Fox News host Eric Bolling made Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA) a scapegoat for the growing list of Republicans who refuse to vote for Donald Trump.
Bolling, a long-time Trump supporter read a list of notable Republicans who have endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton, along with Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Dent who won’t support either Trump or Clinton.
“But does any of this really matter for Trump’s chances in November?” Bolling asked dismissively. Then he proceeded to act as though it mattered a great deal.
“You’re coming from Pennsylvania. People in your district voted overwhelming for Donald Trump,” Bolling lectured Dent, suggesting that he should only care about Republican primary voters and that he owed them a vote, for some reason.
Dent cited a long list of Trump’s missteps as well as his apparent ignorance about Russia as the reaons not to vote for him.
Bolling waved that away as inconsequential. “Maybe he didn’t know, maybe he made a mistake,” Bolling said, as if Trump had been talking about something trivial, not a major world power.
“Congressman, do you realize that the Supreme Court is 4-4?” Bolling asked, as though nothing else in a presidency should matter.
Then Bolling began berating Dent: “If Hillary Clinton gets elected because people like you don’t vote for Donald Trump, you’re gonna have a liberal Supreme Court and if Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires, that will be replaced by yet another liberal. You’ll have a liberal Supreme Court going down, maybe our children, our grandchildren’s lifetimes.”
Dent argued that Trump “picking a fight” with Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), each of whom are facing difficult re-elections, was not helpful to getting Republicans appointed to the Supreme Court, either (Trump has since endorsed McCain and Ayotte).
“You play around these satellite things like, ‘He’s picking a fight.’” Bolling said accusingly. “How about immigration at the Supreme Court level? How about gun control at the Supreme Court level? How about minimum wage at the Supreme Court level? These are things I worry about, my 17- or 18-year-old son has to worry about and deal with for his lifetime, not whether or not Donald Trump fights with McCain.”
Dent continued to argue that his priority was to “maintain the Senate and to maintain the House.”
Then Bolling went into full scold mode:
BOLLING: So saying you’re going to sit this election out is a way that you’ll maintain the Senate or the House? Congressman, it’s backward logic. It’s the reason the American public is so tired of business as usual in D.C.
I think you and Kinzinger need to really rethink this. Sit down and say, “Look, this Supreme Court is vastly more important" than these little satellite issues that you guys are having problems with. That’s just my opinion, Congressman.
Funny, I never heard Dent ask for Bolling’s opinion.
Watch it below, from the August 4 The O’Reilly Factor.
Dent was clearly taken aback by the level of aggression and panic emanating from Bolling, and it looked like he was struggling to answer at times while he recovered from his amazement.
If anything, it was interesting to hear Bolling act as though he had the right to tell someone else what their political priorities should be. Dent and others have clearly made up their minds that Donald Trump is not a candidate they can support. They don’t like him on principle, and they don’t trust him to be able to handle the job of President. Bolling doesn’t get to tell them that they are not allowed to have that reaction.
And yes, here goes Bolling again with his Supreme Court argument – what he’s leaving out is that there should NOT be a 4-4 split on the Court right now. There is a perfectly qualified appointee named Merrick Garland, who is waiting for the hearings that should have been conducted 5 months ago. Hearings that Bolling’s friends in the Senate have refused to conduct, in the hope that they can somehow game the system long enough for a Trump to get into office and nominate a real far right wing hard case. The fact that the GOP thinks they can get away with that last insult is something that I really hope comes into play in the fall campaign. I’d love to see those guys trying to justify their pettiness to the voters.
You say that like that’s a bad thing, Boring. :^)
.
And Faux will look like accessories to a crime.
The NYT website has a video showing “normal” Trump supporters at a “normal” rally. If that video reflects reality, no self-respecting republican would want to be in the same room with those “supporters” acting like mobs egging themselves on: a bunch of thugs/ hooligans wanting a fight. No need to listen to what they say (though I did): the unbridled violence of the body language cannot but give decently brought-up people serious cause for concern. Fox’s lips are sealed because those are100% lily-white mobs.
