Newly announced 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) made the media rounds Friday after several other Democrats threw their hats in the ring this week. Booker made his first stop at ABC’s The View, where he was pressed from the left by co-hosts Joy Behar and Ana Navarro. Co-host Meghan McCain however questioned Booker’s reputation for inauthenticity and grandstanding, to which the Democrat contested, saying he was “proud” of his shamefully partisan performance at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
After some typical questions about how he differentiates himself from other Democrats running, McCain questioned Booker’s authenticity saying he had a reputation for “grandstanding” during televised hearings. She asked, “How do you convince people, especially on the left, that you’re authentic, that you’re not a phony...that this isn't sort of a political stunt if you will?” Booker didn’t address the question directly, saying his record of accomplishments speaks for his character. McCain pressed again, specifically asking about the Kavanaugh hearings:
"When I think of you now, I think of ‘I am Spartacus’ and I don’t know if that’s the best reflection of you,” she stated. Instead of being embarrassed or walking back his overly-partisan cartoonish performance during that hearing and others, Booker claimed that was taken out of context, but he was also proud of his performance:
I hope you’ll go back and watch the Kavanaugh hearings. That was one of my prouder moments, sticking up for people. And when I was was threatened to be thrown out of the Senate, I said to the senator that said that, 'bring it.' Another senator stood up and said, 'You’re going to throw Cory Booker out, throw me into the pit as well.' That senator, I looked at them and I was like, ‘Wow, that was like an I am Spartacus moment.’
McCain didn’t ask Booker why he put the media into a frenzy that same morning claiming he had “broken the rules” to release secret documents on Kavanaugh, documents that were later shown to have already been cleared for release.
None of the hosts asked the Democrat about his penchant for twisting the truth and making up stories either.
Instead, Ana Navarro and Joy Behar pressed him from the left, asking:
JOY BEHAR: Let me ask you about something I feel strongly about. In fact, it's keeping me up at night. First of all, we've just experienced the longest shutdown then I found out there are still kids separated from their families at the border. Some kids are 17 months old. This is something that is making me nuts. What are the Democrats going to do about that, and why don't we hear about it every single minute of the day?
...
ANA NAVARRO: I wanted to ask you, so, the last two years under president loco have seen a spike in hate crimes, homophobia, anti-immigrant crime. Anybody that is a person of color is a target. You know, his comments haven't helped. It creates culture wars, things like the anthem. How do we heal that? How do we move on from that? How do you propose to heal that?
