VIDEO: McMorrow Addresses Past Tweets Attack on CNN

MICHIGAN — This morning, Michigan Senate Whip and U.S. Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow went on CNN’s Inside Politics with Manu Raju.

McMorrow cast the race as a choice between real and manufactured, arguing that her two opponents fit the latter profile. She also positioned herself as the only candidate willing to break with the status quo and as the only candidate in the race who said she would vote against Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader in the Senate. 

Check out excerpts from the interview below: 

On her opponents' desperate attacks over decade-old tweets: 

Mallory McMorrow: The bigger [electoral] liability is somebody who's been so concerned that one day they might run for office, that everything about them is manufactured. If that is what you're looking for, there are two other opponents in this race who fit that bill. I am not somebody who wanted to be in office or wanted to be in Congress when I was in diapers. I started my career as a car designer, and then I worked in a very different career and wasn't thinking about it. I tweeted normal things, like a normal person, and people are desperate for authenticity, so that is what we need in November.

On Schumer and the need for new leadership:

I am the only candidate in our race who said that I would not support Chuck Schumer for leader, and I said it on day one of this campaign, because we are desperate for a new Democratic Party and new leadership in the Democratic Party that recognizes not as a lifelong politician, but as an American and as Michiganders here, what's actually at stake here and what's on the line. It is the future of our country. And people are responding to that. I get asked regularly on the campaign trail what I think about the Democratic Party. ‘Is the Democratic Party getting this right?’ I've been asked multiple times at events, would you support Chuck Schumer? And I've said no. And it is stunning to me that neither of my opponents can give a definitive yes or no on that simple question. 

On her tweets on the future of cars:

So if you look in this thread, Alex Roy, Jay Ramey, the people in this conversation are well-known automotive journalists. Before I decided to run for office, I started my career as a car designer. I worked as a toy designer. I was a writer for Road & Track. So this is me in conversation with a number of automotive journalists bemoaning the way that tech CEOs were talking about eliminating cars with autonomous vehicles and ride-share programs. That's what this is. That was me thinking about a dark future where there are no cars and at a moment where big tech is taking over everything. Again, I go to: people are desperate for authenticity. That is who I am. I came out of the auto industry. I came out of covering the auto industry. And that is not a liability. It is an authentic person who did not manufacture my entire life around potentially running for office. And people are fed up with the BS, out of Washington, out of Congress, that feels overly manufactured, and it's time we do something different.

On moving to Michigan:

So we decided to move to Michigan in 2014. I was still working in Southern California. My then-boyfriend, now husband, was working in Michigan. Like a lot of millennials, moving takes time. It was a two-year process to finally settle in Michigan, and I registered to vote in Michigan in August of 2016 and voted in the general election in November that year.

Manu Raju: But you wrote you relocated permanently in 2014, and you also posted an Instagram post that you had moved out of California, and that was before the June 16 primary in that state. Should you have voted in the 2016 primary in California? 

Mallory McMorrow: We still had our place out in Southern California, and as I mentioned, we had multiple jobs. Moving is ugly. I wish we could have just upped and moved in one fell swoop, but that's not the case, just like it is for a lot of people. 

[...]

Yeah, absolutely, if you are doing that intentionally, after moving permanently to a place that is illegal. But in our case, it was a two-year process, and when I was finally a permanent resident in Michigan, that is where I registered, and that is where I voted.

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