Former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer took Democratic officials to task during a show segment Thursday after Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows — a former ACLU official — decided to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, following the Colorado Supreme Court’s similar ruling.
“What are the Democrats so afraid of? Are they afraid of democracy?” he told “Special Report.” “They don’t want to have somebody on the ballot because they don’t think they can beat him fair and square so they knock him off the ballot?
“This is so anti-democratic. I hope the Supreme Court strikes this down. But this is a violation of the norms. You can’t complain Trump violates the norms when the Democrats go out and do the exact same thing, even worse in this instance, themselves,” Fleischer said.
Former WH press secretary Ari Fleischer nails the reason why Trump's being taken off ballots – Democrat FEAR. pic.twitter.com/uFzmwFJ6tU
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) December 29, 2023
Others came to the same conclusion, including some of Trump’s 2024 GOP presidential competitors.
“The idea that one bureaucrat in an executive position can simply unilaterally disqualify someone from office, that turns on its head every notion of constitutional due process that this country’s always abided by for over 200 years,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been running a distant second place behind Trump throughout the campaign cycle thus far, told Fox News.
“It opens up Pandora’s box. Can you have a Republican secretary of state disqualify Biden from the ballot? Because he’s let in eight million people illegally, a massive invasion, including from enemies of our country. Places like Iran, China, Middle East have poured in with his knowledge and assent, basically,” he continued.
“So, it really opens up Pandora’s box. I don’t think that this ultimately will be legally sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court. But I do think that this is going to be a constant throughout the election year, where there’s going to be different parts of these legal cases that are going to be front and center,” he added.
“I think that we win when we hold Biden accountable and talk about the issues that matter to the American people. So, I think the Democrats, they want the election to be about all these other issues. They do not want to face accountability for their failed policies,” the governor said.
Meanwhile, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told NBC News he’s “worried for the country” after Maine’s ruling.
“In any state where Donald Trump is forcibly removed from the ballot in this way, I’ll also remove myself. And I challenge Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, and Ron DeSantis to do the same thing, or else they are also complicit. If every Republican removes themselves from the ballot in Maine, that automatically stops this election interference in our GOP primary,” he said.
“The fact is, they’re not doing it, which reveals there is something deeper going on. This isn’t just the Democrats,” he said. “There’s a force within the Republican establishment that has propped up a chosen puppet, and they’re rooting for this game outcome every bit as much as the Democrats are.
“It is time we open our eyes to this insidious game that is being played. I’m deeply worried, I’m worried that I’m right about this. That what we’re seeing right now isn’t the end of the road, this is just the beginning of what they’re planning to pull in 2024,” Ramaswamy added.
