Former Republican Ramiro Gonzalez called out former President Donald Trump during a Univision town hall, pointing out a string of Trump's failures after asking Trump to "win back my vote"—and Trump's response didn't help.
Gonzalez, a Florida Republican, said he was disturbed by Trump's actions on and after the January 6 insurrection, the day a mob of Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on the false premise that the 2020 election had been stolen. He also questioned Trump's coronavirus response and how so many of his former officials refuse to support him this year.
He said:
"I am a Republican, no longer registered. I want to give you an opportunity to try and win back my vote. Your action and inaction during your presidency during the last few years was a little disturbing to me."
"What happened during January 6 and the fact that you waited so long to take action while attacking the Capitol. [The coronavirus pandemic] I thought the country was misled during the coronavirus and more lives could have been saved if we had been informed better. And also people in your administration who don't support you."
"I'm curious how people so close to you and your administration no longer want to support you so why would I want to support you? If you would answer these questions for me, I'd really appreciate it and I'll give you the opportunity. Your own vice president [Mike Pence] doesn't want to support you now."
To the surprise of no one, Trump gave a rambling response trying to defend himself against Gonzalez's concerns:
"The people who don't support are a very small portion. We have a tremendous, about 97% of the people in the administration support me but because it's me when someone doesn't support they get a little publicity. [Pence] I disagreed with him. I totally disagree with what he did."
“You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election and that's why they came. Some of those people came down to the Capitol, I said 'peacefully' and 'patriotically.'"
"Nothing was done wrong. Nothing done wrong. Action was taken, strong action. Ashlii Babbit was killed. No one was killed. We didn't have guns down there. Other people had guns. They didn't have guns. When I say 'we,' these are people that walked down, this was a tiny percentage of what nobody sees, nobody shows."
"That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, the hundreds of thousands. The largest people I've ever spoken, they asked me to speak and I spoke. I used the term 'peacefully' and 'patriotically.'"
And of course he pivoted to attacking Democrats:
"You look at the Democrats, what they say, you look at Maxine Waters and Hillary Clinton. You look at what they say and don't put that on, they only put Republicans on. They couldn't get me because I said 'peacefully' and 'patriotically.'"
"We'll see how it all works out but right now we're in another election. I want honest elections. I'm willing to take any chance. I just want honest elections."
You can watch the exchange in the video below.
The look on Gonzalez's face said it all—and many online observers slammed Trump's response on his behalf.
All of Trump's claims essentially ignore that his own intelligence agencies determined the 2020 election was both free and fair.
In fact, a statement from the Trump administration's own Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of a joint statement from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, affirmed the agencies found "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Moreover, the gravity of the insurrection cannot be understated: it resulted in at least five deaths, over 100 injuries to law enforcement—some of whom were forced to retire or resign due to PTSD—and millions of dollars in property damage to the Capitol building.
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