Cory Booker Struggles to Justify Biden Pardoning Family: ‘He Should Answer for That’ But They ‘Did Not Beat Police Officers’

COLLINS: “Can I ask you, because on that point, I want to get you to respond to this because what I‘m already hearing from people who worked for Trump and are his allies is that there‘s really no leg for — the Democrats don‘t have a leg to stand on because President Biden leaving today, you know, issued a raft of pardons, including for his own family members and his sister and his brothers and their spouses, and then also for an activist, an elderly activist who is convicted of killing two FBI agents. Chris Wray did not even want him to commute that sentence that President Biden did today. They say that that doesn‘t give Democrats an argument here to criticize these pardons. What is your response to that?”
BOOKER: “I mean, I think that‘s a mistake we‘re seeing now, is people trying to reduce this to tribalism. It‘s — this is not about Democrat or Republican. You know, Joe Biden pardoned a lot of people. Yeah, he should answer for that and explain what he did and his reasoning. But the people he pardoned, his family members, did not, before the naked public eye, beat police officers, try to overthrow our government, lead to the death of police officers and have injuries, scars, both visible and invisible, on police officers that are still affecting their lives today. This is not about left or right in our country. We can‘t just say this is a tit for tat or their side did it so my side can do it. No, this is about the values and principles that we should all be looking to uphold. The institutions of our government themselves that these people on that day tried to overthrow. Let‘s stop with the rank partisanship. The president of the United States of America has just pardoned people who physically attacked, violently led to the death of officers like Sicknick, and we should be talking about that.”
COLLINS: “Senator Cory Booker, thank you for your time tonight.”