Video: CNN's Van Jones Says He Is 'Happy, Happy, Happy' and Calls the Midterm Results 'Jonestown for the Republican Party'
A Breitbart clip post from CNN's election night coverage. We relied on Breitbart's written transcript of the remarks, not the video. Many readers will find the Jonestown comparison offensive; we report it as said.
Breitbart posted a clip of CNN commentator Van Jones reacting to the Republican losses on Tuesday's "Election Night in America."
What he said. Jones said he was "happy, happy, happy," adding: "This is like Christmas and a birthday and the Easter Bunny and Halloween." He called the results "the repudiation of Trumpism that people have been hoping for."
The comparison. Jones argued that people who join a cult are eventually taken to Jonestown and told to drink the Kool-Aid. "This is Jonestown for the Republican Party," he said. Breitbart notes that Jonestown was the mass murder-suicide led by cult leader Jim Jones, in which it says 918 people died. Jones went on to say Republicans "drank the Kool-Aid," and that they have candidates "dropping like flies across the country" because they did not stand up to Mr. Trump "when he was violating the law, when he was running over our system."
Another outlet. Fox News also ran a short clip of the same remark, which it described as Jones saying he is "happy happy happy" while comparing the defeat of the GOP to the Jonestown killings. Neither report includes a response from Republicans or from Jones about the criticism.
What we could not check. This post relies on Breitbart's written account and Fox's description of a video. We did not watch the segment, so we cannot vouch for tone, context or anything left out.