North Carolina senator on midterm election, DOJ subpoenas and Alaska voting lawsuit
(CBS, KYMA) - Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the issues Republicans are addressing leading up to the midterm elections.
A CBS News poll said 83% of voters are seeing corruption as a major factor, and said it is a concern in determining their vote, and they see it as more of an issue with Republicans.
This prompted Brennan to ask Sen. Tillis how will his party overcome this perception, to which he said:
"I think a part of what we have to do is be open about what we've done right and where we've kind of skated into the gray area. I'll give you a good example of why I think maybe people feel that way. You can't have an oligarch pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president's son's wedding and not make it look odd, particularly when that oligarch is aligned with Putin and has gone on delegations with Putin to Beijing. That's just one example. What we need to do is learn the rule of figure out where the line is and take a step back, or American people are already predisposed to assume Democrats and Republicans are corrupt. We're just feeding that narrative when we let things like that happen, whether it's legal or not. It's irrelevant."
During the interview, Brennan and Tillis talked about the Department of Justice (DOJ) telling California election officials they'll risk "legal consequences" if they continue to send vote-by-mail ballots to a list of voters they say are not confirmed citizens," as well as taking action against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), even though she has not been charged with a crime.
When asked if he sees a pattern, or if he's comfortable with the DOJ taking actions this close to an election, the senator said:
Later in the interview, Brennan and Tillis talked about the DOJ filing a lawsuit against Alaska to block the certification of its Senate race if Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who is the incumbent, loses.
It argues the presence of another GOP candidate, named Daniel J. Sullivan, could create confusion for voters and benefit Democrats.
Tillis' colleague, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said the DOJ should never have filed the lawsuit, adding Alaskans don't need help picking a preferred candidate.
This led Brennan to ask if there will be any consequences, and the senator said:
"There are very few people that know Alaska better than Lisa. To be honest with you, Lisa Murkowski is a friend and an extraordinary member of the U.S. Senate. I agree that I think the lawsuit...I mean, filing a lawsuit before anything that could be substantiated that's a legal question is suspicious to me...It's almost a preemptive, a presumptive posture versus simply telling the Alaska election officials we're going to be watching this closely because clearly Democrats game the system by having a Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Either the Democrat Party, there's some evidence to suggest that Chuck Schumer may have even been involved. So I don't mind looking at it, but I do mind the appearance of filing a lawsuit before we even know if the facts that would substantiate a lawsuit actually occur."
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Tillis, click here.
