Ever since President Trump issued a pardon to controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday, most Republicans–including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan–have said Trump shouldn’t have pardoned Sheriff Joe, who had been convicted of contempt of court for disobeying a federal judge’s order.
But on CNN Monday morning, Arizona State Representative Steve Montenegro tried to defend Arpaio, but he was unable to actually defend the sheriff’s racial profiling of Hispanics. Instead, Montenegro attempted to blame “liberals” and “the left” for all of the controversy.
Montenegro’s obvious attempts to divert attention from Arpaio’s actions drew the strong ire of former GOP strategist Ana Navarro, who reminded him:
“John McCain, who has spoken strongly against the Arpaio pardon, is not the left. He is a national hero and was the Republican nominee. Your other senator, Jeff Flake, also a Republican from Arizona, people who know the facts and have been on the ground are not the left. Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, who came out and spoke against this pardoning of Arpaio, is not the left.”
Again, Montenegro reverted back to his talking point that only “liberals” were upset with the pardon, which led host Chris Cuomo to challenge him:
“Defend the practice! You’re not speaking to the practice, you haven’t said a damn thing about the practice.”
As you might expect, Montenegro failed to defend Arpaio’s racist behavior because it’s clearly indefensible and illegal. Like so many who support Donald Trump no matter what he does, Representative Montenegro is allowing his devotion to a corrupt head of state to blind him to reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XiOa0EtVvA
Featured Image Via CNN Screengrab
