Van Jones Slams Trump’s Refusal to Concede, Likens it to Desperate ‘Kamikaze’ Mission: ‘He Wants Us to Go Down With Him’
CNN’s Van Jones slammed President Donald Trump and his allies for refusing to concede the 2020 election, saying that it was in contravention to Trump’s campaign slogan, “America First” — promoting “Trump First” instead — and compared it to a desperate “kamikaze” mission seeking to take the country down with him.
Host Anderson Cooper brought up former President Barack Obama’s comments that he was more troubled by the other Republicans who were going along with Trump’s refusal to concede the race, noting especially the situation in Georgia. In that state, two Republican senators are heading to a January runoff to defend their seats, so “all these Republican senators are going to stay silent because they’re afraid he’s going to sabotage them,” Cooper noted.
“I think everybody’s just baffled,” replied Jones. “Nobody knows what to say or what to do. This is unprecedented in the history of our republic. The president is embarrassing himself. He’s embarrassing the country.”
Jones praised President-elect Joe Biden for “showing extreme patience, extreme calm” and then addressed Trump’s supporters.
“If you believe in ‘America First,’ and that was one of the great slogans from 2016, ‘America First,’ this is not America First. This is ‘Trump First.’ This is “Me, Myself and I First,'” Jones added.
He said that Republicans “need to be clamoring for at least a fair, preparatory runway for the Biden administration,” even if they truly believed the election results could be overturned in the courts, “there’s no harm in allowing the potential for a transition to take place.”
“The funds should be released,” Jones insisted. “Biden’s team should be getting briefed. Just in case. If you love the country, you would say just in case. The same reason you buy insurance. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but you want to be sure that you’re prepared in any eventuality.”
“What you have right now is the president has strapped the country onto his own little kamikaze plane and he wants us to go down with him,” said Jones. “That’s not America First.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
