CNN commentator Paul Begala took Rep. Nicole Malliotakis to task when she tried to pull the same red-baiting stunt we saw from Sen. Markwayne Mullin the previous day on Fox. As we already discussed here, Mullin tried to paint everyone who showed up for the No Kings protests as a bunch of commies because they found one of the hundreds of sponsors at one of the over 2700 protests across the country was the Communist Party of the United States.
Things didn't go quite so well for Malliotakis, and Begala basically told her to keep it up and we'll see how that works out for them in the midterm elections.
BEGALA: They said, oh, they're all a bunch of redneck, toothless racists. Guess what? They won 63 seats the next midterm. Republicans came out and they said, people who go to these rallies are Hamas. Good God!
I'm not a rally guy. I'm not a protest guy. I went. You know who I saw? Barbara Comstock, a Republican member of Congress out there protesting Donald Trump. I saw... I didn't see Antifa. I saw a lot of Aunt Ediths. I saw a lot of really nice veterans, cops, firefighters, small business people.
And when your party attacks those folks, all you're doing is setting yourself up for a landslide. Believe me, I watched my party do it in 2009.
MALLIOTAKIS: Look, what I've been saying is that I'm sure there are many good people who participated yesterday because they aren't happy with the direction of this country. We see the pendulum swing. People were not happy with open borders and high inflationary spending under President Biden. We swung it back. They don't want to see the pendulum go so far, and they want centrist government. That's what I truly believe.
But this group is associated with the radical left. On their flyer, look at the sponsors. You had the Communist Party of the United States of America. You had the Socialist Party of America. These are radical left groups. They are the sponsors of this march.
So the good people that were there because they wanted to send a message, guess what? They've associated themselves with communists, and that to me, I think is just unacceptable.
BEGALA: Each of those attacks is another two, five seats in the House. Keep going. I should shut up.
MALLIOTAKIS: It's not an attack! It's not like I'm making it up, it's on the flyer. You know, like you're marching at an event in which the Communist Party was the sponsor. I know, it's hysterical, right? But it's sad actually.
TODD: You're my favorite communist though Paul.
BEGALA: It's self-destructive.
They know they're in trouble, which is why they're doing their best to steal seats with more illegal redistricting and gerrymandering. But Begala is correct. Keep talking Republicans. You're pissing off anyone not in the cult and you're motivating Democrats to show up and vote.
