GOP Secretary of State Melts Down When Asked To Explain Bid to Throw Biden Off Ballot
Jay Ashcroft flopped when faced with the most dreaded predicament amongst grandstanding blowhards: a follow-up question
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s attempt to justify his ludicrous threat to have President Joe Biden removed from the state’s electoral ballot spiraled into chaos over the most basic of questions: “How so?”
During a Monday interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, the Republican was asked how he justified his threats to have Biden removed from the state’s ballot in retaliation for recent attempts to remove Trump from state ballots on grounds that his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election constitute insurrection. The constitutionality of such a removal will soon be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
“What would then be your justification for removing Joe Biden from the ballot in Missouri. Has he engaged in your mind in some kind of insurrection?” Sanchez asked.
“There have been allegations that he’s engaged in insurrection,” Ashcroft replied. He was then met with the most dreaded predicament amongst grandstanding blowhards: a follow-up question.
“How so?” Sanchez asked, prompting Ashcroft to demand that Sanchez stop interrupting him. “You can’t say something like that and not back it up,” Sanchez countered.
“You interrupted me before I could back it up,” a flustered Ashcroft complained. “Are you scared of the truth?”
Ashcroft: "Are you scared of the truth?"
Sanchez: "Oh, I am not terrified of the truth at all, seems like you might be."
You need to watch those clips in the Xitter link. Sanchez is on fucking fire and does not let up.
I'll watch it somewhere, but it's not going to be at TwitX.
Edit here: https://youtu.be/pIsVB-H\_M\_8?feature=shared
The most relevant part starts around 4:22 but the whole thing is good (well, up until the YouTuber jumps in with his take, which fortunately is after the CNN segment)
Holy shit that was embarrassing for Jay Ashcroft. He proved he's a legal scholar equivalent of a nepo baby because he is so grossly incompetent at understanding how state law works. If this guy was your attorney, the very real question of capability and competency would come up.
Hopefully his dad will help him understand the law better because having 2 J Ashcrofts be that hilariously dumb is a bad look.
I've heard better arguments from an L1 than this bozo. But you know what they say: if the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither is on your side, pound the table. All he has is the table.
He tried to pound the table and missed
Thanks for the non-shitter link
Fantastic. 🍿
I also immediately switched off when the YouTuber started talking.
Jesus Christ it’s like these people are in preschool or something
In the sense of being genuinely ignorant of the proper way to act, no. In the sense of being petulant brats throwing a tantrum, yes.
"b-b-but, but twump was taken off for allegations, and allegations mean stuff someone said, so I heard someone say Biden bad so slippery slope then I take bidens name off"
He said "well if they do it, slippery slope, I'll do it!" He SERIOUSLY used a well known logical fallacy to prove his point.
my grasp upon my own native tongue is a failure, as I simply don't have the words to describe the level of idiocy we see regularly from republicans.
I couldn't get over his use if the word "extrajudicial" to describe what's happening in court cases. What a bumbling moron.
BTC is actually a pretty well established political YT'er and has some great rundowns of the political climate. I'm sure you'd change your tune if you watched a few vids.
He's got a very intense delivery style that comes off very used-car-salesman to me. I don't think he's wrong about stuff, I just don't enjoy watching his presentation style.
I haven't watched any of that guy's videos, but from your description it at least sounds preferable to the dangerously apologistic "both-sides-ism" of most corporate news media!
But I don't want to watch any Youtubers talk. They are all annoying, and I don't care to see their talking faces.
Any information that they could present by talking it to a camera with their face, could be more efficiently delivered as a blog post. There's no reason but self-promotion for these people to be talking to their camera. Videos that show things happening, and are about actual stuff, are what Youtube should be for. Not a bunch of talking heads giving their opinions to a camera.
We need more journalism that pushes back like this.
We certainly do, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that would accomplish much with these fuckers. They'll just start avoiding the journalists that refuse to stay neutral or lob them softballs.
It's not like their supporters are going to shame them for doing that, either. I'm shocked any Republican talks to any reporter that isn't from Fox News anymore.
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They already do avoid most journalists, for precisely that reason. Neutrality, to the insane Republican party, is the same thing as a far left bias.
Hell even within Fox news... Shepard Smith was one of a handful of actual journalists at Fox news, surrounded entirely by opinion shows.
Fox news viewers HATED Shepard Smith because he was "too opinionated."
I can't stand this reality.
I'm sure they dream of a day in the not-to-distant future where they can just have journalists like this killed.
