“I need to ask my staff,” Florida Rep. Maria Salazar said as a reporter listed off times she bragged about getting money for her district that she opposed.
Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) on Sunday got called out for routinely taking credit for delivering money to her district — after opposing the bills that provided that money.
During an interview on CBS News Miami, host Jim DeFede asked Salazar about a ceremony she attended last month where she presented a check for $650,000 to help small businesses at Florida International University.
“You voted against the bill that gave the money that you then signed a check for and handed and had a photo op,” said DeFede, the host of CBS’s show “Facing South Florida.” “The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, right?”
She did vote against that $1.7 trillion government funding bill. It was a massive and memorable bill that almost every House Republican opposed.
Salazar said she couldn’t remember that vote.
“Right now, you have to give me more details,” she said. “But I do know that every time I have an opportunity to bring money to my constituents, I do so. I just did $400,000, but look—”
“But you voted against the CHIPS and Science Act, right?” DeFede interrupted.
So much right-wing rhetoric is targeted squarely at low-information voters, and it’s depressing how effective it is.
It doesn’t matter if it falls apart under the lightest scrutiny, because they aren’t talking to people who will scrutinize anything at all.