It feels like permanent Washington has always hated Donald Trump, but actually, that's not true. For years, Trump was considered merely a joke in D.C., a celebrity sideshow. People were happy to have him at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and that was true as late as the 2016 primaries. There were still many professional Republicans, people you wouldn't expect, people like Bill Kristol, Joe Scarborough, people were making highly positive noises about Donald Trump, and then it changed in a moment.
It changed on Feb. 13 of that year at the Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina. That's when Donald Trump criticized the Iraq war: "Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake," he said, and of course, by that point, it certainly was obvious that it was a mistake, but that didn't mean you were allowed to admit it in Washington. You weren't.
Thousands of lobbyists, think tank analysts, hack beltway journalists owe their salaries and their reputations to perpetuating the lie that American foreign policy was succeeding, everything was fine. No one really believed that. The evidence was too strong on the other side, but everyone had to say it. Too many careers were at stake, and yet suddenly, here was Donald Trump refusing to play along, giving away the game in public on TV.
The reaction to this in D.C. was violent and immediate. Donald Trump must be stopped. If Donald Trump is willing to criticize the Iraq war as a Republican, God knows what else he might say. The "Never Trump" movement that resulted from that year's South Carolina debate, and that's where it began. That movement went on to do all kinds of things, including subverting the rule of law in this country, as well as entire federal agencies, but one of its first efforts was a little-remembered spoiler campaign designed to siphon votes from Trump in the general election.
ANGRY PROTESTERS CRASH ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ'S TOWN HALL IN HER OWN HOME DISTRICT
A group of liberals in Washington and formerly headed by Bill Kristol, recruited a longtime federal bureaucrat called Evan McMullin and convinced him to run for president. McMullin didn't seem like a presidential candidate. He was 40 years old, never married and very obviously odd — very odd.
He had no trouble raising money. There are a lot of liberals happy to write him checks. The problem was voters. They were not impressed by Evan McMullin at all. By the end, he won half of 1% of the popular total and zero electoral votes and he was soon forgotten except on Wikipedia. And yet — and here's the point — six years later, Evan McMullin has reemerged. He's running for Senate in the state of Utah against incumbent Mike Lee and amazingly, he could win. He could actually win.
Now, if McMullin does win, his vote could very well give Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. How did this happen? How was this possible? You wonder. It doesn't make sense. Utah is a conservative, highly Republican state. Evan McMullin has the same politics and worldview as Pete Buttigieg. He is a liberal Democrat.
Ah, but he's not running as a liberal Democrat and that's the key to his success this year. Evan McMullin is running, instead, as an independent, and many voters appear to be under the impression that he actually is independent, but he's not. That's a lie, a transparent lie. Evan McMullin is roughly as independent as Kamala Harris is. He's considerably less independent than, say, Ilhan Omar. Evan McMullin is anything but independent. He is entirely controlled and has always been. McMullin even uses the Democratic Party's fundraising platform, ActBlue.
His campaign has paid nearly $2 million to Democratic Party consulting services in the last year alone. That would include Precision Strategies, co-founded by a Biden adviser. Other firms include Foundation Strategies, Blueprint Public Affairs and KMM Strategies. These are all partisan Democratic Party firms. In politics, you pick a side in the consultants you hire, and Evan McMullin has picked his side — the Democratic side.
MINNESOTA GOP SECRETARY OF STATE WANTS TO MANDATE PROOFREADING FOR EVERY COUNTY'S BALLOTS
Not surprisingly, the creepy liberals at the Lincoln Project who lie for a living are busy pretending that Evan McMullin is not one of them. Oh, no. "Republicans," they write. "Evan McMullin truly represents your values." Really? Which values are those? Does Evan McMullin oppose amnesty for illegal migrants? Does he oppose race-crazed teachers’ unions?
Does he oppose even Tony Fauci? No, of course not. Evan McMullin is fully on board with every anti-family scheme the Democratic Party has dreamed up over the last decade. As a supposedly faithful Mormon, he can't even acknowledge that Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. He is a neoliberal robot. There's nothing independent about him. Watch him read the Democratic Party's talking points, for example, on abortion.
EVAN MCMULLIN: I am committed to the sanctity of life, but I think that means the lives of women, that means the lives of unborn, of course, and it means the life — the lives of children and I think we've got to take a more comprehensive approach to that.
MEHDI HASAN: But just to be clear, you don't support overturning Roe v. Wade anymore, as you did in 2016? I'm just trying to get clarity.
MCMULLIN: I do not think that that is the way for the country to move forward on this issue.
