First up? The gang at This Week with George Stephanopoulos, which included regulars Chris Christie and Rahm Emanuel, along with the CEO of Democracy For America Yvette Simpson; and Sarah Isgur, a veteran of the Trump administration Justice Department who's now a political analyst for CNN and The Dispatch.
George started the panel discussion by asking Rahm Emmanuel what he thought about impeaching Trump a second time.
Yeah, George, the way I look at this is two parts, in a kind of bifocal way. One is there was a crime committed; two, we have a cancer in our society. And you have to address both with everything you have. On the crime side, I definitely think, whether it's impeachment -- you know, the other day I said go to censure because it would be quick. That's how we handled Joe McCarthy. But you need a moral judgment quick that the institution of Congress, on behalf of the United States, speaks about the crimes that were committed, not just by the president -- I would also go a little further and discuss also those who were instigating and part and parcel, not just the people they're arresting around the country that should be arrested and brought to trial, but other people in the institution that were part of this. There's ways to hold them accountable... Second, on the cancer, Joe Biden has a role, but the Republicans who call people names and call people socialists, you're creating an environment that creates a cancer here. Everything in American history is about inclusion versus exclusion. And we have a big, long-term, generational fight of bringing people who have been excluded economically, politically, culturally, society-wise, legally, into our country. And when we bring inclusion and have an inclusive effort, America is strengthened. So, yes, on whether it's impeachment, censure, but a moral judgment and a legal -- and consequences that actually bring a voice to what happened here, because it is unprecedented. And then, second, deal with the cancer in our society in a generational fight for inclusion.
Regarding impeachment, Chris Christie said
-- I think if inciting to insurrection isn't, then I don't really know what it is. But I will say too that the Democrats, by what they did earlier on Ukraine, have kind of cheapened this a little bit, too. And I think that these are the type of actions which this mechanism was put into -- was put into place for...What I have heard from fellow Republicans is that they have had enough, and that the president's conduct, quite frankly, since then has gotten them upset. I mean, it is a national disgrace, George, that the flag at the White House is not at half-staff for that Capitol Hill police officer, Sicnick, who gave his life in protecting one of our institutions of democracy. If we're having a fit of pique, and that's why we're not putting a flag at half-staff, it's just another example of why people think that these decisions are not being made on the merits; these decisions are being made purely with an idea of what's in my own personal desire at the moment on the part of the president. And so, it's just wrong.
Sarah Isgur noted that there's no one around this time like Howard Baker, back in the Nixon days.
There is no one who the president listens to. He is fundamentally different than Richard Nixon. In his farewell address in 1974, Richard Nixon said: I'm not a quitter, but I have to put the country first. That is not fundamentally who Donald Trump is, or else we wouldn't have had January 6. He incited an insurrection against the legislative branch. Mind you, our Declaration of Independence was to overthrow a tyrant who excited domestic insurrections amongst us, is what it said. Our entire Constitution is built to prevent tyranny from the executive branch against our seat of government. And like others have said, if this isn't an impeachable offense, I don't know what it is. But the idea that Donald Trump at this point will be convinced to resign by anyone in the Republican Party, he was the one telling folks in that crowd to go after his own vice president. He continued to do so when his vice president was in danger in the Capitol, as they chanted, "Hang Mike Pence." It is disgusting. But I don't see this president doing what Richard Nixon did, which is somewhat funny, because we consider Richard Nixon, I -- most likely, the worst president of the 20th century. And yet Donald Trump is making Richard Nixon looks like a statesman.
Yvette Simpson agreed with George that the more we hear, the worse it gets.
Absolutely. I mean, I think the question about whether this was coordinated, whether this was planned is not a question. I mean, there was clearly -- we're going to continue to hear about what happened with Capitol Police and the fact that you see folks being ushered in, you see people being walked out, you see people being helped down. The Capitol Police, their chief has stepped down. We know that there was a rally ahead of time. We know that the president of the United States asked these people to go to the Capitol. I believe that you're going to find a lot of evidence that this was coordinated, that, actually, we escaped a much more horrifying result because of the bravery of the individuals who protected the members of Congress. And I think that, to add to the conversation that we are having today -- and I love that we're all in agreement here, George. We need to do something, and we need to do something really, really -- right now, and something that shows that this is -- this is an extreme situation. People continue to say that we don't have enough time. I want to remind folks that Senate GOP facilitated one of the fastest nominations of a Supreme Court justice after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So, to say that we can't do this in a week is ridiculous. And, again, if we don't do it now, how do we ever in the future of this country say that we're going to hold someone accountable, anyone, especially a president, if we don't do this and do this right now?
