June 03, 2023 02:08 PM UTC

Boebert Changes Story Over Missed Debt Ceiling Vote

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• by: Colorado Pols

SUNDAY UPDATE: Like we said, Rep. Lauren Boebert lied. And here’s the video that proves it.

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As the story was originally told, Rep. Lauren Boebert was running at the last minute to cast her promised vote against the debt ceiling increase legislation that was signed by President Joe Biden into law earlier today:

Rep. Lauren Boebert narrowly missed the vote, running up the steps right as they gaveled.

— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) June 1, 2023

As the Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson reported on Thursday, Boebert’s staff specifically told inquiring reporters that it had not been her intention to miss this crucial vote:

A spokesperson for Boebert confirmed that the congresswoman did not intend to miss the vote. [Pols emphasis] She and fellow Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck had both said that they would vote against the debt-ceiling deal, Colorado Public Radio reported. Many Republicans criticized the measure, arguing that negotiations with Democrats didn’t do enough to cut government spending.

Buck did cast his nay vote on Wednesday and Colorado’s third House Republican, Rep. Doug Lamborn, voted in favor of raising the debt ceiling.

After missing the vote Boebert released a statement, which reads in part:

“The Swamp did its old song and dance and pretended to listen to the American people, but as soon as the backroom deal was made, it was predetermined that it would pass,” Boebert said. “I certainly wasn’t afraid to vote against the bill, as I have been advocating against it all week.”

There’s been a great deal of speculation in the last few days about what exactly caused Rep. Boebert to be “unavoidably detained,” preventing her from voting on a bill she had spent most of her time railing against in the days since the compromise between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House was announced. But her failure to perform this most essential of tasks for a lawmaker gave opponents a golden opportunity to restate one of the biggest criticisms of Boebert, that her endless bombast is a smokescreen for fundamental incompetence.

Perhaps aware of the damage done by this very well-covered stumble, today Rep. Boebert posted a new video on Twitter completely erasing the record of her running to cast a vote and later confirming to reporters and the Congressional record that she tried to be there. According to Boebert today, she was “ticked off” about the bill’s inevitable passage, and as a result wilfully “didn’t take the vote.”

A protest non-vote sounds more dignified than running into the chamber just as the gavel falls and missing a vote you’ve been hyping for days. The trouble is that, if you’ve been paying attention at any point this week, you already know it’s a lie. If Boebert had truly intended to not vote in protest, obviously she wouldn’t have been rushing to the chamber to vote, and she wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) have told reporters and her colleagues that she had meant to cast a vote. If a protest vote had been the plan, Boebert would have immediately announced that to be the reason, not belatedly after days of bad press on the matter.

It would have been better for Boebert to simply take the hit for missing the vote than to compound the situation by trying to reinvent what happened. No one is going to believe her story, because it contradicts the plain record and the excuses Boebert herself initially made.

This is how you take an embarrassing gaffe and turn it into a full-on credibility disaster.