject.

Longwell’s statements earned her widespread praise from across the isle, including from journal Mehdi Hasan, who praised her for saying to McCarthy “what so many journalists and anchors have refused to.”

McCarthy’s response was straight out the Trump playbook. From the early days of his political career, Trump and his supporters have coarsened debate with inflammatory language, along with callous attempts at humor. When he served as Speaker of the House, it was McCarthy’s job to cement this cruelty and mockery as the official lingua franca of the Trump administration. As seen in this clip, old habits die hard.

This user hits the nail on the head. Trump depends on “yes men” in order for his political career to function. The president elect needs loyal supporters to lend credence to his most pernicious lies and falsehoods. It is a sort of political brainwashing that wannabe autocrats like Trump value most in allies. Trump himself famously said that he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had,” underlings whose most essential, sometimes only, qualification is their unwavering support.

While many Republicans are willing to lend that sort of support to Trump, Sarah Longwell proves that some members of the GOP still have spine enough to stand against him.


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Sarah Fimm
Sarah Fimm (they/them) is actually nine choirs of biblically accurate angels crammed into one pair of $10 overalls. They have been writing articles for nerds on the internet for less than a year now. They really like anime. Like... REALLY like it. Like you know those annoying little kids that will only eat hotdogs and chicken fingers? They're like that... but with anime. It's starting to get sad.