Maloney knocks Kinzinger criticism of DCCC funding GOP election denier

by Julia Mueller - 08/07/22 1:19 PM ET

Associated Press/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File
This photo from Thursday Nov. 21, 2019, shows Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) during a meeting of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Sunday defended the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) after the group that he chairs took out an ad aimed at splitting Republican support between a moderate GOP incumbent and a far-right House challenger in a Michigan race.

“It’s flat wrong to say that we were promoting an election denier. We were attacking an election denier,” Maloney said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.”

Maloney said the DCCC ad criticized by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) called out the GOP primary’s eventual winner, John Gibbs, for his alleged extremism and didn’t lie about either Republican candidate.

“Both Peter Meijer and John Gibbs want to take away a woman’s right to chose. Both Peter Meijer and John Gibbs would vote for Speaker McCarthy, Jim Jordan as chairman of the Judiciary Committee,” Maloney said .

“People can disagree about tactics, that’s normal. And there are always complicated questions in politics. But the bottom line is we are closer today than we were on Monday to having a pro-choice majority in the House, and the big losers this week are the MAGA Republicans, who thought they were on a glide path to the majority. But we’ve got a surprise for ‘em.”

The DCCC ad, which ran in the run-up to the GOP race between Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) — one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol — and Gibbs, who was backed by former President Trump, sparked questions and criticism from Kinzinger and others.

Meijer himself has knocked the DCCC over its ad, claiming hypocrisy.