CNN’s Chris Wallace Absolutely Hammers RNC Chair Over Trump Fake Electors: ‘Why Did You Participate in That?’

Tommy ChristopherJul 14th, 2023, 1:08 pm

CNN anchor Chris Wallace relentlessly questioned RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel over her role in ex-President Donald Trump’s fake electors scheme.

On this week’s episodes of Wallace’s Max/CNN series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, Wallace interviewed McDaniel, as well as Hollywood superstar Goldie Hawn.

In the McDaniel interview, Wallace played McDaniel’s testimony to the Jan. 6 committee about the fake electors, then proceeded to hammer her over the plot in a stunning exchange — and especially seemed to touch a nerve when he asked if she’s testified for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 probe:

WALLACE: Why did you participate in that?

MCDANIEL: Well, it’s been done in the past. There’s precedent with Hawaii. And it was contingent, it was a contingent…

WALLACE: That was Hawaii in 1960.

MCDANIEL: Correct.

WALLACE: So. 60 years before.

MCDANIEL: Chris, there were legal challenges.

WALLACE: This was in multiple states around the country.

MCDANIEL: First of all, our…

WALLACE: There were going to be fake electors that you were gonna help…

MCDANIEL: I don’t like the word fake electors.

WALLACE: What do you do? What word do you prefer?
MCDANIEL: By the way, I’ll say this. What most of the people that did this, they viewed it as if any of the legal challenges overturn to say a lot of these states were won by very narrow margins. There were there were still challenges, legal challenges going through the courts. And they said if a state was overturned, these would be contingent slates if the state result changed. That’s all it was. It was not to be fake electors or replace the electors. It was contingent based on a legal challenge changing the outcome of a state. I think that’s very reasonable.

WALLACE: But you understand the president and John Eastman were saying that…

MCDANIEL: That’s not what they said to me. So that was not…

WALLACE: But you understand that’s what they ended up wanting to do, was to tell Mike Pence, don’t accept the electors for Joe Biden in states that he won, but instead take these fake electors that the RNC was part of putting together.

MCDANIEL: They were contingent based on legal challenges, and there’s precedent for it. Our lawyer said there had been precedent for it. This has happened in the past in.

WALLACE: One state, 60 years before.

MCDANIEL: And you had a lot of Democrats refuse to certify elections and and do things like this in the past.

WALLACE: Have you had to speak because this is the subject of a criminal investigation, the fake electors. Have you been asked to speak either?

MCDANIEL: I’m not talking about anything like that.

WALLACE: Have you been asked to? Let me ask the question. Have you been asked to speak? Have you spoken to either the Office of the Special Counsel, Jack Smith, or to his grand jury?

MCDANIEL: I’m not talking about anything having to do with that investigation.

WALLACE: So you’re not denying.

MCDANIEL: I’m not saying anything. I talked to the January 6th committee. I’ll say that you know that.