‘The Election Denial Put People Over the Edge’: Fox’s Marc Theissen Says Voters Rejected ‘Chaos’ of Trump
Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen offered a harsh condemnation of former President Donald Trump’s influence over the GOP, saying that the “red wave” failed to materialize because voters rejected his “chaos” and election denialism.
“Florida was the silver lining in what was otherwise a very, very dark night,” Thiessen told America’s Newsroom anchors Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer Wednesday morning.
“Voters did us a favor,” he said, in three ways: by re-electing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) “by historic margins,” giving the Republicans control of the House “which means that we can stop the miasma of spending,” and sending the GOP “a wake-up call.”
Polling had shown that voters were “angry about the direction of the country, and yet they voted for the status quo,” he added. “Why is that? It’s because the Republican party did not give them a viable alternative to vote for,” even though voters were “begging” for one.
In Florida, the GOP had offered “viable alternatives,” but not in other states where Republicans fell short, Thiessen lamented. “We squandered an historic opportunity.”
Hemmer asked if it had been a messaging issue, which Thiessen rejected, saying it was a “candidate quality issue.”
“We nominated a bunch of people the voters rejected in a lot of these Senate races,” the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush said. “Voters looked at Joe Biden and then they looked at the Republican party and said no thanks. And we need to do some introspection why that happened.”
Thiessen added that he had written many Washington Post columns defending the ex-president, and was “not a Never Trumper but the election denial put people over the edge.”
“At some point, the voters said, we don’t want the chaos…In 2020, voters didn’t reject Trumpism. They rejected Trump. A big difference,” he said, explaining that the ex-president’s policies had popular support.
With the control of the Senate still up in the air, and Democrats in the remaining races looking like they had a good chance to win, it could end up that “Donald Trump cost us the Senate twice in a row,” said Thiessen, referring to the 2021 special elections in Georgia where both Democrats defeated the Republicans shortly after Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election and was vociferously casting doubt on the election integrity in that state.
Republicans had a “chance to fix it” this year but failed to do so, he continued, echoing his comments from Tuesday evening calling the election results “an indictment of the Republican party” and saying that the GOP needed “a very big period of introspection.”
“Americans are begging for a reasonable alternative to what’s happening in this country, and we’re not giving it to them,” he concluded, “and if we don’t give it to them, shame on us. I ask people watching this show, how do you feel this morning? Are you disappointed? Are you upset? Do you want to feel that way two years from now, on the day after the election? Because that’s where we’re headed now if we don’t change course.”
Watch the video above, via Fox News.
