CNN’s Dana Bash Calls Maine Ruling Against Trump ‘A Recipe for Constitutional Chaos’

CNN’s Dana Bash called the decision to keep Donald Trump off of the 2024 presidential primary ballot in Maine “a recipe for constitutional chaos.”

Bash said Friday that the U.S. Supreme Court will “almost surely have to solve” the issue over whether the 14th Amendment banning insurrectionists from holding public office applied to Trump. Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, made her decision Thursday, writing:

I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.

Bash asked CNN senior reporter Katelyn Polantz how Bellows came to her decision.

“She made a pretty robust set of findings,” Polantz said. “She wrote a 34-page ruling to explain what happened here. She looked at evidence. She saw the petitions that she received from different voters in the state of Maine, there were three different petitions. She looked at evidence. She looked at things like the January 6 House Committee report. She looked at Trump’s own words. She looked at testimony from people in his administration and determined that, yes, January 6th was an insurrection, and yes, Trump did engage in that insurrection.”

Polantz played a clip of Bellows saying it was her responsibility as secretary of state to determine whether Trump was fit to appear on Maine’s primary ballot:

Maine law specifically delegates to me as secretary of state a requirement to review the qualifications for any candidate running for office… My obligation and duty, my sole consideration, is my oath to uphold the Constitution.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called Maine’s decision “election interference,” adding, “We will quickly file a legal objection in state court to prevent this atrocious decision in Maine from taking effect.”

Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said Trump will remain on that state’s ballot unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in.

The Republican primaries for both Maine and Colorado are scheduled for March 5.

Watch the clip above via CNN.