Elected officials have no right to claim that an election was stolen or not fair — only private citizens can and then they are “doing their part.”
Apparently, that is the message that one co-host of “The View” appears to be adopting when it comes to claims that elections were stolen.
During a segment of “The View” Wednesday, the co-hosts discussed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s previous claims that the 2016 presidential election and 2018 Georgia gubernatorial elections were stolen.
Whoopi Goldberg said, “Let’s also remember that she was part of MoveOn.org. She was not an elected official.”
“She was doing her part as an American citizen saying how she felt about an election — whether you like it or not. Everybody has the right to freedom of speech,” she added.
Later Goldberg reiterated that Jean-Pierre was a private citizen and “she wasn’t even on television” and “that’s how she felt, which is what freedom of speech is.”
“Let’s discuss kind of sort of the folks who are in office now who have denied that Biden is president…I think this is not apples and oranges, this is apples and basketballs,” she added.
Goldberg conveniently left out that Democratic elected officials doubted previous election results and objected to their certification.
Watch the video below:
After Whoopi calls it a "apples and basketballs" comparison (previous tweet), Sunny hints at it being "whataboutism."
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 7, 2022
She goes on to say she herself was wrong to call Trump an "illegitimate president."
Joy Behar is shocked. Whoopi argues she had every right to say it. pic.twitter.com/ZlCwlBRLMS
Co-host Sunny Hostin chimed in to argue, “I will say that when Trump became president, I think people were so very shocked. Even considering the Electoral College and that sort of thing.”
“The assumption, at least mine, I’ll speak for myself, was that Russia must have been involved, because we knew from the Mueller report that Russia had some involvement. Russia thought that it could benefit from the Trump presidency,” Hostin continued. “But I remember calling him an illegitimate president.”
To her credit, Hostin acknowledged, “That was wrong. I should not have said that because he was not an illegitimate president.”
However, Goldberg chimed in to note that Hostin had the right to claim that former President Donald Trump was an illegitimate president.
Yes, Hostin had a right to call Trump illegitimate. And Jean-Pierre had the right to claim that the elections in 2016 and 2018 were stolen. And Trump and his supporters have the right to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Even though there is no evidence that any of those elections were stolen, and it’s dangerous to undermine trust in our electoral system.
Freedom of speech does not end just because someone is elected to Congress or any position, though we should expect better behavior from our elected officials.
But to suggest that Jean-Pierre was “doing her part” by questioning the result of the 2016 election while she has yet to state she was wrong or at least mistaken is ridiculous.
People who raised doubts about the past election don’t technically have to apologize and say that they were wrong for doing so. But it’s hypocritical for them to defend those past comments while criticizing others for raising doubts about a different election — especially when they are now a public figure.
And it doesn’t really matter that Jean-Pierre was a private citizen when she made those claims. The tweets are still up and asserting that the elections were stolen. And when she was confronted about them, she just brushed off the question by claiming she was talking about voting rights.
