Republican pundit’s hypocrisy lands with a thud on CNN panel

A Republican panelist’s attempt to square President Donald Trump’s crusade for “election integrity” flopped hard against Trump’s own attempts to undermine it during a CNN Saturday morning discussion.

Seattle Red Radio host and author Jason Rantz’ found himself siding with Trump’s Thursday night indictment of mail-in voting — despite Trump himself voting by mail on numerous occasions.

“Republicans have been more concerned about voting because they believe that elections are stolen. And I come from a state, Washington state, where it's 100 percent mail in voting. And I hear from people who say they're not going to vote because they don't trust the system. That kills me,” said Rantz. “… [Trump is] going to make sure that if people are registered illegally, they're not actually voting.”

“I think that that's a good thing,” added Rantz. “That should actually give [everyone] a little bit more trust in the system. What gives people a lack of trust is that you had a couple hundred thousand that we know of, potentially who have been registered to vote, and they're ineligible to vote. That should not happen. And it should be apolitical to look at that and simply say, ‘we should come up with some bipartisan solutions to ensure it's working.”

But Vox host and editorial director Astead Herndon could not hide his laughter.

“It’s Just wild to pretend that this isn't the same president who got on the phone with Brad Raffensperger and said ‘find people to help me win.’ Like, it's literally the same guy. It's too wild to see those things, because that’s two totally disconnected events. And that’s not going to be something I take seriously because of that.”

“Is it fair, though?” insisted Rantz. “I don't care about that. But my point is, do you not see that there's a problem if someone is getting registered to vote illegally? You don't think that's a problem?”

“I'm going to just watch you because I'm not going to play that game because I’m talking about Donald Trump’s actions from the White House, which were not an equivalent action,” said Herndon, staring at him.

“Because you don't think that's a problem. I know you don't want to talk about that because you don't want to talk about the actual issue. And it is a fair question that you don't take seriously,” said Rantz.

“I think Democrats would come to the table and work with Donald Trump if he had credibility when it came to voting, but he doesn't,” said former DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinjosa. “The problem is that he only cares about the elections that he loses or his party loses, and one of those is coming up. And all of a sudden, just a few months before the election, he wants to implement rules that would end up decreasing the number of people that can vote.”

“… If Donald Trump had never tried to stop the certification of elections and committed crimes — as a grand jury believe that he did — if that stuff had have never happened and he was about election security and wanted to work with Democrats with it, I think they would be willing to do that,” Hinjosa said.

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