Jake Tapper on Hillary, Sherrod Brown Challenging GA Vote: Is That Any Different From What Trump is Doing?

CNN’s Jake Tapper addressed on his show Thursday the issue of questioning the integrity of elections, something Donald Trump has been doing casually on Twitter and the GOP has been doing rather more deliberately but equally consequentially in TV interviews and in court. It’s a topic that has come up a good deal on the network.

But Democrats, too, have leveled charges of tampering and theft regarding elections, and Tapper asked his panel why that was any different or less serious.

Tapper first addressed his question to CNN political commentator and Republican, David Urban.

“This looks like it’s going to end with Republicans winning the Senate race and winning the governor’s office. We don’t know. It’s not final yet, but it looks as though, and yet there are Republicans who continue to cast aspersions about the process,” said Tapper. He played audio from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaking with Breitbart Radio saying Democrats were using Florida to learn what they can get away with in order to have a “roadmap of how to steal the election from Donald Trump in 2020.”

The panel groaned and reacted in outrage after the clip played, and Tapper turned to Urban for his comment.

Urban said that transparency is a good thing then added that “complete breakdown of the system” in Broward and other places is what makes it possible to “cast aspersions on the whole system.”

“If there was transparency in Broward county, if there was complete openness there, you wouldn’t have folks on the right kind of saying, look–” he said.

Jen Psaki then said that even though Broward is “a little horrifying”, the language that Trump used about rigged elections and “questioning institutions” is trying to seed doubt in advance.

Tapper pointed out that Gaetz is floating a conspiracy theory that they are testing the waters now on purpose in order to prepare for stealing the election from Trump later.

Then he pointed out that it’s not just the Florida races facing criticism.

“Republicans are not actually the only ones trashing the other party and sowing doubts about the integrity of the process. Take a look what is being said about the Georgia governor’s race, which is also not over yet” he said. “Take a listen to what some Democrats have said.”

Tapper played a clip of Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) talking about the Democrat candidate Stacey Abrams having the vote stolen by her Republican opponent Brian Kemp and the GOP, saying that “if Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it.”

The next clip showed Hillary Clinton saying that “if she’d had a fair election she already would have won.”

Tapper asked, “is that any different from what the Matt Gaetzes and Donald Trumps of the world are doing?”

CNN analyst Jackie Kucinich answered first, noting that there were problems with how the vote was conducted in Georgia regarding the closing time of polling places, but added that “at this point, no, it’s not” different.

Psaki then brought up gerrymandering and voter suppression, “which are real issues” she said, and contrasted that with GOP comments about Florida. Psaki argued that it’s not the same because Brown was “raising real issues” when he questions the integrity of the vote and accuses the other party of intentionally attempting to dishonestly manipulate and affect the outcome, so therefore it’s not the same thing as when Republicans accuse the other party of the same thing for the same reasons.

To put it more simply, Psaki said that it doesn’t dangerously undermine American institutions to question them if she agrees that you’re correct in questioning them.

The segment ended at that point.

Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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