Stacey Abrams sparred with CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday as the CNN host questioned whether the failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate had regretted casting doubt on the outcome of her 2018 election loss against Gov. Brian Kemp.
"I do remember the time you told The New York Times ‘I won.’ You did describe it as a stolen election. The courts did side with the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger," Collins began before Abrams jumped in.
"Kaitlan, that’s actually incorrect," Abrams said. "And normally I wouldn’t cut you off, but you’re repeating disinformation. What the court said, if you read the entire opinion, was that despite the flaws in the process, that we acknowledge, that the courts acknowledge, they were no longer permitted to complete and fix them. They could not correct the mistakes because the law had changed between 2018 and 2022 when the case was finally adjudicated."
At one point, the Democrat felt the need to clarify: "I believed then, and I believe now I have never been the governor of Georgia."
Collins asked Abrams specifically if she regretted her language in light of Donald Trump's repeated false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. In addition to telling the New York Times she still believe she "won," in 2019, she added at the time, "I have sufficient and I think legally sufficient doubt about the process to say that it was not a fair election."
"I acknowledge that Brian Kemp won that election. What I called into question was the process that was used, and courts agreed with us again and again during the overtime after Election Day and again afterwards, so much so that he actually signed legislation to fix some of the problems that we were able to reveal. I never once said that he did not win. What I said is that the process was flawed, and that’s why we had the Voting Rights Act in the United States," Abrams said earlier in the discussion.
Abrams argued that there was "never a moment" where the courts said "what happened was right."
She also said that it was important to "read the fine print" and not just headlines.
"I believed then, and I believe now I have never been the governor of Georgia. I‘ve never claimed to be the governor of Georgia. What I have said is that voters were denied their full rights. Courts agreed with me in the time of that election, they agreed with me post-election, the state made changes to the flaws some of them, unfortunately, too many of them have been restored in different ways. And we continue to face voter suppression, not only in Georgia, but around the country because Republicans are using the ability to change the laws because we no longer have the protection of the Voting Rights Act to make it harder for average voters to show up at the polls," Abrams continued.
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Collins argued she did read past headlines and understood that Abrams took issue with some of the Georgia laws passed by Gov. Kemp.
"But we do read past the headlines and the fine print and one of them, the court said that all, so Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenge, practices violate neither the Constitution nor the Voting Rights Act," Collins responded.
Abrams challenged Kemp again in the 2022 governor's race and lost.
