(Headline USA) Kate Bedingfield, the former White House communications director for President Joe Biden, admitted this weekend that Democrats were misrepresenting recent comments by former President Donald Trump about the upcoming election.
Trump spoke at the Turning Point USA-sponsored Believers Summit in Florida on Friday, where he encouraged his supporters to “get out and vote, just this time.”
After November, “You won’t have to do it anymore … In four years, you don’t have to vote again,” he added. “We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”
Democrats immediately pounced on Trump’s comments to claim the former president would “end democracy,” with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., calling Trump an “authoritarian” who would make sure Americans “never have the chance to vote again.”
However, even Bedingfield argued this was an uncharitable interpretation.
“I realize this will earn me the ire of many Dems, but … I don’t think that here he’s saying there will be no more elections,” Bedingfield wrote on X.
“I think he is saying I won’t be on the ticket either way, so who cares,” she added. “Which is hideously damning in its own right, cause this is what the Republican Party has turned itself inside out and shredded its credibility for — to become a stan account for this one awful, narcissistic guy.”
I realize this will earn me the ire of many Dems, but…I don’t think that here he’s saying there will be no more elections. I think he is saying I won’t be on the ticket either way, so who cares. Which is hideously damning in its own right, cause this is what the Republican Party… https://t.co/NT3tGxJMvT
— Kate Bedingfield (@KBeds) July 28, 2024
In a follow up post, Bedingfield insisted that she was “in no way minimizing” the “threats that Trump poses” to democracy.
“I’m just saying that right here what he is telling us is WHY he doesn’t care about this country—cause he only cares about him,” she claimed.
After continuing to receive backlash from the Left, though, Bedingfield tried to walk back her earlier statement.
“I’m neither defending him nor giving him the benefit of the doubt—I called him an awful, narcissistic man who is a threat to democracy in my tweets,” she wrote.
“But we win this thing in part by persuading people who aren’t yet persuaded,” she added. “And telling them why he’s a threat—bc he only cares about himself—is more persuasive than just saying he’s a threat,” she said.
The former Biden staffer came under fire earlier this month for stoking inflammatory rhetoric about Trump just days after the former president narrowly avoided an assassination attempt.
