Cory Booker claims a Kamala win would 'kill MAGA,' restore old GOP

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) took a page out of the Pete Buttigieg Democratic playbook Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union to claim that a victory by Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump in the November presidential election would “kill MAGA” and restore the vintage Republican Party.

After being challenged (for about the last time) by host Jake Tapper about Democrats can “talk about a new chapter, turning the page” when they have been “the ones writing the book,” Booker flatly denied reality.

“Well, you know that that's not true, Jake, because you know politics like I do. Right now, we see the MAGA Republicans in Congress killing all kinds of pragmatic policies that we need to get done. On the most contentious issue, we had a bipartisan deal argued by — excuse me — settled on by Sen. [James] Lankford [R-OK], a right-wing Republican, and Sen. Chris Murphy [D-CT], a blue-state Democrat,” Booker began.

“And what killed that deal? What killed the pragmatic progress? It wasn't the sensible Republicans, but really people that were kowtowing to Donald Trump. His influence is egregious and incredible, from his appointment of three people to the Supreme Court that are now rolling back the most fundamental of our rights and freedoms, like bodily autonomy and reproductive rights,” Booker continued.

The senator then argued the acrimony will all vanish when MAGA Republicans are no longer “undermining commonsense, pragmatic, sensible politics … And what I know this election can do is finally kill that strain of the Republican Party in a way that I think helps the pragmatic Republicans come back.

Booker was repeating the same talking points as articulated by Buttigieg last July when he spoke to The New York Times about how “weird” those MAGA Republicans are getting. "And you got to ask yourself," Buttigieg said, "you know, is that the kind of person you want in charge of the country, especially because we saw how not just weird but, but how chaotic it was last time in part of the promise of a Kamala Harris presidency, is actually the prospect of a comparatively normal Republican Party."

 

"What I mean by that is, beating Donald Trump the first time in 2020 ended his term, but it did not end his grip on the GOP. Beating him twice would, I think, will have a different effect on a lot of people in the GOP who know better than to be on board with him,” Buttigieg insisted, suggesting that Trump really “goes against their values, too, not just my values.”

The transportation secretary then declared that it’s all been about a simple but reckless lust for power because the people in the red hats have “gone along with it because they think it's the path to power."