Isn’t Missouri the show me State? Is this fucktard going to show any evidence of insurrection or just blather on about how other governors have made the claim of insurrection against Biden? My god Republicans are stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid to the fucking core.
That's why they attack education constantly. Education prevents conservatives.
We're seeing a lot of conservative action and behaviour on college campuses these days though. Go far enough to the liberal side and you end up standing right next to the conservatives!
GTFO with your both sides nonsense.
It's not both sides. What we're seeing is that it's human nature. It goes well past whatever your political beliefs are..
Go far enough to the right of them.
Or are you talking about the widely discredited Horseshoe Theory?
I'm talking about the banning of certain ideas and speech.
20 years ago when I was in university that was an entirely conservative ideal. Today we don't see that being the case..
What speech and ideas do you feel are being banned?
They're not being banned technically, they're being run off campus which amounts to the same. The congressional hearings covered some of this, it's not like I'm putting forward a new idea here. There's testimony of student groups having their spaces taken away.
They are being "ran off" because they no longer hold muster and they refuse to provide any new ideas. This is how the marketplace of ideas work. Their ideas failed and are being rejected because they are unserious. Now they are demanding these ideas which have failed to be inserted back into the academic space by force.
If only there were other opinions and ideas we could discuss implementing other than "liberalism" and "conservatism" but academics won't let other ideas replace those in the marketplace because the failures are refusing the leave the square and are threatening violence if they don't get their way.
Don't both sides this. They weren't banned. They weren't mobbed. They lost and refused to leave.
Are you serious? The marketplace of ideas is violently chasing people out of their designated meeting places?
That's censorship by violence. You're justifying this.
This is literally the problem I'm talking about and you're acting like it's the civilized way to engage in disparate ideas. That's fucked up. They're going to be inserted back into the academic space legally because it's unquestionably bigoted to target a protected class, even if you're claiming it's because you disagree with their ideas. That's just fucking wild.
You're literally defending a political camp whose supporters raided the capitol. They don't deserve to have their ideas on the marketplace because not only did they lose, their reaction to losing was to attempt the overthrow of the government. Blocking and reporting you, you dimwitted fascist.
So they aren’t banned or illegal?
I am curious to see some of your sources instead of your vague statements.
.
https://pix11.com/news/israel-war/jewish-students-locked-inside-library-told-security-they-felt-unsafe/
This is one example of a few that have been in the news lately. Do you think that targeted group is going to continue to meet on campus?
They're being discouraged with extraordinary levels of animosity and as we're seeing before Congress and in various law suits, the institutions are not really doing anything to stop it. If you can't see that as tacitly approving the behaviour, then I guess you're one of those where the context is dependent.
Your link was twenty protesters making people feel unsafe and police attending and didn’t charge anyone.
Are the cops in on it too?
What are these things you’re vaguely mentioning about congress and lawsuits?
Vague?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/mcmaster-lawsuit-1.7074537
There's been a handful of similar ones filled recently. You're ignorance clearly extends beyond the news though.
Your attempts to belittle the violence faced by those kids is precisely the problem. Using violence in an attempt to mute voices you're scared of is pretty damn scary to be advocating for.
It doesn’t state the political affiliations of the Canadians in this article so how does this fit what you are saying?
Please stop assigning stupidity to things that are openly and brazenly malicious.
He's brazenly malicious and stupid. You can be both. He is both.
To be fair, he did look genuinely shocked about the job of Secretary of State.
The problem here is the ambiguity of "Republicans". If you mean politicians, then yes, they're malicious AF and often pretty competent about it. If you mean their voters, then most of them are just abysmally stupid (and arrogant enough to think they're smart).
Their business is only in propping up accusations, so he's just gonna blather.
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Missouri is one of the last and proudest slave states (followed only by Arkansas, Texas, and Florida - go figure?). They routinely slaughtered Kansans for their refusal to brutalize and own other humans. Rush Limbaugh is from there. Ferguson police just shoot black people for sport and openly laugh about it. It's an infected polyp on the anus of racist America with some of the worst, most hateful people scowling and lurching around in it.
That this chud would be representing the people of Missouri is not a surprise at all.
They do have some lovely scenery though, and there are a few decent people there as well. Just - on the political front, you can pretty well expect when you hear Missouri it won't be good news.
In the top 20 most crime-ridden cities in America, St. Louis, Missouri is #1.
