Sunday School 11/10/19

Looks like Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was the only 2020 Dem presidential candidate making the rounds today. She's gotten plenty of Sunday School time recently, so I opted not to sit in with her and instead visit with some other folks in the classrooms.

Let's listen in as Chuck Todd talks with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Connecticut's Rep. Jim Himes on Meet the Press.

First, the Senator Paul what-about, what-about segment. In response to a question on whether he's been reading the deposition transcripts, the senator said he's been reading reports but not the actual transcripts. He went on to sa (with my emphasis added)

But I guess my impression so far is, I think the American people want fairness. And I don't think they're going to judge fairness, when they're accusing President Trump of the same thing Joe Biden did, threatening the aid, if some kind of corruption's not investigated. And it seems like everybody, both parties, have been threatening aid, if some kind of investigation either doesn't happen or is ended. And so I think, really, what's going to happen is people are going to say, "Oh, they're impeaching President Trump for exactly the same thing that Joe Biden did."

He threatened the aid, if they didn't fire someone. And supposedly, the president did, if they didn't investigate someone. So it sounds exactly like what Joe Biden did. And if they weren't going to impeach Joe Biden, they look like, you know, hypocrites, in a way, for going only after President Trump and having not a word to say about what Joe Biden did.

Todd did not push back on the "Trump and Biden did the same thing" point, but he did try to pin the senator down on whether Trump should have done what's alleged, that he sought a quid pro quo from Ukraine. Paul's response, with some emphasis added:

I think there's a real question whether you think the president should specifically go after one person. But there's a real question whether Joe Biden should've gone after one prosecutor. It's exactly the same scenario. So I think there is a question --  There is a question about that. But if it were me, I wouldn't give them the aid, because we don't have the money. We have to actually borrow the money from China to send it to Ukraine. So I'm against the aid. And I think it's a mistake to do the aid. So I wouldn't have played any of these games. But I think the American people think it's unfair to treat Trump under one standard and Joe Biden under a different standard.

And so, Todd went back again, asking

But is that really -- I understand trying to go back. I go back to, do two wrongs make a right? I want to set that aside because I don't understand why that's always used as a deflection. Does that mean you think it's now okay for the president to act this way? It doesn't matter what we think of Joe Biden, at this point. If it's wrong for this to be done, then it's wrong period. No?

And here's how the senator responded.

Well, it kind of does, it kind of does. But I'll approach it from a different way. Fairness is one angle. And I don't think people are going to think this is fair. But I think the second angle is this. Foreign aid, by law, can only go out to countries that are not corrupt. So if you think that a country is acting in a corrupt way, a president can always withhold aid, until the corruption is fixed. So you're going to have to get into the mind of Trump and his advisers and say, "Well, he didn't really believe that the Bidens were corrupt." I think he absolutely does. I think you could give him a lie detector test and say, "Do you think the Bidens were corrupt? And do you think you were investigating corruption, and that corruption is in the law, that you can't give aid to a country that has corruption?" So there's no way. This ends up being a policy debate and a partisan debate. And it has nothing to do with legality or illegality or impeachment. It's purely a partisan way of trying to overturn the election.

So, fairness is the issue, except that it's not the issue,  it's getting into the head of the president, unless it's not that, it's a partisan attack on the results of the election. OK - fine -- let's go there, then, right Chuck Todd?

Negative on that; the next question had nothing to do with Paul's answer, it had everything to do with giving the president cover. That's right - the question was whether a distinction should be made between Trump asking for a quid pro quo and his administration asking for one. You know, Mulvaney maybe?

You know, I think we've gotten lost in this whole idea of quid pro quo. And I think Senator Kennedy kind of hit the nail on the head. It's that, if you're not allowed to give aid to people who are corrupt, there's always contingencies on aid. Even, even President Obama withheld aid. You know, he was supposed to give lethal aid. Congress said, "Give them $300 million in lethal aid." And he sent them blankets.

So presidents, since the beginning of time, have resisted Congress. And there's been this sort of back-and-forth jockeying over what is sent. But also, presidents have withheld aid before for corruption. So the thing is is I think it's a mistake to say, "Oh, he withheld aid, until he got what he wanted." Well, if it's corruption, and he believes there to be corruption, he has every right to withhold aid. So I think it's a big mistake for anybody to argue quid pro quo. He didn't have quid pro quo.

