When former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA10) was actually in the U.S. House, she voted 97.8% of the time with Trump and was known as a hard-edged Republican partisan. Since leaving Congress in January 2019, however, Comstock has morphed into a strongly anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-democracy voice, along with others like former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05), and regardless of what I thought about her pre-2019, at this point I’ll take any allies we can get in the pro-democracy, anti-fascism camp.
So anyway, this morning, Comstock was on ABC’s “This Week,” and she really nailed it about the upcoming debate, as well as about Trump’s VP pick. See below for video and a few highlights from what she had to say.
- “I think what Biden needs to do is he should just ignore Trump and his antics and talk directly to those swing voters and Republicans who aren’t going to support Trump and calmly talk to them, first about his record and the bipartisan success that he has, but also, you know, what he wants to do for the future, but he also needs to tell the American people that, you know, Trump is a convicted felon, that he’s somebody who has been adjudicated of sexual assault, but also what he wants to do to women’s health and all the concerns there that he’s talked about. He also needs to tell them that he wants to pardon January 6th violent offenders, those people who beat, you know, the Capitol policemen on January 6th, that this is somebody who asked his own vice president… Trump wants to pardon the January 6th violent offenders, that this is someone who asked his own vice president to violate his constitutional oath, which is why his own vice president isn’t supporting him as well as many of Trump’s own Cabinet members, including people like his longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, who has said he, you know, the — the whole suckers and losers thing.”
- “…nobody has really talked — these — these independents and the people who don’t — who are still thinking about it, those are the people, the 6 percent in the six states who are the late deciders, they are — they swing to more center-left. They are women. And they are the people we know who don’t like to support a convicted felon, who are very concerned about democracy, about the state of…And he has made inroads with them, and they are very concerned that people don’t support — in his own administration, those type of people who know he is a danger to democracy and that he won’t support our allies. Last night he was saying he won’t stand with our NATO allies.”
- “I don’t know that it’s relevant [who Trump picks for VP] because whoever it is, is going to just, you know, be whatever — saying whatever Donald Trump wants. So, this is all about Trump because it’s a me, me, me, Trump, you know, electorate. The base — the Trump base is always going to accept what he says. The election is going to be about those swing voters, and what they care about in that small group of states, as Frank Luntz was pointing out. So those people care about health care, not just — not just abortion health care, but about, you know, Trump has said he wants to repeal Obamacare health care. Again, without a replacement. He has not come up with any type of plans except, you know, things like tariffs on everything which we know would raise taxes by 10 percent or more. So he doesn’t have a plan and he’s at these rallies, he’s just talking about things, you know…”
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