NCPR – In response to the televised Jan. 6 hearings, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is one of the people leading the Republican Party’s so-called “counter programming.”
She has gone on national media outlets like Fox News encouraging people to tune out the hearings, and undercutting the investigation with a long list of questions and talking points. But many of her claims don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Even the idea of counter programming is misleading.
Joe Biden is the President of the United States, and he was fairly and legitimately elected in a closely watched election in 2020. Yet Donald Trump and his allies – including Stefanik – amplified the notion that the election was stolen, an idea that eroded people’s trust in the electoral process and motivated a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol.
There really are not two sides to that story. But to this day, Trump still claims he won, and Stefanik refuses to say that Biden’s victory was legitimate.
Now, as we’re hearing from Trump’s own senior officials explaining that the election was not stolen – Stefanik has taken to national media outlets.
“Look at the Democrats on this committee, they have no basis. They are complete hypocrites,” Stefanik said in an interview on Fox News. “They want to avoid, again, focusing on the issues that matter to the American people. But I think the American people are smart. They are tuning this out. They see these individuals for hypocrites and Pelosi parrots that they are.”
Sometimes there is a...
After a group of women linked to Islamic State jihadists returned to Australia on May 7, posts falsely claimed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese restored "their previously cancelled citizenship". The...