GOP Candidate Gets Laughs At Debate After Praising Trump For “Standing Up To The Russians”
In a U.S. Senate debate with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine on Saturday, Republican nominee Corey Stewart told the audience that “we have a president who is standing up to the Russians,” eliciting a laugh from the crowd.
Stewart, a candidate known for his vocal defense of Confederate monuments and association with white supremacists, has made imitating and defending Trump a major part of his campaign.
At the 90-minute debate, Stewart dismissed the Russian interference in the 2016 election as nothing too unusual. “They’ve been spying for years,” he said.
Instead, he called for greater cooperation with the Russians while also accusing European allies of mistreating the U.S.
He called the Russian interference “alleged” and said that there had been no proven wrongdoing, calling the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt,” echoing the president’s own words. “We have a president who is standing up to the Russians,” he declared.
After a moment, Kaine laughed, and his supporters in the audience many of whom were lawyers from the Virginia Bar Association, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch joined in.