So, keeping Roe v. Wade is the way for the country to move forward, but of course, Roe v. Wade, whatever you think of it, throws everything in amber in 1973 and imposed the most radically pro-abortion regime from the courts on all 50 states. So, of course, you can't move forward under Roe v. Wade in either direction. It doesn't make sense. It's effectively pro-abortion. You don't typically hear Mormons talk like that and in fact, Evan McMullin, as you just heard, suggested, did not used to talk like this. In fact, back in 2016, he denounced Donald Trump, the guy who would eventually get Roe v. Wade overturned, because he said Trump wasn't pro-life enough. "I'm the only pro-life candidate in the race," McMullin wrote in 2016.
REPUBLICANS REACT TO BIDEN WHITE HOUSE SECRECY AROUND DELAWARE VISITORS: 'A BUNCH OF MALARKEY'
Four years later, after Trump successfully appointed several pro-life justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade, McMullin has clarified what he means he says pro-life. It turns out being pro-life has nothing to do with protecting children. Here's what McMullin said: "You aren't actually pro-life if you can't say ‘Black Lives Matter.'" Oh, right. Black Lives Matter, which is an explicitly pro-choice organization. Are you following all this? It doesn't make any sense. He's a liberal Democrat, and it'd be fine if he ran as one. Utah voters should know what they're voting for and he should be honest about who he is. If you pay any attention at all to McMullin's last three years in "public life," it's very obvious. In 2020, he endorsed Joe Biden because he cares about Republican values.
MCMULLIN: For many, choosing between these two Americas will require us to do something we've never done before: crossing party lines to support a unifying presidential candidate of another party. I believe Joe to be an honorable patriot who's loyal to the republic, and that's why I plan to put country over party, and in November, cast my vote for Joe.
He's putting country over party by voting for Joe Biden, who not one time in his entire life has put country over party. After endorsing Biden for office (and again, lots of people did. That's OK. Don't call it independent), Evan McMullin did not act independently — just the opposite. He proceeded to crib his personal opinions directly from Karine Jean-Pierre and the other geniuses in the White House PR office. There isn't a stupid Democratic buzz phrase he didn't use and then overuse again and again and again. We can give you a million examples. Here's one. Watch him accuse a "majority of House Republicans" of voting to overturn the election results.
STEVE HOBBS WOULD BE WASHINGTON'S FIRST DEMOCRATIC SECRETARY OF STATE IN 6 DECADES IF ELECTED
MCMULLIN: And then to see that violent, that deadly insurrection happen that threatened our democracy and then to watch a majority of House Republicans still vote to overturn the results of the election — all of that just describes, of course, a party that is sick, that is rotten to the core.
He's an MSNBC contributor. I mean, that's what he is, and if the voters of Utah want to elect one, they should just elect Joy Reid. At least she's not pretending to be something that she's not, and she's also probably a little smarter than Evan McMullin. No one voted to overturn the results of the election, actually, not a majority of House Republicans. What happened is that Republicans did exactly what Democrats did in 1969, in 2001, in 2005, in 2017. Republicans objected to the certification of the results pending an audit. Huh? That's what actually happened. We watched, but McMullin doesn't mention 1969, 2001, 2005 or 2017 because he's just repeating talking points he gets from his handlers in the Democratic Party and he's been doing this for years. Here he is accusing millions of Republican voters of racism.
MCMULLIN: There's a taboo within the Republican Party about attacking racism in America, and I know that that's the case, because when you do it as a conservative, you get attacked by elements within the party. There is an element of the Republican base that is racist.
Yeah, there's a huge taboo in America against opposing racism. We've organized the entire society on a bipartisan basis to oppose racism, but somehow, Evan McMullin's the only man brave enough to oppose racism in public. He's also against polio and car crashes. The guy's a moron, but he's false.
There are a lot of morons in politics. He's probably not the stupidest person in politics. Mazie Hirono still serves in the Senate, but he's a fraud. If he reminds you of anyone else, a guy pretending to be Republican so he can undermine his own voters once he gets in office, actually, it sounds a little bit like Mitt Romney, the other senator from Utah. In a recent debate with Mike Lee, McMullin just came out and said it.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
MCMULLIN: Sen. Romney has worked hard and consistently over the past three years. I think it's important he works with Republicans and Democrats, Sen. Lee, to deliver for Utah, and he voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that you voted against.
Look, if voters in Utah want to elect a liberal Democrat, if they want to elect another Pete Buttigieg and if they think that Pete Buttigieg's politics or Evan McMullin's politics represent the politics of the families of Utah, then go ahead and do it, but don't lie. Be transparent. Say who you are. You are a liberal Democrat. That's the update from Utah.
