Businessman Mike Braun, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Indiana, told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday that the silence coming from his Democrat opponent Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) on the Democratic Party plot orchestrated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is more proof that Donnelly is just Schumer’s “puppet.”

Democrats disrupted the hearing’s opening on Tuesday morning when senators were supposed to be making opening statements, all while protesters in the room shouted down senators, resulting in dozens of arrests. Overall, Senate Democrats interrupted the hearing more than 60 times in the first hour or so of the first day–and more than 22 protesters were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police for disorderly conduct.

It turns out, as NBC News reported and Schumer’s deputy Senate Minority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) confirmed in a stunning admission during the hearing, Schumer and other Democrats orchestrated the entire charade on a conference call with leftist activists over the weekend.

But the carefully choreographed Democrat outburst–what Republicans including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have derided as pure desperation since Kavanaugh’s confirmation is more and more likely–may be backfiring on Schumer’s own red state members as Democrats like Donnelly and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) are coming under serious fire for their silence on this from their GOP challengers.

Donnelly, as Breitbart News has already reported, has not commented on the matter–and his office has not replied to requests for comment. No other Democrat up for re-election in 2018 in the other nine states that President Donald Trump defeated failed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in in 2016 has commented on the matter either.

Now comes Braun, Donnelly’s GOP opponent in November, calling out the Democrat for his silence in the face of Schumer’s plot to derail Kavanaugh.

“Well I think that this is obviously a tactic organized by Chuck Schumer and I think it not only shows Hoosiers more about Joe Donnelly but also Democrats up for re-election in other red states that these guys are completely getting their marching orders from Chuck,” Braun told Breitbart News in a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon. “It looks like his process is going to be to grandstand and slow the process down hoping for something that might derail it. But to Hoosiers, I don’t know that Judge Kavanaugh is any different than Judge Gorsuch. He passes every test of somebody we want to see on the bench. He is not going to legislate from the bench and is going to interpret the Constitution. Obviously, Chuck Schumer and his liberals including Joe Donnelly are going to do everything they can–I think they know it is a forgone conclusion, I think every Republican has indicated they are coming across the finish line for this and now that we have someone appointed in John McCain’s seat it makes it even more certain with one more vote for this. The Democrats cascade to the extent they need to do it politically in the states that they’ve been posturing and delaying on this kind of farce acting like they want to seriously vet the process but it’s really all a big stall tactic by Schumer.”

When asked if Donnelly–who did end up voting for Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court in the end–is throwing in with leftist extremists like the Democrat senators who partook in Schumer’s plot to derail the Kavanaugh hearing on Tuesday and the leftist activists who were arrested in the committee hearing by withholding his potential eventual Kavanaugh support at this time, Braun replied: “Exactly.”

“And that’s because Chuck Schumer has said ‘you’re going to’ and Joe Donnelly’s relevance in that caucus is shown by how closely he takes his instructions from Chuck Schumer and look at every significant piece of legislation,” Braun told Breitbart News. “He’s been one hundred percent in lock-step with Schumer, with Nancy Pelosi directing traffic from the other chamber, and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. He has not varied from caucus control on significant pieces of legislation. He uses a certain percentage where he’s ‘voted with the Trump agenda,’ but it’s on stuff where everybody has come across. On Obamacare as a Congressman he voted for it, he voted against repeal. He voted against tax reform which is the only signature legislation as a small business owner that I can think of over many years–we are a national company but we still roll like a small company. I’m trying to think of one other piece of legislation that was as big as tax reform in the direction of what conservatives want and Hoosiers are going to see it because it’s an impossible dancing act for him to do things acting like he’s got Hoosiers in mind. Even in his campaign, Chuck Schumer has run 90 percent of his campaign through attacks on me in ads and Kevin Cramer in North Dakota and Rick Scott in Florida. He is basically a puppet, and Chuck Schumer is the puppeteer.”

Braun concluded the interview by again highlighting not just his race but the Senate races in Florida and North Dakota, saying that GOP candidates in all three states–among other states, too–can win with support from the conservative grassroots across the country.

“There are three seats–here, Florida, and North Dakota–that if we keep doing what we’re doing we should get them back,” Braun said. “Conservatives across the country have to have the resources in all these races outside money is two to one and these candidates [the incumbent Democrats] have six years to prepare for it and they have resources four or five or six to one. Here, Florida, and North Dakota we’re keeping pace, but there has never been a bigger case for conservatives to get out and help us financially because most people think it’s moral parity but the case is they have the advantage but here, Florida, and North Dakota and we can bring a few other races along too if we get out there and support these races financially.”