Conservative boogeyman Chicago is #20.
https://sports.yahoo.com/20-cities-united-states-highest-160029176.html
Finally, something I can speak to, crime!
Most large cities follow the trend where the city center is higher crime than the surrounding areas, because crime is strongly correlated with population density and poverty. St. Louis crime follows the exact same trend.
However, in other places the city center + surrounding areas are considered to be one political entity, the higher crime stats in the city center are "diluted" by the lower crime stats in the surrounding area.
In St. Louis, the city is a distinct political entity from the county. As a result, the amount of "dilution" is much less than in other areas, leading to St. Louis City having an abnormally high crime rate per capita, and St. Louis County having an abnormally low crime rate per capita. If you combine the City + County crime stats, you get a picture that looks very much like all the other rust belt cities (Philly included).
There are other factors as well. For example- St. Louis City is not a residential city- very few people actually live downtown compared to its size, and there is much less night life and nighttime activity compared to other cities of our size. In the 2020 census, just 5400 people lived in the "Downtown neighborhood." This is a commuter area that might have 200,000-300,000 people moving through it on a daily basis. When you look at the crime stats for Downtown on a per-capita basis, they're computed against a population size of 5,400, even though there are 50 times that many people using the area. If Busch Stadium sells out a game they seat 60,000 people- more than 15 times greater than the recorded permanent population of the area. All these effects are true for the larger St. Louis City crime stats as well. The population of the city is only 300,000 or so, but there are 200,000 people or more that commute to the city every day.
And every city is different, criminologists and the FBI consistently and adamantly say that crime stat comparisons across different locations are not meaningful. Despite that, people love to compare crime stats and find out what city is most dangerous or the homicide capitol because they can't stop themselves.
No. Missouri is the "blow me" state.
The follow-up question was literally "What accusations are you making against Biden to justify removing him from the ballot?"
Like dude, you can literally make up anything and your base would eat it up. You couldn't even do that. What a moron, and he'll still lose almost zero support from his base because they didn't actually pay attention.
The Ashcrofts have always been smooth-brained. But Jay's is so smooth that quarks could ice skate on it.
Oh, wow. I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together that this is John Ashcroft’s kid. Chip off the old block it appears. 😂
Let the eagle soar!
They know.
They do. Every day.
The reason doesn't matter. This is purely a tit-for-tat because Trump fell off the ballot in Colorado, Maine, and... I guess now Nevada? His base will still eat it up. Nobody who regularly votes for him is going to see the back end of this interview, just the headline, because they all think CNN stands for "Communist News Network".
It shouldn't be all that surprising that John Ashcroft's son has a total lack of imagination and creativity.
The GOP can never actually explain their reasoning when people push back usually.
Almost like they have no reasoning!
You can’t tell me this clown is not inbred. Or at least the progeny of some sort of greasy-haired weasel creature.
His dad was afraid of the nipples on statues.
I miss the days when he was the most embarrassing Attorney General J. Ashcroft in the country.
I thought this was the same guy and was thinking he aged well
In his dad's defense, you gotta be careful with those or you'll put your eye out.
The venn diagram of boobs and Red Ryder BB guns has more overlap than I would have guessed.
He's the son of former (G.W. Bush) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft... soooo...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Ashcroft
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft
https://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/justice-is-blind-but-most-visitors-aren-t-1078680.php
I knew asscraft was involved with this somehow.
There it is. Was wondering if there was any relation, to the point where I had half a mind to look it up myself. Thanks for saving me the trouble.
It's nepotism and cronyism all the way down.
OOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Right!
Well fucking hell, Missouri.
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Brutal imperialist torture lawyer, as it happens.
Helped get us fucked in Iraq & Afghanistan shit weasel.
The tragic end result of a meerkat left alone with a vial of human growth hormone and a copy of atlas shrugged
Nature does in fact make mistakes.
Wow. The look of utter and genuine surprise at how our government functions is absolutely priceless.
Ashcroft got absolutely roasted holy Christ. "Duh duh duh huh what??? There have been allegations! I just don't know them"
Um um um... They're in Hunter Bidens laptop! And in Hilary's email! And uh... Pizzagate. Um... PEDOPHILES! VOTER FRAUD!
Sadly, I grew up in that state and I can tell you that a huge swath of the people that live there will see it the exact opposite.
I'm not surprised. I'm in Virginia and I see MAGAts argue that having the gall to ask why is in and of itself an admission of guilt.
"Bidens a traitor!"
"Why?"
