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GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik won't commit to certifying the 2024 election results

“We will see if this is a legal and valid election,” Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership and a Donald Trump ally, said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., on Sunday wouldn’t commit to certifying the 2024 election results during an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

While interviewing Stefanik, who serves in House Republican leadership, host Kristen Welker asked, “Would you vote to certify, and will you vote to certify, the results of the 2024 election no matter what they show?”

Stefanik, who has boosted former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, said that she did not vote to certify the 2020 results in the state of Pennsylvania and several other states because there were “unconstitutional acts circumventing the state legislature and unilaterally changing election law.”

70 comments

  • The rolling insurrection continues. Rep. Stefanik needs to see some charges, be removed from office, and 14th amendment prevent her from hold any office ever again. Take the gloves off Joe. No negotiation with terrorists, no kit gloves for insurrectionists.

  • On the face of it, it is manifestly reasonable to say that you'll certify on the condition that the election is free and fair- that is, after all, always the condition of doing so. But that's not what she's saying here- she's repeating claims that 2020 was invalid

    In reality it's extremely unlikely that the election in 2024 will be unfair or rigged against the GOP, and she deserves all the opprobrium she has coming her way for creating the impression (for her audience) that an unfair election is likely to occur or that 2020 was rigged or illegal. After all, that's the rhetorical setup MAGA created in the run-up to 2020: if they lost, it was unfair (and therefore, time to do a treason/coup).

    Her rhetoric here could simply be a prediction that 2024 will be an illegitimate election, or it could be a cue for her audience to prepare to accept or commit political violence in 2024- and as such, it is a textbook example of stochastic terrorism and should be understood as such. Also the media that declines to note this should be evaluated as enabling, vs. holding to account

    • ship of theseus arguments are their stock in trade. You start with a statement no one could disagree with, like "I will vote to certify the election if it seems like a free and fair election. If it seems otherwise, I will lead an investigation that will root out fraud and ensure the people's voices are heard." Then you start doing string substitutions:

      "it seems like a free and fair election" gets subbed for "Trump wins"

      "it seems otherwise" == "Trump loses"

      "lead an investigation that will root out fraud" == "obstruct the proceedings"

      "the people's voices are heard" == "Trump is installed as dictator for life"

      Then you pretend you never made those substitutions, and you get to rhetorically hammer your opponents for being against free and fair elections and in favor of fraud. After all, everyone else heard the very reasonable "I will vote to certify the election if it seems like a free and fair election. If it seems otherwise, I will lead an investigation that will root out fraud and ensure the people's voices are heard." But the party faithful clearly heard: "I will vote to certify the election if Trump wins. If Trump loses, I will obstruct the proceedings and ensure Trump is installed as dictator for life."

      Innuendo Studios has a great video about how the Christian Nationalist terrorists use their media pipelines to establish public vs private definitions of phrases, and then use those equivocated phrases to say one thing to the general public and another thing to their base.

      • ship of theseus arguments are their stock in trade.

        Yes, if they couldn't ship unpopular politics misleadingly as uncontroversial feel-good slam-dunks, they'd never get any support in politics. It's a pity that sort of rhetoric works as well as it does

        Also Innuendo's work is fantastic

  • It's really weird, disconcerting and discouraging that both sides accuse each other of stealing, both sides have rather ardent and vocal bases, both bases want to jail the politicians involved but only one side actually time and again gets caught cheating, lying and stealing, yet has the most loyal and fanatic base that actually want to murder those thst don't agree.

    I get the average trump voter as they actually believe the nonsense they believe in, a lot can be said about gullibility, racism, etc, but as they are fed a steady diet of lies that include "the brown ones are coming to kill you" I get where they're coming from. They're mostly terrified because they're fed terror every goddamn day even though mostly nothing happens.

    If the world survives this election (big if right there) can we please PLEASE do something about news providers in the US? Shut down oan, Fox News, etc. put laws in place requiring news organisations to be truthful. Yes, mistakes can be made but if a news organization sees that they publish untrue information, they must retract it and publish and equally big retraction. If they push too much to ignoring certain facts from whichever political isle, they must be punished, HARD. I don't care if it's left or right extremism, all need to be curved, news needs to be neutral facts to inform the general public.

    With news changing to influencers, apply those rules to influencers as well. Yes, free speech must be a thing, but once you have an audience, you're not allowed to feed them bullshit that goes against the greater good. It's the same as yelling "fire!" in a theater. There are logical limits to free speech, this should be one of them.

    This limitless lying that organisations like Fox News are allowed to do right now has caused possibly irreparable damage to so many things, it has destroyed lives and may end humanity altogether (hello, global warming "myth"!)

    Cut the shit, stop the lying. We need to change how news and baseline truth and facts are given to the general population. If you lie, be it that you're a news organization, a company selling snake oil medications, a politician, an influencer, whatever it is, once you reach a group, you either are truthful or you get punished.

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:

    After Welker pressed her again on the matter, Stefanik wouldn’t commit to certifying the election results and criticized efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in Colorado, Maine and other states.

    And the Supreme Court is taking that case up in February — that should be a nine to zero to allow President Trump to appear on the ballot because that’s the American people’s decision to make this November.”

    Stefanik also defended Trump’s recent remarks calling rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and remain in prison “hostages,” echoing that language herself.

    During a rally in Iowa on Saturday, Trump urged President Joe Biden to release the rioters from federal prison: “I call them hostages.

    When asked if she stood by the comments that she made on the House floor calling Jan. 6 a “truly tragic day for America,” Stefanik said, "I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages."

    Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks responded to Stefanik in his own appearance on "Meet the Press," saying:  “I’m not sure that this 'I know you are, but what am I' situation is going to work when it comes to democracy."

    The original article contains 853 words, the summary contains 194 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

70 comments