CNN’s Kaitlan Collins grilled Rep. Bob Good about his past comments on Donald Trump after the Virginia Republican threw his support behind the former president.
Good, chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, had initially endorsed Ron DeSantis in the 2024 presidential race. Shortly after the Florida governor ended his campaign on Sunday, Good offered his “complete and total endorsement” for Trump, calling him the “greatest president of my lifetime.”
On CNN’s “The Source” Monday, Collins pointed out to Good, “You are on camera very critical of Donald Trump.”
Good argued that the video had been deceptively edited by a campaign opponent “to take out the complimentary praise statements that I said about President Trump.”
Collins asked, “So you didn’t say those things that you’re on camera saying?”
Good replied, “You take part of the sentences out, and you get a different conclusion from that sentence or a different inference from that sentence.”
Collins let viewers be the judge.
She played a clip of Good in which he said: “I decided to endorse DeSantis in May because I felt like, you know what, I can’t sit by and watch and then regret that we nominated Trump.”
Good insisted that the video was misleading because it “takes out the part where I praise President Trump and I said, ‘He was the greatest president of my lifetime.’”
He said he had supported DeSantis because he believed the Florida governor had better chances of winning battleground states.
We asked Rep. Bob Good to explain how he went from endorsing Ron DeSantis to Donald Trump after raising concerns about his electability: pic.twitter.com/dPPwDOlyU5
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) January 23, 2024
Good’s initial endorsement of DeSantis angered some Trump allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was ousted from the House Freedom Caucus in July.
The video of Good that Collins was referring to was posted online anonymously and edited to show various excerpts from a conversation Good was having about Trump. The captions claimed it was shot at a campaign event in Mineral, Virginia, on Oct. 21.
“You’re asking me privately, I don’t say this in public,” he said at one point in the video.
Greene shared the footage in December, calling Good a “disloyal fake MAGA Trump traitor.”
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