Donald Trump had already spent months defending Jan. 6 rioters when he broke new ground in November 2023: Those who were prosecuted for participating in the assault on the U.S. Capitol, he said, deserved to be seen as “hostages.” It was a striking development, which received considerable coverage, especially as the Republican repeated his provocative choice of words in the months that followed.
It was against this backdrop that Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked Pam Bondi about Trump’s rhetoric during the Florida Republican’s confirmation hearing. As NBC News noted, the prospective attorney general nominee apparently had no idea what the senator was talking about.
Hirono asked Bondi if the felons who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “hostages” or “patriots” as Trump has described them. “I am not familiar with that statement,” Bondi said about Trump’s past statements. Hirono said she had just familiarized her with his statement and asked again if she agrees with it. “I’m not familiar with it, senator,” Bondi said.
At face value, the answer seemed literally unbelievable. After all, Bondi is hardly unfamiliar with politics at a national level, having served as the head of a Trump super PAC and even briefly moonlighting as a guest host of a Fox News program while she was serving as the Sunshine State’s chief law enforcement official.
But somehow, when her party’s presidential nominee spent a year referring to Jan. 6 criminals as “hostages,” she missed the coverage.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing progressed, it was tough not to notice, however, that Bondi has repeatedly struggled to keep up on current events. As best as I can tell, the former Florida attorney general has not spent a lot of time outside the United States over the last year, which might otherwise help explain her unfamiliarity with widely reported political news. Bondi nevertheless spent much of her confirmation hearing claiming, over and over again, complete ignorance about stories that would be quite familiar to Americans with a passing interest in political developments. All of which left observers with a straightforward question: Does Bondi simply not keep up on the news, or were her confirmation hearing answers less than truthful?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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