Right-wing Anger In Milwaukee: Drama Spills Backstage at Republican Debate
Far-right Republicans, including Don Jr, say they were banned from post-debate spin room
After eight Republicans slugged it out onstage, a battle among right-wingers spilled out from behind the scenes Wednesday evening at the first debate for Republican rivals seeking the nomination for president.
Several Republicans, including the son of the frontrunner who skipped the debate, expressed outrage over, they say, being excluded from the post-debate spin room in Milwaukee, Wis.
Several prominent Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr, complained publicly after the debate that Fox News — the outlet which carried the debate — excluded them from the backstage room in which supporters of the various candidates speak out for the media.
Aside from the younger Trump, whose father chose to pass on attending Wednesday's encounter, those complaining of exclusion include two well-known members of Congress: Reps Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Greene vented her spleen over the matter in an on-camera interview with Right Side Broadcasting, a small right-wing outfit.
An excerpt:
TAYLOR GREENE: “Yes. And I am sorry to come in hot on this interview about this, I just — I just can’t believe it just happened. I literally cannot believe that it's happened.”
REPORTER: “So where’s Matt right now?”
TAYLOR GREENE: “He — ”
REPORTER: “Is he still arguing with them?”
TAYLOR GREENE: “Yeah, basically. I basically argued with them and then I said, ‘You know what? Right Side has an incredible audience. Rumble has an incredible audience.’ So I came out here because I thought, you know, people need to hear about this. Everyone needs to know the truth and — and then we can dig in and talk about a debate that I thought was extremely boring and I didn’t find one candidate on the stage that I thought deserved to carry the MAGA mantle. I didn’t find one candidate on that stage that deserved to carry forward with the America First message, and I’m really — I’m really disgusted that they blocked us out of the spin room.”
Although his father skipped the debate, Don Jr was there to represent the elder Trump's frontrunning campaign to win the 2024 nomination.
“Probably shouldn’t surprise any of us, but that’s what it is. I’ve been told by others that I would be able to go in, so they said we were able to go in and they said they weren’t,” Don Jr said.
After some further back-and-forth with a reporter and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the younger Trump added, “He works for security here, but they’re telling him that I’m not allowed to go in there, because the candidates that they have been boosting while simultaneously trying to cut down Trump for the last, what, two years, didn’t perform as they had hoped. So they can’t have someone who can maybe be a representative of my father.
“Just like a few weeks ago, when I was cancelled after the first indictment, I was scheduled to go on, and about five minutes before I’m on, I found out I’m no longer because apparently I wouldn’t be a great story, get to talk about my father’s indictment,” he added, referring to the stunning fourth indictment the former president is facing in Fulton County Ga, for which he is set to surrender to authorities late Thursday. “Just so we understand what we’re dealing with here. So it shouldn’t surprise any of us, and it’s also why Trump was 100 percent right to not go to this debate.”
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