Peace in Our Time? Liberal Panelists Agree with Rick Santorum About Thing Trump is ‘Great’ At

A lighthearted wave of bipartisanship swept over the set of CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, as former Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) and former Rep. Nina Turner (D-OH) found themselves in agreement with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), an occurrence so rare as to portend the imminent living together of dogs and cats.

Even more surprising, though, might be the subject on which these panelists agreed.

Santorum provided some salient analysis of recent political races, observing that “what we saw from the governor’s race in Georgia, what we saw from the governor’s race in Florida, we saw from the senate race in Texas with Beto, is they all ran far left, they were all unapologetically broad, and they almost won in some really tough states.”

“It’s the messenger, the best communicator wins,” Santorum continued, but then added “Donald Trump is a great communicator, you might not like him, but he’s a great communicator. They’ve got to find someone who’s a great communicator.”

“I actually agree with you on that,” Granholm said, and Turner added “I’ll give him that.”

“Let’s all hold hands,” Santorum said, and the panel enjoyed a moment of levity.

Santorum’s point about Democrats needing a “great communicator” is tough to argue with, and DNC Chair Tom Perez stumbled trying to say the same last week, but there might be some who would quarrel with the assessment that a guy who once blurted out this 90-second single sentence qualifies as such:

There’s also the small matter of the 3,924 false statements (at last count) that Trump has made since taking office, according to Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, and the more than 6,000 false or misleading statements that The Washington Post has tallied.

Except for all of that, and the tremendous gulf between the Democrats’ voters and the base with whom Trump communicates, Santorum has a solid point.

Host Jake Tapper went on to observe that many Democrats are “talking about Beto O’Rourke and saying that he should run for president, they think he’s inspiring.”

“He is inspiring, and he’s courageous,” Granholm said.

“And so is Gillum and so is Abrams,” added Turner, referencing Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams. “So Beto is one side of it, Gillum and Abrams are the other side of it.”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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