And then, knowing that he'll be a juror, should articles of impeachment come to the Senate, Paul offered the president a new defense.

And I know that's what the administration's arguing. I wouldn't make that argument. I would make the argument that every politician in Washington, other than me, virtually, is trying to manipulate Ukraine to their purposes. Menendez tried it. Murphy tried it. Biden tried it. Trump's tried it. They're all doing it. They are all trying to manipulate Ukraine to get some kind of investigation, either to end an investigation or start an investigation.

No follow-up on that, no probing on what Paul said, even the part about "every politician" trying to manipulate Ukraine, except Rand Paul. Nope; back to whether an average American should be concerned about the president asking a foreign country to investigate a political rival, and does Paul "understand why some people think...that that is, basically, abusing the office for political gain, to mess with the election?" More from the Senator, more emphasis from me.

I think you're right, Chuck. But I think an equal number of people are upset that Hillary Clinton hired a British spy to hire Russians to get dirt called the Steele Dossier. So here's Hillary Clinton, in the middle of a campaign, hiring a foreign spy agency or a foreign spy-

So, it's not about Joe Biden, now it's about Hillary Clinton? This time, Todd came back.

Alright, you did it again to me. You did it again. You went back and said, "Okay, there's behavior that's bad over here. There's behavior that's bad over there." All that does is condition us for more bad behavior. When do we put a stop to this?

Paul denied the 'what-aboutism, even though that's exactly what it was.

No, but what it says is — no, what I'm asking for is that they be treated equally. And I think the American public's going to say, "If you didn't do anything to Hillary Clinton for hiring a foreign spy, why is it, all of a sudden, wrong for President Trump --

Todd, interrupting: "So two wrongs make a right?"

And Paul:

--to have a country investigate somebody-- well, what I would say is that people want them to be treated fairly. I'm not saying, two wrongs make a right. I'm not even saying I would've done it that way. All I'm saying is, is that you're going to impeach President Trump, and you're going to give Hillary Clinton, you know, let her skate? So then I think people see that as unfair. And so it becomes partisan. That's why no Republicans voted for impeachment.

And, no follow up on that. Which one is it? Is it Biden? Clinton? The Elf on the Shelf?

Final question: Are you an open-minded juror? 

I'm very open minded and fair minded. You'll not meet a person who is more fair than I am. I really do believe that justice should be colorblind, gender blind, you name it. I think justice should. But you know, one of our traditions about justice, about finding justice, is a defense should be able to present their witnesses. So if you can't call Hunter Biden, and you can't call the whistleblower, that's not -- that’s sort of a sham. That's not even really a trial. So I am fair minded. But the trial has to be fair.

So now, we have to call two people, one who has never been involved with Trump in any way, and one with no first-hand knowledge of anything, according to Republicans?  My head spins - it Joe Biden literally spins.

But that's OK, because I'm going to share one bit of the interview Todd had with Rep. Himes, who addresses that point nicely.  Todd asked if there's going to be new information learned once the public hearings kick off on Wednesday.

Himes said there will be new info, and that he suspects "most of the public" hasn't read the transcripts that have been released.  And, he said, we'll hear from "immensely patriotic... articulate people" who'll tell us about a president who "extorted a vulnerable country." And then, he said this.

And Chuck, if you'll, if you’ll grant me one second here, my head is only now decombusting from the exchange you had with Rand Paul. I've spent 11 years in public service defending the press, and when Senator Rand Paul comes on and says that what Donald Trump did -- and the transcript is there -- extorting a foreign government for his personal political gain, and that's exactly the same thing as Joe Biden, "Exactly the same thing," is what he said, as Joe Biden saying that this prosecutor should be released. When Joe Biden is acting in consistency with American foreign policy and back then we had a whole list of things that had to be done and this was American foreign policy, it was European Union policy, it was IMF policy that this prosecutor needed to go.

When Rand Paul says that that's exactly the same thing as the president of the United States saying, "You need to find dirt on my political opponent," and with all due respect, Chuck, when you say, "Well, do two wrongs make a right?" Let's be very clear. The president of the United States demanding, extorting a vulnerable country to do his political bidding, to go after his opponent, has nothing to do with Joe Biden executing the foreign policy of the United States or Hillary Clinton, who is a private citizen, doing opposition research on her - on her presidential opponent. Those are radically different things. What the President did is wrong and impeachable.

See you around campus.