Today, Adam Laxalt was on defense for his failure to overturn the 2020 election.
As Trump’s campaign co-chair, Laxalt led efforts to contest the 2020 election results in Nevada and was “the face of” Trump’s Big Lie in the state. He has faced major criticism from law enforcement leadership for turning his back on police and fundraising off the Big Lie, even after it fueled the January 6 insurrection (which Laxalt said was exaggerated, according to the AP).
The New York Times recently reported that Laxalt is “laying detailed groundwork” to overturn the 2022 election, applying the lessons he learned in 2020.
But that wasn’t enough for his primary opponent, who asserted Laxalt “failed” on election integrity [full clip here].
LAXALT: For him to say that I failed on election integrity is, you know, obviously pretty comical. I was the chair of the Trump campaign, and we sounded every alarm imaginable as the Democrats radically altered our election… But President Trump does not throw away his endorsement lightly and the reality is, he has endorsed me in this race because he knows that I did the best I possibly could standing up for our elections in a state where, at the end of the day, you had a Democrat governor and two Democrat houses. They went in and they changed the rules. And unfortunately, there was nothing much we could do about that.
BROWN: Does President Trump know that you filed the lawsuits late though? And does he know that when you lost to Steve Sisolak in 2018, you blamed 100,000 Trump voters for that loss? What have you told him?
LAXALT: President Trump has often stated that he’s well aware lawsuits were filed late. I was not in charge of any lawsuits. I was a co-chair of the campaign. I was not in charge of litigation. That was the Trump campaign, and they hired lawyers. They filed the lawsuits. And so, he’s just as disappointed as I am that lawsuits came late to the state of Nevada, came late in a lot of other places.
LAXALT: And hopefully, this campaign, as I’ve spoken since – the media has been asking about it since day one – I’ve never shirked from this issue of election integrity. We need to be willing to file lawsuits early. We need to be able to have good lawyers that are paying attention and doing whatever we can to tighten up our system and disincentive any potential voter fraud.
SHAD: Okay, last word here.
BROWN: So, as the chairman of the Trump campaign, at what point do you accept responsibility for the lack of lawyers performing? For the failure of lawsuits to be filed on time? I just don’t understand when President Trump has asked you to take that leadership position and Nevadans, including folks like me who volunteered to get him re-elected, are counting on someone at the top to do something, and you did nothing.
LAXALT: Sam, I didn’t see you in any way volunteering to be part of that solution. I was the one who had to stand on the line there through the end as the media was attacking me, even challenging my patriotism, someone that served our country in uniform. But the reality is presidential campaigns are run by the national presidential campaign. It’s always done that way.
LAXALT: I bemoaned and was incredibly upset that action came late. But I wasn’t in charge. And President Trump understands what happened. He’s not happy with it. And again, Republicans need to do a better job. This happened all across the country, and this was an RNC, national effort that got caught flat-footed. And we simply did not get the resources that we needed here.
BROWN: Yeah, at the end of the day, this is about, once again, Nevadans deserve better. And we’re not going to settle for people who blame everyone else when they fail. If you don’t want to be in a position of leadership, where you shoulder the burden of executing or failure, you don’t have to pursue it.
Statement from Nevada Democratic Victory Spokesperson Olivia Davis:
“Adam Laxalt is a sleazy, corrupt politician who will break the rules to get power. At today’s debate, Laxalt fell over himself to prove that he would continue to push the Big Lie in the Senate, arguing he did everything he could to overturn the election for Trump and that he’d do it again if he doesn’t like the election results in 2022.”
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