Sen. Van Hollen: Jones Election Shows Voters Rejecting 'Trumpism'

The people of Alabama "voted for integrity over partisanship" by choosing Democrat Doug Jones to win over Republican Roy Moore in Tuesday's election, and showed they don't like the way the nation is heading under President Donald Trump, Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Wednesday.

"The big news of this election was that the people of Alabama voted for dignity," the Maryland Democrat, who is leading his party's Senate campaign effort for 2018, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "They voted for integrity over partisanship. I think this was a really important day for the country and for Alabama."

Van Hollen also said the Jones-Moore races and others in Virginia, New Jersey and other states in November show that "people are really rejecting the crude Trumpism that we've seen."

"What happened in Alabama was, despite the fact that Donald Trump went down there and tried to make this all about party politics, the people of Alabama solidly rejected that," he added. "Clearly, the candidates matter. We had a terrific candidate in Doug Jones...I do think that while there were obviously some special circumstances in Alabama, putting that together with what happened last month around the country, you see voters who are fed up and want to send a message they don't like Trumpism and want to go in a different direction."

Van Hollen lauded Jones for calling on Congress to agree on funding the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), something that in the past was approved on a bipartisan basis.

"You've got especially Republicans in the House of Representatives, opposing the idea of moving forward on that," Van Hollen said. "It's one example of a totally dysfunctional Washington right now. We would like to see people work across party lines and real tax reform where people work together rather than what's turned into a monstrosity of a tax bill."

He also accused Republicans of trying to push through the tax bill before Jones can be sworn in, and called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, to allow Jones to be sworn in and to vote on the most pressing issues of the day, including the tax bill.