CNN panelists ripped into Democrats for backing a successful primary challenger to Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan Wednesday evening.
“The Democrats, who say they want reasonable Republicans in office, then go and defeat the reasonable Republican and endorse somebody who is a Trumper,” former Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio told “The Situation Room” host Pamela Brown. “It’s just crazy. Shame on them. That’s not the way this should have worked.” (RELATED: CNN Panel Rips Dems For ‘Meddling’ In GOP Primaries To Boost Pro-Trump Candidates)
“Deeply cynical,” CNN political director David Chalian said. “Deeply cynical and clearly hypocritical from what Democrats have been putting forth as a message.”
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John Gibbs, a former official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development who received 51.9% of the vote and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, defeated Meijer in Tuesday’s primary. He was the beneficiary of a six-figure ad buy from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
CNN panels and guests have repeatedly slammed Democratic meddling in Republican primaries to support candidates endorsed by Trump.
“The Democratic Party itself put money in, put money into the Gibbs campaign, because they thought he’d be the weaker candidate and they were able to defeat Meijer who actually stood up and voted to impeach Trump,” Kasich said.
Brown noted the move had risks.
“It isn’t a sure bet, and Democrats have long made the argument that democracy should be put over politics,” CNN national politics reporter Eva McKend said. “If Gibbs is ultimately successful in the fall, I think some of those Democrats are really going to regret it because they will wish they would have had a Congressman Meijer, someone who has shown that he’s willing to work across the aisle, right, someone who is independent-minded and actually willing to work with Democrats.”
“So they may be shooting themselves in the foot here and it diminishes this argument that democracy supersedes political arguments,” Brown added.
The DCCC and the Democratic National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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