For just one brief moment, U.S. Senator James Lankford remembered that he was an American and not just a Republican.
While Trump, Giuliani and the gang were busy wasting the country’s time pretending they didn’t get their asses handed to them at the ballot box earlier in the month, Lankford told a Tulsa public radio station that he would step in as a member of the Senate Oversight Committee and get the President’s Daily Brief, an intelligence update, into the hands of President-elect Joe Biden.
“There is no loss from him getting the briefings and to be able to do that,” Lankford said. “This needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election, whichever way that it goes, people can be ready for that actual task.”
News of a Republican breaking rank from the Trump regime is a rarity this year and news ricocheted quickly around the internet. Fortunately, Lankford remembered who his owners are quickly enough to backpedal before he had to sleep in the doghouse for the rest of the lame-duck session.
The Senate Republican who said last week that he would get involved if President-elect Joe Biden was not given access to intelligence briefings says his comments were misinterpreted.
“I’m not in a hurry, necessarily, to get Joe Biden these briefings. It’s been interesting how the media, the national media — not this network, but others — have twisted this term ‘step in,’ Lankford said days later.
But the thing about radio is that it’s an actual recording of actual words spoken by actual people. And here’s Lankford’s “twisted” statement:
“If that’s not occurring by Friday, I will step in as well, and to be able to push.”
The interview aired on a Wednesday. It seems like the technique of convincing rank-and-follow Republican voters that what’s happening in front of their face really isn’t is being test-driven by the president’s sycophants.
While Lankford may look like a ventriloquist dummy with fewer facial expressions, he should do a better job of trying to hide the fact that Trump’s hand is making him move.