Jay Ashcroft flopped when faced with the most dreaded predicament amongst grandstanding blowhards: a follow-up question
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s attempt to justify his ludicrous threat to have President Joe Biden removed from the state’s electoral ballot spiraled into chaos over the most basic of questions: “How so?”
During a Monday interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, the Republican was asked how he justified his threats to have Biden removed from the state’s ballot in retaliation for recent attempts to remove Trump from state ballots on grounds that his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election constitute insurrection. The constitutionality of such a removal will soon be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
“What would then be your justification for removing Joe Biden from the ballot in Missouri. Has he engaged in your mind in some kind of insurrection?” Sanchez asked.
“There have been allegations that he’s engaged in insurrection,” Ashcroft replied. He was then met with the most dreaded predicament amongst grandstanding blowhards: a follow-up question.
“How so?” Sanchez asked, prompting Ashcroft to demand that Sanchez stop interrupting him. “You can’t say something like that and not back it up,” Sanchez countered.
“You interrupted me before I could back it up,” a flustered Ashcroft complained. “Are you scared of the truth?”
We need more journalism that pushes back like this.
We certainly do, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that would accomplish much with these fuckers. They’ll just start avoiding the journalists that refuse to stay neutral or lob them softballs.
It’s not like their supporters are going to shame them for doing that, either. I’m shocked any Republican talks to any reporter that isn’t from Fox News anymore.
The problem with that is thinking that the follow-up question, “How so?” is anything BUT neutral or a softball. It’s just a basic question; it literally could not be MORE neutral.
This fool could have been on Newsmaxx or OANN and gotten that same question from a friendly interviewer trying to offer him the space to lay out more slanderous innuendo, unaware that Jay Ashcroft is completely unprepared for even that tiny amount of latitude.
I know that’s not your position or what you personally are advocating, but jesus fucking christ that’s an easy one. “So-and-so did something bad.” Response: “How so?”
To blatantly twist a quote from The Godfather, Jay Ashcroft showed up for that interview with nothing but his dick in his hand . . . and his hand wasn’t even full.
They already do avoid most journalists, for precisely that reason. Neutrality, to the insane Republican party, is the same thing as a far left bias.
Hell even within Fox news… Shepard Smith was one of a handful of actual journalists at Fox news, surrounded entirely by opinion shows.
Fox news viewers HATED Shepard Smith because he was “too opinionated.”
I can’t stand this reality.
I’m sure they dream of a day in the not-to-distant future where they can just have journalists like this killed.