CNN anchor Jim Sciutto and political analyst Kirsten Powers both agreed that the reaction to Sen. Richard Burr‘s (R-NC) reported decision to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. shows that the new definition of a “real Republican” is someone who sucks up to Donald Trump.
The news that the Burr-led Senate Intelligence Committee has recalled Junior to testify was met with an anonymous statement from the First Son’s camp calling Burr a “so-called Republican senator too cowardly to stand up to his boss Mark Warner and the rest of the resistance Democrats on the committee.”
On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, co-host Poppy Harlow asked Powers about that statement.
“This is Burr,” she said. “This isn’t, like, a former Senator Jeff flake or — I’m not calling them so-called Republicans, I’m just saying people who had big public beef with the president — or Corker, this is Burr. How significant is that?”
“In the Trump era, what being a Republican means is being somebody who kowtows to Trump, right?” Powers said. “In their world, you are not a real Republican if you’re not sucking up to Trump and compromising every single value you have in furtherance of Donald Trump.”
She added that “There aren’t very many people who have followed the senator and would think that he’s anything other than a rock-ribbed Republican. So it is noteworthy that we aren’t seeing a lot of Republicans actually interested in holding the Trump administration accountable, but he seems to be.”
“No, you’re right, the new definition is fealty, right?” Sciutto agreed. “I mean, if you raise a question You are somehow not a Republican.”
Burr has voted with Trump more than 92 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, ranking him ahead of the likes of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
