Days after the controversial confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen is standing by his decision to support the confirmation of President Trump’s SCOTUS pick.
But a newly released video using hidden camera footage claims Bredesen only said that to win votes in predominantly Republican Tennessee, a claim he denied in an interview Thursday with News Channel 11.
The video released earlier this week by the group Project Veritas Action includes what it said is footage of Tennessee staffers with Democrat Phil Bredesen’s U.S. Senate campaign. The people were recorded without their knowledge while talking about Bredesen’s decision to support the Kavanaugh nomination.
While speaking with a woman identified in the video as a journalist, the people in the video said Bredesen’s support of Kavanaugh was a political move by the former Democratic Governor to appear moderate and win votes.
While in Johnson City on Thursday, Bredesen told News Channel 11 the person identified by a journalist was actually someone “from the other campaign” who intentionally deceived some of his young supporter.
“I think that’s a reprehensible way to treat young people,” Bredesen said.
His campaign spokesperson said the people in the video worked for the Tennessee Democratic Party – not the Bredesen for Senate campaign – and were not speaking for the candidate.
“There was someone who came in posing as a senior volunteer a grown up from the other campaign came in and doing that,” Bredesen said. “And basically got these young people talking in that fashion.”
“No one knows what was going through my mind but me,” Bredesen said.
Mark Brown with Tennessee Victory 2018 confirmed the people in the video were not employed by Bredesen for Senate.
“That is a lie,” Brown told News Channel 11 Thursday night. “They do not work for Bredesen for Senate. They were not passing along strategy information. They were passing around water cooler talk.”
Brown said the woman identified as a “journalist” infiltrated the Bredesen campaign.
“She spent a month befriending these people,” Brown said. “And then she shot this video of these young people talking about their opinion.”
Project Veritas Action said the question of who the people in the video technically worked for misses the point, calling it a distinction without a difference. “The individuals captured in our report work on Bredesen’s campaign through the TN Democratic Party, and in fact were recorded in his campaign office,” said Marco Bruno, Project Veritas Action.
Abbi Sigler, a spokesman for Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn. responded to the video. “Tennesseans are not ignorant, and in fact, they see through Phil Bredesen’s phony campaign tactics and now they’re seeing ‘Phony Phil’ at his worst,” she said. “This is exactly the kind of ‘say whatever to get elected’ politics Tennesseans hate.”
Bredesen said while he wishes a more in-depth investigation of the sexual assault claims had been conducted before the Kavanaugh vote, he stands by his announcement.
“I would have been a yes with all the information I had at the time I had to make that decision,” he said.