Right-wing cameras keeping heat on Rep. Ruben Gallego in bid for social media attention

For the second time in a week, Republicans on social media pressed U.S. Senate hopeful Ruben Gallego in Washington in impromptu videotaped encounters intended to cast him as weak on battling terrorism and securing America’s border.

A post on Wednesday from Ben Bergquam, who hosts a show called “Law and Border” for Real America’s Voice News, showed him peppering Gallego, D-Ariz., with loaded questions intended to embarrass.

“Are you paid off by the cartel, or are you selling out America for free? How afraid are you of Kari Lake?” Bergquam asks in a reference to a Republican competing with Gallego for the seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

Last week the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted a taped encounter outside a Capitol Hill office asking Gallego why he didn’t support Israel in its war with Hamas. In the post, the NRSC said Gallego had a “pro-Hamas record” and he is asked repeatedly why he sided with terrorists over Israel.

Gallego, a Marine veteran who fought in the Iraq War, silently walked to an office in that case. His office released a photo Wednesday of Gallego meeting with Or Gat, an Israeli man whose mother died in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and who has two family members still held hostage.

“I stand with him in his mission to see his family freed, and that I will do everything in my power to ensure Congress supports Israel in its efforts to free these hostages,” Gallego said in a written statement.

The videos come after Lake, the 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee and front runner for the Republican nomination in the Senate race, taped her confrontation with Gallego at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport after the two traded social media barbs on the same cross-country flight.

Hannah Goss, a spokesperson for Gallego’s campaign, assailed the encounters and the people behind them.

“Ruben Gallego is a member of Congress who spends his days fighting for Arizonans,” she said. “No amount of cheap political stunts from trolls and grifters — including the 2022 gubernatorial loser herself — will distract from that work.”

A spokesperson for Lake’s Senate campaign was not immediately available for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The videos suggest an early strategy by Republicans to paint Gallego as an anti-America radical. They seem to be pursuing that plan using more aggressive video tracking on Capitol Hill and social media than seen in the 2022 elections.

Tate Mitchell, an NRSC spokesperson, said the encounters are part of the broader concerns the GOP has with Gallego, including his wife, who is a lobbyist, and his business background, which included a proposed bank for immigrants that failed.

“Ruben Gallego doesn’t like to answer tough questions about his support for open borders, his relationship with a D.C. lobbyist, or his work for a bank that defrauded immigrants, but we’ll keep asking,” Mitchell said.

Trackers have been around politicians in both parties for decades, and the proliferation of cell phone videos and social media outlets has coincided with intensifying partisan polarization. Capitol Hill offices long accustomed to stakeouts from traditional media sources now also face trackers hoping to score videotaped encounters that can go viral.

Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, a Senate candidate in his state, received such treatment in a hallway encounter last week involving someone identified only as a “citizen journalist” by the conservative Daily Caller, which posted the video.

The video shows someone asking Allred if he regrets “calling for the release of millions of dollars to Hamas.” Allred responded, “You’re on federal property. You can’t do this here. … We’ll get the Capitol Police for you.”

In the latest video involving Gallego, the 30-second clip shows him walking from the U.S. Capitol to congressional offices holding a cell phone to his ear. The phone seemed to ring as Gallego held it to his ear, suggesting he was pretending to be on a call while Bergquam continued to ask him questions.

“Ah, the fake phone. That’s the best, the fake phone call,” Bergquam says, turning the camera on himself as Gallego steps into a building. “Gosh these guys are such scumbags. Kari Lake is going to crush him.”

Real America’s Voice News is a Colorado-based conservative media organization that distributes programs hosted by Steve Bannon, former President Donald Trump’s political adviser; and Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Arizona-based Turning Point USA.

It is owned by Robert Sigg, who pleaded guilty to bank fraud two decades ago and faced other criminal charges, in addition to a tax lien for $235,000, according to a profile of Real America’s Voice in the Washington Post.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake and her allies keeping heat on Ruben Gallego in Senate race