October 21, 2019 10:07 AM UTC

You Just Got Pummeled, Cory Gardner! What's Next?

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ll give you a hint: he’s not going to Disneyland:

The Intercept’s Akela Lacy, H/T to Ernest Luning behind the Colorado Springs Gazette’s paywall:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is hosting a “Save the Senate” retreat from November 7 to 8 at the Washington, D.C., hotel. Listed on the invitation as attending are Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), NRSC Chair Todd Young (Indiana), Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Steve Daines (Montana), Cory Gardner (Colorado), [Pols emphasis] Jim Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kansas), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), and Thom Tillis (North Carolina), along with Michigan Senate candidate John James.

Republicans currently hold a majority in the Senate, or 53 out of 100 seats, and it’s an uphill battle for Democrats to gain the four seats — or three seats and the presidency — they need to change that in 2020. Still, with plummeting approval numbers in some of the contested seats and a crop of progressive candidates building impressive momentum, Republicans are proceeding with caution. NRSC communications director Jesse Hunt did not respond to a request for comment.

Just over a week ago, Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado was subjected to one of the most humiliating moments in his long political career, as his normally impeccably smooth delivery of rote talking points broke down under determined questioning by multiple local news reporters–turning Gardner into a viral laughingstock and a metaphor on the evening news across the nation for Republicans’ inability to cope with the scandal threatening to bring Donald Trump’s presidency down.

In the intervening week and a half, we honestly thought that Gardner would have developed a better answer for the next inevitable moment he was cornered by a reporter and asked the question he couldn’t answer before–is it appropriate for a President to ask a foreign power for electoral leverage? After easily one of the worst on-camera appearances of his career, surely he had something more illuminating to say to a state where Trump’s popularity (and for that matter Gardner’s) is flatlining.

It’s been more than a week and @SenCoryGardner didn’t learn any new talking points about Ukraine. He walked away from our interview, again refusing to say if withholding foreign aide is something a U.S president should do #copolitics pic.twitter.com/Vv9UOgjz3r

— Brandon Thompson (@BThompsonNews) October 18, 2019

And…you’d be wrong. If anything Gardner was even more evasive with his answer Friday afternoon than a week and a half ago, declaring “I’ve already answered your question”–presumably in reference to that ill-fated interview a week before? The 23-second clip ends with Gardner rushing away awkwardly, having said absolutely nothing to make himself look better. FOX 21 Colorado Springs reporter Brandon Thompson’s video on Twitter is already over 90,000 views despite being posted at 5PM on a Friday afternoon, underscoring how Gardner’s refusal to answer basic questions has become a glaringly visible problem.

Safe to say, the only people Gardner is pleasing now will be at Trump’s “Save The Senate” retreat. The best explanation we have for this wholesale collapse of what was once one of the Senate GOP’s smoothest operators is that he never deserved that reputation.