And, here's some of the conversation with the group on Fox News Sunday, where Chris Wallace was joined by Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff and president of Cavalry Consultants, Josh Holmes; Marie Harf, executive director of the Serve America PAC, and Jonathan Swan from Axios.
Wallace asked Swan how Trump is taking his Twitter ban, and what he's heard about Trump's mood in his final days. Swan noted that Trump has told him several times that Twitter is
his most powerful weapon, it's his most powerful tool, and he believes that. He may not be wrong, by the way. I mean he -- it's the way that he communicates directly with the American people. He goes around the mainstream media. He can speak to -- I think his combined audiences at least 150 million, may be more than that. His Twitter audience was something like 88 million and it's an incredibly intense following. There's people who just are addicted his Twitter feed. So he will see this is a huge blow to him... I know inside the White House right now they're trying to turn their attention for the next few days on how they can fight back against these social media companies. So, I wouldn't be surprised -- I know that -- I mean one person last night said to me, 'everything's on the table.' I don't what that means policy-wise. I said are we talking executive orders? They said, everything's on the table.
Josh Holmes, in response to a question about Twitter's responsibility as a private company to police their site, that
they certainly have the ability as a private company to do anything that they'd like to do, and that includes platforming every conservative if they'd like to. I think the larger problem here is any effort, historically-speaking, to stifle free speech ultimately has resulted in making the problem that you're trying to cure much, much worse because ultimately all of this speech gets funneled down into smaller silos, to more extreme sects, to further radicalize and push away sort of mainstream thought. And I think you can see that already happening here. I'm less concerned about this in terms of what it means for Donald Trump's Twitter account. I'm more concerned about the precedent that it sets for conservative speech going forward. And I think that is what most Republicans and conservatives are looking at as a real problem for what Twitter has done here.
Marie Harf offered this on Biden's legislative calendar and priorities.
Well, Chris, I think, number one has to be getting his team in place. And that involves dealing with everything from COVID to the economy and jobs to national security. And so I do think that there's a strong sense that confirmations have to happen immediately. And then paired with that is the question of additional COVID relief for Americans. He has talked about the $2,000 checks, getting more relief to small businesses, getting unemployment relief to people. I think that will be a first priority as well...
But I actually think that this is an opportunity for senators like Joe Manchin, Chris Coons, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, the folks clustered around the middle of both parties, to come together to help Biden get things passed like infrastructure for example, things passed like tweaks to our health care system. You know, Joe Biden did not campaign on huge, radical change, he campaigned on working across the aisle to address things like prescription drugs. And so I think that once we get through this initial period of time where he gets his team in place and works to really attack the coronavirus issue, those are the kinds of things he's going to look at.
Final word goes to Swan, on the role in national politics for Trump after Biden's inauguration.
Well, he does have a base that will follow and support him. It will be the height of naivety to think that he doesn't. And, in fact, I think people drastically overstating the extent to which Donald Trump is a diminished figure after this. Yes, he's a -- of course he's a -- he -- there's no doubt he's lost some -- and Josh probably has a better read on this than I do, some number of Republicans. He's certainly lost quite a few elected Republicans. But I don't -- I haven't seen any evidence yet that he's lost a huge proportion of the Republican base who, you have to remember, was -- and we know this both from data, like hard, quantitative data, but also from focus groups and from anecdote and from activists in the field, that he had an incredible bond with the Republican base. A very intense bond that I've seen firsthand at many Trump rallies and there are some things -- I'm not convinced that goes away at all. So I think people should be very wary of dismissing Trump; he's somebody who has serious power, his own type of power outside of Washington going far beyond January 20th.
On that, I couldn't agree more. And honestly, impeaching him is only going to make him that much more adored by his bas.
See you around campus. Wear your mask, and do your research. Read whatever you can about what happened last week, and compare sources from all sides. It's the best practice, if also the most painful.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!