On the side of ‘Nazis’: Arizona Democratic secretary of state issued anti-Trump tweets
Screenshot 2020 Washington Examiner
Katie Hobbs, the Democratic Arizona Secretary overseeing the state’s razor-close presidential election, launched many harsh critiques of President Trump on Twitter before she assumed her current office.
In tweets sent from her personal campaign account, Hobbs accused Trump of being “on the side of the freaking Nazis,” said much of what happened at his rallies was “deplorable,” and cheered for “stopping the Trump agenda.”
“The President is on the side of the freaking Nazis. Don’t just say stuff – DO SOMETHING!!!” Hobbs tweeted on Aug. 12, 2017, in response to then-Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, condemning the white supremacists at the Charlotesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally where a counter-protester was killed. Trump has repeatedly condemned white supremacists.
Hobbs repeated that line of attack in a tweet a few days later. “. @realDonaldTrump has made it abundantly clear he’s more interested in pandering to his neo-nazi base than being @POTUS for all Americans,” she said.
Hobbs was elected to be Arizona’s Secretary of State in 2018 and took office in 2019. Before that, she was a state senator and a state representative, first elected to office in 2010.
The first-term Secretary of State become a regular figure on cable news in the days following Election Day, giving updates on the number of ballots left to count in the close state where Democratic presumptive president-elect Joe Biden elect currently leads Trump by about 12,800 votes.
She’s also responded to debunked claims that the use of Sharpie markers could cause problems with ballots and rebuking claims from Trump and his campaign about election fraud.
“There are not illegal votes being counted in the state of Arizona,” Hobbs said on MSNBC last week. “Honestly, this kind of disinformation makes our jobs harder.”
Hobbs is not the only Democratic secretary of state overseeing a key Electoral College contest who has bad-mouthed the president on Twitter. Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar predicted that a Trump victory would “significantly weaken the US, driving us into a lengthy recession.” In a 2017 tweet, she asserted that “using the title ‘President’ before the word ‘Trump’ really demeans the office of the presidency.”
In October 2016, before Trump was elected, Hobbs remarked that “There is so much deplorable at Trump rallies it’s hard to keep track,” echoing 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s September 2016 widely criticized “basket of deplorables” line in reference to Trump supporters. Hobbs made the comment in response to a photo of a sign at a Trump rally that depicted a shooting target over Clinton’s face.
In a December 2017 tweet, Hobbs celebrated Democratic Sen. Doug Jones’ victory over Republican Roy Moore. “Thank you voters of Alabama – we’re one seat closer to stopping the Trump agenda. We just saw what happens when we fight in every zip code, in every state. Let’s make it happen in Arizona in 2018!!”
Tweets from Hobbs harshly critical of Trump slowed as she campaigned to be Arizona’s Secretary of State in 2018.
She has mentioned Trump’s name from her official Secretary of State account twice. In June, she said that Trump was “wrong” about voting by mail, calling it “safe and secure.” In August, she publicized a letter she sent Arizona’s Attorney General asking to investigate whether the Trump administration, through USPS, was intentionally delaying the delivery of ballots.
Hobbs’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
