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As Senator John Cornyn of Texas refused to answer a question about former president Donald Trump’s racist remarks about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio eating pets, a dog passed by him in the basement of the Senate.
Cornyn has spent past few years yammering about immigration and the border, going as far as to say the US-Mexico border is “on fire.” But when asked about the bizarre racist conspiracy theory propagated by his colleague Senator JD Vance of Ohio and mentioned onstage by Trump as he debated Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, Cornyn dithered.
“If you have a serious question, I’m happy [to answer],” Cornyn told The Independent.
The former president’s meltdown at his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris could not be defended. A snap poll from CNN conducted by SSRS showed that 63 percent of registered voters thought Harris won the debate. Harris baited Trump by talking about his crowd sizes, which led to him ranting first about his rallies before pivoting to the conspiracy theory.
Republicans know they cannot defend such behavior.
Trump’s words can be called nothing more than racist bile. They are the types of words that would inflame hate crimes against migrants from Haiti. Republicans would rather not talk about it. So they instead will attack the press.
Initially, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa brushed off a question about the remarks. When reminded that Trump is her party’s nominee for the general election, she took exception.
“Excuse me? Excuse me?” Ernst asked The Independent.
Senator James Lankford, the architect of the border bill that Trump eventually killed earlier this year, said he had not seen the full debate.
“I've heard bits and pieces of the story. I know nothing about that story,” he told The Independent. “I'm not trying to obfuscate. I've just not tracked that Ohio story at all.”
Lankford has fashioned himself as a policy wonk who cares deeply about solving immigration at the border. He has taken video selfies at the border to make himself seem like a brave explorer on fact-finding missions.
He either does not care enough to learn about his colleague Vance’s conspiracy theories or he is lying. Either is a poor reflection on the man.
Meanwhile, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin engaged in some good, old-fashioned whataboutism.
“It's amazing you guys are all concerned about that, as opposed to — what about the rapes, the murders?” he told The Independent.
Senator Todd Young of Indiana, one of the few Republicans who does not support Trump, brushed off reporters and preferred not to answer questions at all.
Elsewhere, Senator Lindsey Graham, a critic-turned-ally of Trump, played coy.
“I don’t know where that came from,” he said, when asked about the Ohio story. Graham had spent the night before the debate in the spin room for Trump, but even he could not defend that particular tale.
Senator Katie Britt of Alabama wound up being one of the few Republicans who would talk at length about the subject, but didn’t want to address the pet-eating claims directly.
“I think we've got to make sure that securing the border is a priority of the next president,” she told The Independent. “And I was disappointed that last night we didn't get into a policy discussion about how to do that.”
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who endorsed Nikki Haley and told The Independent earlier this year that she would not support anyone after Haley dropped out, mostly deflected when asked as she went into an elevator.
“I was surprised,” Collins, who voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6, told The Independent, of hearing the Ohio story.
Senator Ted Cruz, one of the more verbose Republicans, who nonetheless faces a tough re-election in Texas, refused to answer a question, saying he told Fox News host Sean Hannity all he needed to say.
“I talked about the debate last night on Hannity and also today's podcast is entirely on that issue,” he said. Earlier this week, Cruz had posted a meme of two cats hugging, saying: “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us” with multiple laughing emojis. But the moment he had to answer for it outside the right-wing media sewer, he had nothing to say.
