I’m something of a skeptic when it comes to seeing witnesses in the impeachment trial. I think the fix is in and they are running the Kavanaugh playbook (look reasonable and pretend to consider). But the problem for them is they are already losing in the court of public opinion, and they will be painted as enablers of a cover-up (which, of course, will be accurate.) And there is certainly even more evidence to come on Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Mulvaney and the whole rotten lot. So we shall see.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
GOP senator’s vicious outburst shows the corruption of Trump’s defenders
The exchange went like this:
RAJU: Senator McSally, should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial?
McSALLY: You’re a liberal hack.
RAJU: You’re not gonna comment, Senator?
McSALLY: You’re a liberal hack, buddy.
There’s been talk that McSally staged the episode to excite the Republican base. And indeed, Republicans are already using it to raise money for her reelection campaign, in which McSally is very vulnerable.
But, whether or not this was a setup, McSally is now treating this as something that will give her a political boost, which is just beyond pathetic.
WaPo:
How the finding that the halt in aid to Ukraine was illegal overlaps with what we already knew
Putting a fine point on it:
- The administration didn’t offer a rationale in the moment for why the aid was being held even to officials tasked with implementing it.
- OMB staff members were concerned about the legality of the hold.
- The hold overlapped with a period during which Trump’s teams both within the administration and outside it were pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations that would benefit him politically.
- One administration official told Ukraine explicitly that aid was withheld until the inquiries were announced.
- A former member of Trump’s external legal team claims that he conveyed a similar message to Ukraine.
- Trump’s chief of staff indicated that the hold was linked to the investigations Trump demanded of Zelensky.
- As the House moved forward in investigating the situation, the administration almost entirely stonewalled requests for information.
- As the GAO investigation proceeded, it met with a similar response. It nonetheless determined that the law had been broken.
That line from the GAO report about employees taking an oath to uphold the Constitution is particularly resonant in the context of that last point. On Thursday, the Senate impeachment trial of Trump began. One of the articles on which he was impeached centers on his efforts to obstruct Congress’s ability to investigate him; on, as the article reads, Trump’s decision to assume for himself “the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct.”
In this case, again, Trump’s team has apparently decided that it will comply with the legislative branch to the extent that it wishes.
In this case, again, that didn’t prevent his administration from being held to account.
Julian E. Zelizer/USA today:
Don't downplay Donald Trump's toxic tweets. A president's words are never a sideshow.
Trump's Twitter feed is dangerous to our democracy. Journalists and historians should treat it just like other presidential speeches and statements.
Some Republicans, feeling defensive, have made a similar argument. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, asked about the retweet of Schumer and Pelosi, responded: “If I reacted to all of the president’s tweets that I disagreed with, that’s all I would spend my time doing. So this isn’t one I’m going to rise to the bait on.”
But it would be a mistake for the news media to turn away. While these sorts of tweets should not consume the entire news cycle, they must be part of the conversation. The tweets and retweets are a key part of his presidential record. Because they come from the president, these short blasts are serious business.
Presidential rhetoric is never a side show. The great presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, elevated the nation through lofty prose that inspired citizens to survive through difficult times. In our textbooks, we chronicle moments such as FDR’s speech on Dec. 8, 1941, when he mobilized the public after the devastating Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. It was, FDR famously said, a date that would “live in infamy.”
‘Muslim’ Is Not an Insult
The president’s recent tweet was personal for me.
This is not the first time the president has twisted facts or conflated issues as they relate to Muslims to score political points with his base. Almost a year before he won election, Trump called for banning Muslims from entering the United States—a policy that evolved into what is now known as the “Muslim ban,” with hugely detrimental effects. On the campaign trail in 2016, he stated that “Islam hates us,” portraying Islam, and by extension Muslims, as an angry, monolithic “other” dead set on destroying the American way of life. With those three words, Trump set the tone for the years to come, fueling an “us versus them” narrative that has widened deep fissures within our society.
Where the hell is Mike Pompeo?
Matt Dickinson/EducationNow:
Bye-Bye, Booker
In the post-mortem to his campaign, it is worth considering whether his performance would have benefitted from a campaign less devoted to inspirational rhetoric, and more focused on the details of his policy record, including education reform.
Booker never broke 5% support in polls in either Iowa or New Hampshire, and his already tepid support had dwindled in recent weeks in both states. Perhaps most troubling for his electoral prospects is that as an African-American who centered his campaign on a promise to help bridge the racial divide in America, he appeared unable to cut into Joe Biden’s strong support among black voters, an important Democratic constituency that constitutes more than 50% of the Democratic electorate in the early primary state of South Carolina.
It is an open question whether a more policy-focused campaign would have made a difference. Although big on inspirational themes, Booker’s campaign rallies and debate performances were notably short on policy details. This included a reluctance to play up his prior support, most notably as Mayor of Newark, for school choice and education vouchers, and his efforts to reform the state’s public education system. That electoral strategy was on full display in a campaign appearance in October on the Dartmouth College campus in Hanover, New Hampshire. Although Booker did not completely ignore policy during this appearance, he eschewed any detailed discussion of specifics, and his only reference to education policy came in response to audience questions.
Paul Brandus/USA Today:
Americans need inspiration. Trump talks about toilets and dishwashers, and he's mean.
Democrats still in the 2020 race are decent people guilty of promising more than they can deliver. Trump is a nasty guy who attacks and divides.
Here’s the key difference between Trump and the Democrats: Trump’s a nasty guy. He’s a divider. He attacks and insults people. That’s not effective, principled leadership. That’s what sets him apart from the men and women who were on stage Tuesday night at the Democrats' debate in Iowa. The Democrats all have very human flaws but are fundamentally decent people with commendable records. Which is a lot more than we can say for the president. That's the difference.
What Trump doesn’t get is this: We Americans are aspirational and respond to inspiration. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies,” Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, on the brink of the Civil War. “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” he said in his second, after nearly four years of war.