Appearing over the weekend on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Rep.-elect Allen West (R-FL) stood by talk radio host Joyce Kaufman, who almost became his chief of staff but withdrew as a result on media coverage of her various controversial remarks — and, he added, she interviewed his actual incoming chief of staff for him.
Wallace: Congressman West, you chose and we can now put her picture up on the screen, a radio talk show host, Joyce Kaufman, as your chief of staff. But when it came out that she had called Nancy Pelosi “garbage” and told a Tea Party rally, “if balance don’t work, bullets will,” she stepped down. What did you learn from that whole experience?
West: Well, I think first of all what you saw was an attack from the left against Joyce Kaufman — and there are some other issues with that — but they did not play the full clip of her speech when she gave that, I think it was the 4th of July. So once again, it was the editing sound bite.
And I didn’t learn anything from it, because you just adjust and you continue on. So Joyce Kaufman was a very instrumental and helpful person in our campaign, and she was the one that interviewed our current chief of staff, because she knows the good match.
The key moment comes at the 9:15 mark:
In fact, as we previously reported, the full tape of Kaufman’s speech is even worse than Chris Wallace made it out to be in his very brief description. She doesn’t just say that “if ballots don’t work, bullets will” — she went into a detailed description of her revolutionary plans in case the Republicans didn’t win the 2010 elections:
“When I say I’ll put my microphone down on November 2nd if we haven’t achieved substantial victory, I mean it. Because if at that point, I’m gonna go up into the hills of Kentucky, I’m gonna go out into the Midwest, I’m gonna go up in the Vermont and New Hampshire outreaches, and I’m gonna gather together men and women who understand that some things are worth fighting for — and some things are worth dying for.”
Kaufman ultimately pulled out from her and West’s plan for her to be his chief of staff, declaring: “I will not be used in an electronic lynching by proxy… you guys can do all the things you want to me, but I will not participate in you trying to destroy him.”
For his part West defiantly stood by Kaufman’s reputation, declaring that he was “even more focused that this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda, this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees. You don’t have to worry about me doing the right thing in Washington, D.C.”
And clearly, as this new interview shows, he has continued to work closely with her.
