Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) has just one regret regarding a text message he sent to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows three days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, urging Donald Trump to invoke “Marshall Law”: that he spelled it wrong.
Just over three years later, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Norman if he would have liked to have done things differently. The answer, apparently, was not really.
“You were urging the White House to use the U.S. military to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Collins said. “Do you regret sending that message?”
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Norman, who was one of nearly 150 Republicans in Congress who voted to reject the 2020 presidential election results, wasn’t apologetic.
“The only thing I regret: I misspelled ‘martial law,’” he said.
In his message to Meadows, Norman apparently wasn’t familiar enough with the law he was urging the president to invoke to get it right.
“Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!” Norman urged.
On Wednesday, the congressman tried to defend himself by claiming that “everything happened so quick” in the post-election weeks—a similar argument to what he said when news of his text message was first reported.
“Look, everything happened so quick in that election—the time that was given to see if the ballots were real, see if—you know, you’ve seen 2,000 Mules,” Norman said, referring to the movie that’s filled with debunked conspiracies about voting in the 2020 election. “Most people have. There’s a lot of questions.”
Collins then noted that that movie “is not based on reality,” but Norman forged ahead anyways, insisting that “there were questions” then and “there are still questions that linger today.”
As for the Jan. 17 text, Norman said he wasn’t sure if Meadows responded.
“Everything was going so fast. I don’t think he did,” he said.
“I wouldn’t take it back,” he added, which Collins said was “striking” to hear.
