Republican Senate candidates defend Trump, endorse federal abortion ban

The two Republican U.S. Senate runoff candidates on Tuesday repeated debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election, discounted the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, supported a national abortion ban with few if any exceptions, and agreed that the answer to gun violence is not making it harder to get guns.

About the only things on which 2nd District Congressman Markwayne Mullin and former Oklahoma Speaker of the House T.W. Shannon disagreed were whether the United States should have sent $40 billion in aid to Ukraine and which of them is best suited to replace U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe when he retires early next year.

Appearing on Griffin Communication’s Oklahoma City and Tulsa television stations, including KOTV, Channel 6, ahead of the Aug. 23 election, Shannon and Mullin pitched standard conservative warnings against the radical left and career politicians but did try to draw substantive differences between themselves.

Mullin, who has actually spent two years more in elected office, portrayed Shannon as a careerist and offered Shannon’s law degree as proof.

What is needed, said Mullin, is real-world experience such as his, acquired during decades of running his plumbing businesses.

“You’re never going to change Washington if we don’t change the resume of the people we send there,” Mullin said, repeating one of his favorite phrases.

Shannon, contrasting his own demeanor with Mullin’s combative language and some would say style, cast himself as someone with experience resolving issues.

“We don’t just need people who are willing to fight,” said Shannon. “We need to bring people together.”

In a dig at Mullin, Shannon said many members of Congress “can tell you what’s wrong in Washington but they can’t tell you what they’ve done to fix it.”

Both did their best to prove themselves to former President Donald Trump’s many Oklahoma enthusiasts.

Asked about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Shannon said he “absolutely believes” that the election was stolen, and Mullin said he couldn’t imagine President Joe Biden getting the most votes in U.S. history.

Both repeated debunked voting fraud charges, with Mullin claiming that Democrats “pulled out boxes of ballots after everyone went to bed” and Shannon insisting that the opposing party somehow used illegal immigrants to win the presidency.

Shannon said he doesn’t think Oklahomans care what happened on Jan. 6.

Mullin, who was present when a police officer shot dead a rioter breaking into the House chamber, said the assault on the seat of government “never should have happened.”

Both said they would support a national abortion ban with few if any exceptions, although in Shannon’s case it came with a pretty big caveat.

Shannon said he didn’t think Congress could enact a federal ban without a constitutional amendment, which is a big hill to climb. The U.S. Constitution has only been amended 27 times, with 10 of those adopted immediately after the document itself was ratified. The last amendment, having to do with congressional compensation, was adopted 30 years ago.

Both candidates, each of whom has young daughters, indicated that they would oppose allowing abortions for minors who have been raped. Mullin suggested that he would be morally opposed to abortion to save the life of a woman.

“When it comes to the death of the mother or a child, I can tell you what my wife would say,” he said.

“I don’t make a distinction between babies that are born and babies that haven’t been born,” said Shannon.

Shannon said the rape of a child would be “the worst a parent can imagine. But I believe life begins at conception.”

He then changed the subject, saying, “What we should be having is a discussion about what to do with the perpetrator.”

The pair passed quickly over questions about gun violence, saying restrictions on ownership make Americans less safe and at any rate violate the U.S. Constitution.

Mullin said people are afraid of guns for the same reason he’s afraid of Washington’s public transportation system — they don’t understand them.

The only real confrontation between the two was over the $40 billion Ukraine aid package.

Mullin, who voted for it, said the bill was necessary to replenish U.S. arsenals and ramp up intelligence efforts in the region. Mullin is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Shannon contends that much of the money was sent in the form of cash to Ukranian officials. Tuesday he said regarding $16 billion that “we don’t know where it is going.”

That seems to be a reference to $16 billion categorized by the highly respected Center for Strategic and International Studies as “humanitarian assistance, general support to the Ukrainian government, and efforts to mitigate the effects of the war globally.”

According to the CSIS, that money is to be spent to assist Ukrainian refugees in the U.S. and elsewhere, to help eastern European countries dealing with an influx of Ukrainian refugees, and to provide food and other humanitarian aid to countries affected by the curtailment of Ukrainian exports.

The package also included $19 billion in immediate and long-term military aid to Ukraine, almost $4 billion to support expanded U.S. forces in the region and $2 billion for NATO.

Democrat Kendra Horn, who will oppose the runoff winner and two other candidates in the Nov. 8 general election, blasted Mullin, whom she expects to be the Republican nominee.

Referring to an interview with New Tang Dynasty Television, an affiliate of the Falun Gong religious movement, in which Mullin says employers willing to help employees get legal abortions should leave the state, Horn said, “Telling major American companies to ‘get out of Oklahoma’ (if they) don’t agree with his extremist policies and voting against critical high-tech manufacturing jobs in the U.S. to prove a political point may help his standing with the D.C. powerbrokers, but they hurt hard-working Oklahomans.”

Featured video: T.W. Shannon and Markwayne Mullin face off in Republican runoff for U.S. Senate