With three Republican senators pledging to vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, radio host Buck Sexton said two of them are simply seeking self-promotion and approval from establishment media.
On "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show", the hosts agreed that the third yes-vote, Maine Sen. Susan Collins is essentially "standing on her principles", irrespective of whether they or other conservative Americans agree with what the lawmaker's personal tenets are.
Host Clay Travis said Collins has a history of giving "deference" to the incumbent president's nominees and noted how she offered a fiery speech in favor of Trump nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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However, in regard to Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sexton said the former is seeking establishment praise while the latter is making a political calculation ahead of her contested re-election bid this fall.
"[Romney] was the Republican nominee for president in 2012 – just when we talk about the GOP and some of its failings, just remember this was the guy," the former CIA officer said.
"But, there is a specific Republican malady whereby people get into elected office and - and, as [Travis] pointed out with The New York Times, they are so quick to stab their own side in the back for just the most meager pat on the head from the Democrat elites -- just for some crumbs from the table of Vanity Fair," he added. "And all of a sudden they forget about why they got there in the first place."
Travis agreed, adding he felt Romney's vote against repealing TSA mask mandates and his participation in a Black Lives Matter march are further inexplicable as a conservative.
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Sexton said Murkowski's her vote against Kavanaugh should be "unforgivable" to the Last Frontier's electorate.
Returning to Romney, the hosts said the Utah senator is after "cheap, false virtue," and compared him to former Republicans who now work at MSNBC like show hosts Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace.
"It really is the equivalent of some of these former Republicans who run over to MSNBC, and maybe they still call themselves Republicans, or maybe they call themselves independent and all they do is go on air to trash the side that they supposedly support and represent – or did at some point," Sexton said. "It’s pathetic. There’s a reason why the betrayers and traitors are in the final circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno. There’s just something so unseemly about being that person who turns on your own side for the amusement of those who despise you."
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He added, "The left hates Mitt Romney, they’re not going to say he’s a good guy for this."
Travis said the way the 2022 Senate map looks for Republicans, if they do gain a seat or two, Romney or a reelected Murkowski could become the "Joe Manchin" of the GOP; in reference to the moderate West Virginia Democrat who has often bucked his party in close votes.