President Biden’s former communications director poured water on some Democrat’s concerns Sunday that former President Trump implied there won’t be future elections if he’s elected again.
Trump made the remarks at a Turning Point USA event on Friday, telling supporters, “In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”
Kate Bedingfield wrote on social media that Trump wasn’t implying that there wouldn’t be an election in 2028 if he won, as some on the left have remarked.
“I think he is saying I won’t be on the ticket either way, so who cares,” she said. “Which is hideously damning in its own right, cause this is what the Republican Party has turned itself inside out and shredded its credibility for — to become a stan account for this one awful, narcissistic guy.”
Top Trump surrogates have also brushed off the comments in recent days, with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) saying in a CNN interview Sunday that Trump was "obviously making a joke."
Bedingfield's post received some push back from those who said her comments downplayed Trump’s threat to democracy, specifically referring to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and attempts to sow doubt about the 2024 election. She later clarified her point.
“I am not suggesting Trump isn’t a threat to democracy or that he hasn’t said and done despicable things — like Jan 6, like saying he’d be a dictator on day one — he has and it is unacceptable and appalling,” she said.
“But it does mean we have to think about winning messages targeted to those people who don’t absorb everything Donald Trump says the same way everyone responding here does,” she continued. “It does not mean I think we should let him off the hook. The opposite — I think it means Dems absolutely 100 percent have to win because the stakes are existential.”
Other notable Democrats also chimed in backing up Bedingfield, including former Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor, now of “Pod Save America.”
“He’s a selfish prick and a liar who says he can fix everything in four years or politics won’t matter once hes gone,” Vietor said of Trump. “That doesn’t mean he’s not also a threat to democracy- and you’ve said as much a million times!”
Anti-Trump conservative commentator Bill Kristol also supported Bedingfield’s point, labeling her critics “mostly dense or foolish.”
“A range of arguments are needed to defeat Trump, and dogmatically asserting there’s one magic argument or kind of argument that works on everyone, is silly and counter-productive,” he wrote.
While the Biden campaign relied on warnings about Trump’s threat to democracy as its primary argument against the former president, the Harris campaign seems to be testing new attack lines as well.
Harris surrogates — including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who is reportedly a contender to be her running mate — have begun labeling Republicans as simply “weird,” pointing to positions on LGBTQ rights and abortion access that are relatively unpopular.