"YOU KNOW WHY IF HE'S INNOCENT WHY YOU SO WORRIED ABOUT IT HUH?!"
"innocence is supposed to be a legal defense, but you're refusing to let somebody defend themselves even if you have no reason to think they did anything wrong - everybody should be worried!"
What a snowflake. He literally whines about being interrupted.
Gosh, how rude. Ashcroft wanted to ride out the clock with a gish gallop and the mean interviewer wouldn't let him. What happened to journalistic standards?
Why would Rolling Stone link to Shitter rather than directly to the CNN interview?
They are enabling their oppressor
Edit: I tried to post the clip from CNN. After it hanging because it was stuck on the pop ups to allow it to track me even off their site and requests to push non stop ads to my cell phone in the middle of meetings and dinner I gave up.
There has to be a way.
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It's pretty easy. Step into the 21st century with the rest of us and use a fucking ad blocker.
Or better yet, rip the video from the shitty site and reupload it somewhere that doesn't try to abuse you.
I run pi-hole. I think that may be what was hanging it.
C'mon don't resort to childish name calling. It's Xitter, filled with juicy Xits.
Oh no, not SCRUTINY!! GOPs kryptonite.
‘What’s your legal argument?’
‘Your honour, it’s the perennial argument of I’m Rubber, You’re Glue, as put forth in the case of Billy vs Jimmy in the schoolyard, 1954. The teacher in that case argued that Billy was, in fact, glue…’
I'm sorry, but Billy v Jimmy is not consistent with this nations Historical Traditions. Your argument needs to include a valid ruling from between 1776 and a time period that justifies my argument, whether or not the precedent at that time was to provide justice only to land-owning white men.
So sayeth we Court Supreme.
Sorry, but under the precedent of "you are, but what am I?" That argument ca not be used anymore plus one
I've got a few boat rides and some cash that says otherwise
Pandering to his #fascist supporters.
Melting down is the new "slammed."
No idea why the host keeps walking on the guests answers when just letting him talk is the best way to prove he obviously doesn't know shit.
Didn't watch the video, but from the quotes he did wait...
The Republican just claimed he was cut off so he couldn't answer, and then still wouldn't answer.
He wants to have the "let me finish" argument where it just devolves to that. When given time to answer, they don't, just keep saying "let me finish" until they walk away.
Remember, Republicans are toddlers, and they argue like that
The host did cut him off a few times, but he cut him off specifically to keep him on focus to the questions at hand and not let him bloviate.
Yeah. When a secretary of state positively asserts that there have been allegations that the sitting president of the United States has engaged in insurrection, making them answer "what did he do?" is the only next thing that should be asked and no deviations should be allowed.
I just watched, he does jump in once or twice, but seems like satellite delay awkwardness mostly.
After laying out the question, "what are the (details of the) allegations of Biden's supposed insurrection" Sanchez gives him loads of time to look like the fool he is.
Okay buddy. Good for you I guess. You didn't watch and yet you have an opinion that's specifically related to watching.
The host cut him off to keep him on track so he can ruin his own argument instead of changing the subject.
Yeah i think the problem is when you just let them talk they will quickly change the subject and start up the gish gallop so interrupting is the only way to actually stay on topic. Otherwise you're just giving them a platform to spew a hundred lies without having a chance to refute anything.
Can't reason people out of things they didn't reason themselves into.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s attempt to justify his ludicrous threat to have President Joe Biden removed from the state’s electoral ballot spiraled into chaos over the most basic of questions: “How so?”
During a Monday interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, the Republican was asked how he justified his threats to have Biden removed from the state’s ballot in retaliation for recent attempts to remove Trump from state ballots on grounds that his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election constitute insurrection.
Ashcroft pivoted to pointing out that Colorado and Maine had moved to remove Trump from their ballots despite the former president not yet being convicted of acts of insurrection.
Last week, Ashcroft wrote on X, formerly Twitter that while he expects “the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”
The states that have chosen to remove Trump from their ballot did so under allegations that the former president fomented the Jan. 6 certification-day riot that took place in the Capitol and went to great lengths to attempt to undermine the results of his 2020 election loss.
By contrast — and as Ashcroft exemplified in his blundered interview — the claim that President Biden has engaged in similar acts holds no water.
The original article contains 444 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 50%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The video for those who'd like to watch and are hitting the RS paywall:
Twitter Link
It's pretty hilarious, he clearly didn't come prepared for the most basic of follow-up questions.
Drrrrrh. Potato