On Monday's New Day show, CNN White House correspondent John Harwood pushed the liberal trope that people support Republicans out of ignorance as he asserted that employees of corporations who are siding with liberals on voting laws are "better educated" than those Republicans try to "mislead" about the issue.
The show spent part of a segment reacting to an op-ed Texas Senator Ted Cruz published in the Wall Street Journal criticizing corporations that have supported Democratic criticisms of Georgia's voting law. Co-host Brianna Keilar set up the segment by reading a threat by Senator Cruz that Republicans might be less responsive to lobbying by corporations that so publicly side with Democrats on the issue.
Even though there were substantial improvements made to the voting system in Georgia as a result of the new law, Harwood glossed over that argument as he accused Senator Cruz of just being "dishonest" on the issue:
It's just so dishonest -- the argument he -- remember, Ted Cruz is one of the people who fostered the big lie after the election. Now, he is compounding that with another lie which is making the argument that what's happening in the state of Georgia and states around the country is not about reacting to Donald Trump's defeat to try to constrain voting procedures. He's pretending in this article that that wasn't what it was about at all -- it's expanding voting opportunities. We all know the law is complicated and long, but it takes control away from the officials who certified that Joe Biden won the election.
Also not mentioned was that, in the absence of a new law, there would have been no legal authority to continue using the drop boxes that were first used because of the pandemic last year which liberals have been so eager to continue.
Harwood then got to suggesting that people who vote for Democrats are smarter than those who vote Republican as he added:
He is then going on to say, "Because you are doing this -- you woke corporations" -- of course, corporations are simply recognizing the reality here that people who work for these big corporations tend to be better educated and more diverse than the people that Ted Cruz is trying to mislead with this argument. And they're calling it out.
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Transcript follows. Click "expand" to read more.
CNN
New Day
May 3, 2021
6:39 a.m. Eastern
BRIANNA KEILAR: Senator Ted Cruz says he is fed up with "woke" companies, as he calls them, that oppose the Georgia voting law. The Texas Republican wrote in a Wall Street Journal op ed this: Quote, "Corporations that flagrantly misrepresent efforts to protect our elections need to be called out, singled out and cut off. ..To them, I say, 'When the time comes that you need help with a tax break or a regulatory change, I hope the Democrats take your calls because we may not.'"
Joining me now is CNN White House correspondent John Harwood. Okay, there's, I mean, there's so much to talk about here. We do know that there's been some frustration among Republicans that they've had a little bit of a schism with business, but this is something that Ted Cruz thought out before putting to paper.
JOHN HARWOOD: Right, and it's just so dishonest -- the argument he -- remember, Ted Cruz is one of the people who fostered the big lie after the election. Now, he is compounding that with another lie which is making the argument that what's happening in the state of Georgia and states around the country is not about reacting to Donald Trump's defeat to try to constrain voting procedures. He's pretending in this article that that wasn't what it was about at all -- it's expanding voting opportunities. We all know the law is complicated and long, but it takes control away from the officials who certified that Joe Biden won the election.
He is then going on to say, "Because you are doing this -- you woke corporations" -- of course, corporations are simply recognizing the reality here that people who work for these big corporations tend to be better educated and more diverse than the people that Ted Cruz is trying to mislead with this argument. And they're calling it out.
And he's saying, "Well, if you want a favor from the government -- if you want your -- not to pay taxes, I won't look the other way anymore because you're calling us out on this election, and I won't take your money." He is, in essence, in addition to lying about the election and efforts to constrain voting, he's also confessing that he doesn't make decisions about tax policy or regulatory policy based on the merits. It's based on "whether or not I think you like me and whether you're going to do a favor for me."
