Fox News contributors Juan Williams and Mollie Hemingway clashed on Sunday over efforts to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot in several states.
During a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday, Williams defended Colorado and Maine for moving to remove Trump's name from the ballot because he participated in an insurrection on Jan. 6.
"Well, I think you know the problem here is that it's in the case of Maine, it was right in the law," Williams said. "I mean, [Shenna Bellows] has the power as the secretary of state, and she looked at the law and said, without a doubt, an insurrection took place in this country in Jan. 6, 2021. There was violence at the Capitol, and she saw Donald Trump as having a key role in that insurrection. Therefore, said that he can't run on the Maine ballot."
Williams pointed to a similar finding by Colorado courts.
"So the problem for Republicans is they say, oh, this is a matter of politics; this is like, you know, some third-world country are pushing your political opponents off the ballot," he explained. "But in reality, I can't think of another country where a political leader would try to overthrow the government, and they come back and say I'm running for president, so, I mean, I think most of them would say put that guy in jail."
Hemingway insisted that Trump was entitled to "due process" before his name was stripped from the ballot.
"This situation is that you have unelected justices on the Colorado Supreme Court all appointed by Democrats, and a Democrat secretary of state in Maine unilaterally deciding to claim that a protest is somehow related to the former president and barring that person that is not how our country operates," Hemingway complained.
Williams was ready with an answer.
"We are a nation of laws that apply to all of us, to all of us, and in this case, the Constitution says that someone involved in an insurrection — this is civil rights after the civil war — can't then run for office so that's the law," he noted.
"That is the law. The problem for Trump and the Republicans is they can't get away from the stink of Jan. 6 and Donald Trump's lies about Jan. 6," Williams added. "In fact, Trump is not even saying that he's not guilty. He's saying you can't ask me about it because I was president. That's what he's saying."
