OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A New York Democratic congressional candidate who is campaigning against one of former President Donald Trump’s top vice presidential contenders, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, suggested that some “MAGA” supporters should be sent to re-education camps.
The candidate, Paula Collins, made her controversial remarks during a public Zoom Townhall this week, Fox News reported.
“Even if we were to have a resounding blue wave come through, as many of us would like, putting it all back together again after we’ve gone through this MAGA nightmare and re-educating basically, which, that sounds like a rather, a re-education camp. I don’t think we really want call it that,” she said. “I’m sure we can find another way to phrase it.”
The candidate explained her comments in an email to Fox News.
“We currently have lawmakers, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, who misquote or misunderstand the law,” she said. “Even if MAGA were to be resoundingly defeated, we would need to engage in widespread civics education, which both red and blue voters acknowledge has been slipping in recent years.”
She said, “The goal would be such that regular citizens could understand the process by which the state courts process matters, compared to the federal court circuit, and so forth.”
“Rep. Elise Stefanik does not show a good understanding of the court structure in her home state of New York,” she said.
She used Rep. Stefanik’s comments about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump as an example, saying that the charges are “a state matter, not a federal matter.”
She said Stefanik’s “outcry bespeaks a lack of basic civics education, as well as a basic lack of respect for the state supreme court system in her home State of New York.”
“Similarly, many voters have misunderstandings and lack of regard for basic judicial systems that underscore the need for civics education,” she said.
But Alex DeGrasse, a senior advisor to the Stefanik campaign, said that the comments would offend Republican voters.
“This radical New York City Democrat Socialist who literally is renting a bed and breakfast room in NY-21 was caught on tape saying she wants to force Trump voters through ‘re-education camps,’” the advisor said. “Everyone knows she will be defeated by Elise Stefanik by a historic margin.”
He said, “This is yet another reason why President Trump, Elise Stefanik, and voters in Upstate and across America will clean the Democrats’ clocks at the ballot box this November.”
Multiple news outlets report that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), plus Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), have received the forms, as have North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
NBC News claimed that the process is “heavily concentrated on four top prospects”—Burgum, Rubio, Scott, and Vance.
The absence of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as vetting prospects was conspicuously evident in multiple high-profile reports, all of which relied on sources familiar with Trump’s campaign. However, the process is fluid, an insider told the Associated Press.
“Anyone claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump,” Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement to outlets on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Trump has doubled down on his prediction of winning a historically blue state in a video he posted to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.
Trump, who was born in Queens, New York, says he will win his birth state, though for now, polling suggests otherwise.
