MSNBC producer rips apart Trump’s bogus Hillary Clinton/Stacey Abrams claims

After surrendering at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday, August 24, former President Donald Trump spoke to reporters and made "whataboutist" arguments to attack District Attorney Fani Willis' prosecution of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump claimed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic organizer Stacey Abrams did "the same thing" after losing elections to Republicans.

But in an August 25 opinion column for MSNBC's website, Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen explains why Trump is mixing apples and oranges.

"Do you remember when the former secretary of state and former gubernatorial candidate launched scandalous and multifaceted initiatives to overturn their election defeats?" Benen argues. "Well, no, chances are you don't remember that, because that never happened."

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Benen adds that Clinton "conceded defeat the night of the 2016 election and attended Trump's inauguration."

The Maddow producer notes, "Abrams was understandably critical of what transpired in her statewide 2018 race — her opponent and the Georgia official responsible for administering the election were the same person — but she never tried to launch a legally dubious scheme to overturn the results."

Trump's defenders have often made "whataboutist" claims when discussing his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), for example, has argued that special counsel Jack Smith's election-related criminal indictment is unfair in light of former Vice President Al Gore's response to the 2000 presidential election's outcome. McCarthy has claimed that Gore's actions show that Smith is guilty of a double standard — an argument former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) slammed as "complete garbage" during a CNN appearance.

Gore initially requested vote recounts in Florida, making it clear he would gladly concede to Republican nominee George W. Bush if recounts confirmed that he lost the Sunshine State. And eventually, Gore conceded, congratulated Bush and fully acknowledged Bush as the legitimate U.S. president-elect.

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Steve Benen's full MSNBC column is available at this link.