On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” CNN Political Commentator former Obama Adviser Van Jones stated that Republicans are being unpatriotic and “failing kindergarten” by refusing to accept election results and are cherry-picking “unfortunate comments” from Democrats like Stacey Abrams who have refused to accept election results before arguing that Al Gore was “robbed and ripped off and mistreated by the Supreme Court” in 2000.
Jones began by saying that “a patriot defends the integrity of American institutions, American democracy.”
Later host Kaitlan Collins stated that Republicans “point to comments made by people like Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Hillary Clinton. Though, of course, Hillary Clinton gave a concession speech. … They do use those moments, though, in these arguments to say, well, it’s the same thing even though, of course, John Kerry never condoned what was happening. Joe Biden, when he was vice president, certified the election and the results of it on Capitol Hill.”
Jones responded, “Well, you can cherry-pick unfortunate comments from anybody, Hillary Clinton or anybody else. Nobody’s perfect. But the question is, when it’s all said and done, do you do the thing that we’ve always done? You give your concession speech, you shake hands. Look, we want our kids, after the end of the basketball game, after the end of Little League, they line up, they shake hands, they appreciate each other, they come back the next Sunday, the next Saturday and try to do it again and try and do better. You’ve got a Republican Party failing kindergarten now on just basic decency, basic fair play. And, yeah, sure, you can cherry-pick, but it’s interesting to me, you don’t cherry-pick anything else Democrats do to defend Republicans. So why is this one behavior [of] a couple of people?”
He continued, “I’m old enough to remember in 2000, Al Gore coming before the country, when it was clear to us as Democrats, that he had been robbed and ripped off and mistreated by the Supreme Court, we were angry, people would have gone to the streets in an instant, and Al Gore said, I accept the Supreme Court’s decision, let’s move forward. It was an act of courage. It was an act of patriotism. And we’ve seen nothing of the kind from this Republican Party, despite the fact that there’s plenty of evidence that Al Gore could have pointed to and none that they can point to.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
