Mo Brooks is stuck.

Somehow, against all odds and reason, he’s come back in the race despite being significantly behind in the Alabama primary for the U.S. Senate. It looks like he will make a run-off for 50% of the vote. Brooks looked all but buried a year ago when he encouraged an audience to “Move on” from the 2020 election.

You don’t do that in MAGA world.

Brooks had been carrying Trump’s full and complete endorsement because Brooks was one of the few willing to stand on the podium on January 6th and give an impassioned speech about taking the country back. Then something strange happened last summer. Brooks recognized that there is nothing in the Constitution that allows a candidate to prove he won and be reinstated. Every single liberal knew that when Trump was sworn in despite the fact that we suspected that there was significant Russian help and possible collusion between Trump and Russia. Absent an impeachment there was no way to install Hillary as president.

So Brooks said move on. You don’t do that in Trump world. The “move on” and the fact that he was running a distant third at that point led to Trump withdrawing his endorsement. And yet Brooks pressed on. For reasons passing understanding, Brooks moved up in the polls.

So here Brooks sits. A viable candidate for the U.S. Senate who appeared on Chris Hayes’s show tonight, undoubtedly to get ahead of the hearings that start tomorrow. Brooks’s message was trying to find a sweet spot between maintaining his earlier position while kissing Trump’s ass. He came up with, “No, there is no way to reinstate Trump as president,” but that Brooks would feel the same way Trump feels, given that Trump won the election.

Hayes began to giggle, then immediately nailed Brooks to the wall by stating that the problem is that the election was not stolen. Brooks then said that he would debate Hayes toe to toe all day long, name the time and place. Brook’s anger and earnestness led to the point that Hayes was trying to suppress a giggle (How many times have they been given a chance to prove this?) and then Hayes delivered the money shot: “There is truly nothing in the world I want less.”

One has to see it to appreciate the dynamic:

Rep. Mo Brooks on his "belief" that the 2020 election was “stolen:"
“If you want to spend a lot of time debating that subject, I’ll take you on toe-to-toe.”

Chris Hayes: “There is truly nothing in this world I want less.” pic.twitter.com/tAaUyTYrRo

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) June 9, 2022

Trump said it was stolen. Thus, the election was stolen. “Where’s Ruby?” No evidence is needed. Republican governors in Georgia and Arizona wanted nothing to do with Trump because it was not “stolen,” and yet it was because Trump said it was. “There is truly nothing in the world I want less.” Because you cannot talk sense to a person in a cult.

****

[email protected], @JasonMiciak