Braun on whether he should admit fault: “In what regard? For being a Republican?”
Braun on the severity of the GOP’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results: “I didn’t think it was going to get litigated”
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Democratic Party, the organization that advocates for the future of Indiana and its families, today once again criticized U.S. Senator Mike Braun for failing to own up to the chaos and mess he helped create leading up to the insurrection against the United States on January 6. Hoosiers all remember Braun flip-flopped six times on whether to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. They also remember that just moments before the U.S. Senate was to begin the process of certifying the election results, Braun made a spectacle about it on social media.
Now: Mike Braun not only won’t apologize but claimed he didn’t think voters and other bad actors like U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz wouldn’t actually “litigate” the election results in a public setting. Braun’s inability to be a responsible adult and leader for Indiana is exactly why the Indiana Democratic Party called for his resignation last January. It’s also why many Hoosiers have lost their trust in the U.S. Senator, because like the rest of the Indiana Republican Party, he cares more about deploying dangerous rhetoric than providing a future for Indiana and its families.
As always, here are some key points from U.S. Senator Mike Braun’s interview with Importantville:
“Do you accept any culpability for what happened on January 6th at the Capitol?
In what regard? For being a Republican?
No. You made some very high profile comments in November and December about election fraud. You blamed reporters, you went on George Stephanopoulos and propagated what many are objectively calling the “big lie.” Do you feel like you were honest with Indiana voters about the 2020 election results?
Sure, because it was never for that purpose. And my only interest had nothing to do with propagating a lie, nothing to do with subverting democracy, or overturning an election. That is what was attributed to anyone that thought that you may want to have some type of independent look into any irregularity, anything that was a mess to track it down as being not worth considering, or something that you might want to at least look at. And in the context mostly of maybe doing it through not from the Senate or from a national government, because is the bailiwick of states anyway, for election law.
What changed, though? Because at the beginning of December, you issued a statement recognizing Joe Biden as the duly elected president of the United States. And then a few weeks later, you said that you were going to vote against certification.
I just said that there were two thresholds. One was the state’s certifying, that was December 14 if I recall, and man counting of the electoral votes, which is a perfunctory function and never was any of us that did have a formal objection out there was it with the intent of doing anything to overturn. It was mostly about doing what you do often when you make a statement, it’s to say that maybe the issue doesn’t end there. Todd Young and I had both spoke to a group from Bartholomew County, I don’t know if you saw that.” […]
“So you accept no culpability for what happened on January 6th?
No, because why would one individual have anything to do… I was appalled by what occurred, and I stated that, if you listen to what I told the folks from Columbus.
Then why did you change your vote at the last minute on January 6th?
Because I didn’t think it was going to get litigated and people were actually thinking that it could. And with what happened, it didn’t make sense to push forward on something that was punctuated in that way and that clearly was going to be taken up if there were issues by the individual states.”
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