by Sean Murphy, Laurel Leader-Call
Link to the article

At 7:59 a.m. Tuesday, an email from the Chris McDaniel campaign arrived.

“Courageous Conservative PAC pledges ‘major six-figure’ investment on behalf of Chris McDaniel.”

At 8 a.m. Tuesday, an email from Cindy Hyde-Smith.

“Anti-Trump super PAC endorses never-Trumper Chris McDaniel.”

Huh?

Chris McDaniel, the principled champion for conservatism whose goal in life is to return politics to the people is anti-Trump? And he took money from these people?

Courageous Conservatives PAC is a Lynchburg, Va., based conservative political action committee. Here is the first line of its webpage bio. “Courageous Conservatives PAC was created because we’re sick of seeing conservative candidates outpunched by weak ‘moderates’ who lie about their own records of failure and appeasement while attacking strong conservatives fighting for what we believe.”

Sounds pretty much in line with what McDaniel believes in. As long as the Mitch McConnell-Haley Barbour Washington, D.C., wing of government continues to exist, the worse off we are. It is those anti-Establishment sentiments that swept Donald Trump into office and what the majority of the people have been thirsting for since 2010.

People were sick and tired of being told one thing every election cycle only to see their own Benedict Arnolds defying the wishes of those who put them there.

The Courageous Conservatives also sounds like it is right in line with Trump’s line of thinking, too, so how can Hyde-Smith’s camp say… What did they say?

McDaniel called Donald Trump “the most liberal president since Richard Nixon, an embarrassment and not a constitutional conservative.”

Ouch.

But did Chris say it? Well, kind of, in a journalistic malpractice kind of way.

During the 2016 Republican primary, and even before Trump announced his campaign, McDaniel was asked to throw his support behind Ted Cruz. The Texas senator is in lockstep with McDaniel’s ideas of the operation of the federal government and adherence to the Constitution. Plus, Cruz helped McDaniel greatly in 2014 when the Ellisville Republican came within percentage points and Establishment shenanigans of winning the senate seat, a seat he was endorsed for by Donald Trump.

McDaniel saw Trump’s overall ideas of sweeping the Establishment out of Washington in line with his, but not 100 percent — not to mention McDaniel supported Cruz. In February 2016 during a Facebook Town Hall meeting, McDaniel did say something similar to what Hyde-Smith put out. He said that Trump would be “the most economically liberal (Republican) president since Richard Nixon.”

In the quote sent out by the Hyde-Smith camp, though, they omitted the word “economically,” which changed the context completely. Nixon was more economically liberal than McDaniel’s brand of conservatism. Trump had a much more liberal outlook on the economy. But the bigger picture is, how do you just edit out a word out of a direct quote? Take the word “not” out of a jury sentence and an innocent man would be doing life behind bars.

Who’s running the communications over there anyway?

But it gets worse…

After mislabeling what he said, they added a comma and then the following… “an embarrassment and not a constitutional conservative.”

He did say Trump is not a constitutional conservative and stands by that. Trump is not. Big deal. There are a million more things the two believe in than disagree on, I guarantee that.

And the embarrassment?

In a Facebook post on Nov. 9, 2017, McDaniel wrote that the tax reform bill — panned by conservatives as being filled with pork — was an “embarrassment.” For a Reagan conservative to gaze on that bill, you are damn right it was an embarrassment. “That was not against Trump,” McDaniel said Wednesday, “but against Congress.”

But not nearly the embarrassment of the communications department with the Cindy Hyde-Smith camp.

They spliced three separate comments taken over more than a year, removed a word and made it into one sentence attributed to Chris McDaniel. By their journalistic standards, any frequent reader of my column can pick and choose their way to show that I am an advocate of Nazi Germany.

Read this again — taken directly from Melissa Scallan (press@cindyhydesmith.com — “The Courageous Conservatives PAC is supporting McDaniel, the Senate candidate who has called the President “the most liberal president since Richard Nixon, an embarrassment and not a constitutional conservative.”

The quoted material on the website is a link that takes visitors to an ad paid for by the Cindy Hyde-Smith campaign. It is a 30-second spot of material from when McDaniel was supporting Ted Cruz.

AND THEY EDITED IT!

Watch closely between seconds 3 and 5… hear the stumble and splice? They took out the word economically… just like Melissa Scallan did in her Tuesdaymorning press release.

And for the record, let’s go back to that Facebook video and hear Chris McDaniel’s actual quote.

He was discussing the New Hampshire primary in 2016. He talked about how, from a Cruz standpoint, it would be difficult for the Texan to win in the moderate New England state. He said candidates such as Trump, because of his popularity, could do well.

“They like a more moderate candidate and Trump is proven to be that, to a certain extent, economically, especially. I think Trump is probably the most economically liberal president we’ve had since Nixon,” McDaniel said on Facebook.

And the dramatic pause — the big comma — the coup de grace, the piece de resistance… the comment where McDaniel then calls Donald Trump an embarrassment and not being a constitutional conservative. How did that line go exactly, Ms. Scallan?

“So I think in New Hampshire, he’ll do well.”

Ba dump bump…

McDaniel then talks about not wanting Establishment-darling Jeb Bush to have a good night in New Hampshire.

I’d be willing to bet a $20 campaign donation, a Journalism 101 textbook and a six-pack that Scallan nor Hyde-Smith can produce a copy of Chris McDaniel saying the following quote: “the most liberal president since Richard Nixon, an embarrassment and not a constitutional conservative.”

Scallan ends her seven-paragraph press release with this: “It really is no surprise that Chris McDaniel is the president’s best friend and supported Donald Trump and his agenda.”

Hey, if the Hyde-Smith camp can do it, why can’t I?.