Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) challenged Joe Biden for the Democratic Party nomination for president earlier this year. It was a strange campaign. It was almost as if Phillips was waiting for Biden to drop dead and then move in and claim the prize. Ghoulish to be sure.
Phillips finally dropped out of the race in March. But he apparently misses the spotlight of national politics because he just released a weird statement on X calling on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Donald Trump "for the good of the country."
The statement he released has to be read to be believed.
Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim.@GovKathyHochul should pardon him for the good of the country.
— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) June 1, 2024
Huh?
He followed that up with an even weirder post to X.
You think pardoning is stupid?
— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) June 1, 2024
Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different.)
It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost.
He's not wrong. But Democrats just don't say that stuff out loud.
Phillips' remarks about the "record" fundraising came after the Trump campaign announced Friday evening that it had raised nearly $53 million in the 24 hours after Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts in his criminal trial in New York City.
The campaign, as reported by Fox News Digital, had previously announced it had hauled in $34.8 million in fundraising from 6 p.m. ET to midnight on Thursday, immediately after the verdict in the case was made public.
The campaign touted that the fundraising was "nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform" and emphasized that the guilty verdicts "have awakened the MAGA movement like never before."
As far as whether Hochul is open to pardoning Trump, it's extremely unlikely.
“In the state of New York, if you commit a crime, and there’s evidence to demonstrate that you have met the standards of being arrested and brought to a trial and a jury of your peers considers all the evidence, then their verdict must hold.
“And that’s exactly how the rule of law has always prevailed in our country. And this is no different. So I just want to make sure everyone knows our rule is no one is above the law.”
So, I guess it's a "no" then, eh, Kathy?
In one of the more humorous responses to Phillips, the former first (or is it last) niece of Donald Trump, Mary Trump, exposed her own stupidity by asking if anyone even remembered Phillips running for president.
My guess is many, many more people know who Rep. Dean Phillips is than have even heard of Mary Trump.
Remember former presidential candidate Dean Phillips? Neither do I, but his untreated megalomania forces him to keep reminding us he exists. Now he’s in the news bc he thinks Donald should be pardoned (bc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
— Mary L. Trump (@MaryLTrump) June 1, 2024
which is how we know it’s an absolutely terrible idea.
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