In an NBC interview Sunday, Rep. Elise Stefanik deftly demonstrated how to handle Democrats’ false claims about a Jan. 6, 2021 “insurrection” to justify criminalizing the speech of the half of the country that opposes their policies.
At the beginning of “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker’s interview with Stefanik, Welker played a deceptively edited clip from Jan. 6, 2021. On the House floor, Stefanik characterized the events from earlier that day as “tragic” and stated that violent individuals should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Had NBC honestly portrayed the clip, it would have included the main point of Stefanik’s speech. That was to call out Democrats for dismantling election integrity laws ahead of the 2020 election in key swing states. Watch Stefanik’s remarks in full here.
Welker asked the dark-horse potential for Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick whether she still believes “that day was tragic, and that those who were responsible should be held responsible to the fullest extent of the law.” This was an attempt to entrap Stefanik into accepting the Democrat lie that Jan. 6 amounted to an “insurrection” that justifies the Biden Department of Justice’s continued investigation and prosecution of nonviolent attendees at the protest.
Stefanik refused to take the bait, responding, “Well, first of all, Kristen, as typical for NBC and the biased media, you played one excerpt of my speech… If you go back and play the full speech I gave on the House floor, I condemned the violence just like I condemn the violence of the BLM [Black Lives Matter] riots. But I also importantly stood for election integrity and security of our elections. If we don’t have that, we do not have a democracy.”
Stefanik also expressed “concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages,” and the “weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump, but [all] conservatives.”
Indeed, countless peaceful protesters who demonstrated at the capitol three years ago have been slandered by the media and House Democrats’ J6 Committee, harassed by Biden’s Department of Justice, and held for months in solitary confinement awaiting trial. Traditional Catholics, pro-lifers, parents who oppose critical race theory at school board meetings, and Trump supporters have also found themselves targets of the Biden DOJ for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech and assembly.
“And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so proud to serve on the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the [Federal] Government,” said Stefanik. “Because the American people want answers. They want transparency, and they understand that as you look across this country, there seem to be two sets of rules. If your last name is Clinton, or it’s Biden, you get to live by a different set of rules than if you’re an everyday patriotic American.”
“So the real threat to our democracy is these baseless witch hunt investigations and lawsuits against President Trump,” Stefanik added. “[It] is undemocratic and it’s shredding our Constitution, and you know who agrees with me, Kristen? The American people. That’s why President Trump is winning in poll after poll against Joe Biden.”
Welker also asked Stefanik if she would “vote to certify the results of the ’24 election no matter what they show?” Again, refusing to fall into Welker’s trap, Stefanik replied matter of factly, “We will see if this is a legal and valid election.”
This answer has been seized on by the corporate media to somehow insinuate that Stefanik is anti-democratic. Apparently, Welker and the rest of her media peers do not comprehend the point of certifying the presidential election, which is to validate the integrity of the electoral process. In other words, no representative should be committed to certifying or not certifying the election until after it has taken place and been verifiably conducted lawfully.
Importantly, Stefanik pointed out the key fact that Democrats are already interfering in the 2024 election through multiple means. “What we’re seeing so far is that Democrats are so desperate they’re trying to remove President Trump from the ballot,” Stefanik continued. “That is a suppression of the American people.”
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.