CNN anchor Pamela Brown on Thursday rejected Sen. Markwayne Mullin's (R-Okla.) election comparisons, calling Mullin's comparison of the 2016 and 2020 elections a “false equivalence.”
Brown initially asked Mullin on Thursday whether he would “accept a peaceful transfer of power” if all states certified their election results.
“It's hard to say what to do or not to do because my job is to make sure that the fraud is within the parameters that the federal government, that we, the federal government, have set,” Mullin said during an appearance on CNN's “The Lead.” “What is the threshold that we would accept for fraud? If there is fraud in the district or in the state, we would never accept it. It was within the threshold that we would accept.”
Brown added that each state “has certified its election results and has its own process.”
“Each state has the right to make its own election laws if the election is certified according to the standards it puts forward,” the senator responded, “but the federal government determines what level of fraud is acceptable. Is it below 1 percent, or is it below 0.5 percent? Whatever the level of fraud is, we'll take that into consideration at a time.”
The Oklahoma senator, who voted against certifying the 2020 election results while in the House of Representatives, said at this point, both parties will be “crying about fraud” following the outcome of the White House race.
“We need to remember that in 2016, when President Trump won, Democrats were saying the election was stolen,” he said.
“That's a false equivalence,” Brown countered.
Mullin disagreed, saying, “Pam, you're telling me Democrats didn't say the election was rigged in 2015? They did. Absolutely they did.”
The CNN anchor again said it was a “false equivalence.”
“What happened in 2020 was a sitting president who lost the election, claimed it was rigged, claimed it was stolen,” Brown said, “and then we had lawmakers who voted against certifications that had already been certified by the states, took it to the Supreme Court, and tried to overturn the will of millions of voters. This is something completely different.”
The Republican senator then referred to the 2000 presidential election, in which some Democrats challenged the results of former President George Bush and Vice President Al Gore.
Brown later said, “I will not accept the results of the next election, even if every state certifies it.”
Mullin said he “has no problem” looking at it, but added, “Until I see the results, I'm not going to sit here and say what we're going to do or not do.”
“It doesn't matter who wins,” he said. “It's based on the results of the rules. I'm here to make sure that the election is conducted and that it's conducted within the bounds of the Constitution. I will uphold the Constitution. I took an oath to do so. It doesn't matter who wins. Of course, I want President Trump to win, but if the election is conducted fairly and properly and I can cast my certification vote, then I will vote for it.”
