Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led the team of House managers on Trump's first impeachment chatted with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. Schiff said that the managers for Trump II need to present all the facts, and not presume that everyone - including all senators - are familiar with the full breadth of what the former president did over the course of many months leading up to January 6th. He's confident they'll be able to tell the story.
Schiff also said that he thinks some senators would complain about the process no matter how slowly the House moved, but he said there was "a real sense of urgency" this time, given what happened.
And we felt in the House, as well as ten of the Republicans, that every day he remained in office he was a danger to the country and we simply couldn’t -- you know, we couldn't, you know, sit still, and wait for weeks or months while this man posed a danger to the country. So, we did act with alacrity.
The president will have "every opportunity" to defend himself, even though he's already rejected testifying, and Schiff is encouraged by some senators who have said they're keeping an open mind. And yes, when he led the managers, they did believe that they had a chance - "it was very uphill" - and that, had they been allowed witnesses, they might have been able to change people's minds.
He said everyone needs to let the managers put on their case; he said lead manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is "an extraordinarily capable, brilliant Constitutional scholar " and will be among the folks making the call on whether or not to ask for witnesses.
But in a very real way, Chuck, we have the unusual circumstance where, on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present. And those will be the House and Senate members.
Finally, Chuck shared this comment from GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, directed at Democrats after the vote to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her assignments.
If people are held to what they have said prior to even being in this House, if majority party gets to decide who sits on what other committees, I hope you keep that standard because we have a long list you can work within your own.
He asked if Schiff if he was worried about the precedent. Schiff said
Kevin McCarthy stands for nothing except the perpetuation of his own position. He has no values. And in my view, cares about little except for hoping to be speaker one day, God forbid.
He said that members - of either party - who threaten violence against other members, who cast doubt on 9/11 and school shootings, who heckle shooting victims, who suggest that a religious group is shooting laser beams to start forest fires,
they should be expelled from their committees, whatever party they are in. They shouldn't, frankly, even be in the Congress.
The bottom line for Schiff? If everyone is held to the same standard, there's nothing to worry about.
And, speaking of worrying about things, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined Jake Tapper in the State of the Union classroom. She was asked to respond to comments from Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary himself, who said that "the proposed Biden stimulus is three times as large as the projected shortfall" and that it could lead to rising inflation. Yellen said that,
as Treasury secretary, I have to worry about all of the risks to the economy. And the most important risk is that we leave workers and communities scarred by the pandemic and the economic toll that it -- that it's taken, that we don't do enough to address the pandemic and the public health issues, that we don't get our kids back to school.
She listed other impacts, including millions out of work and out of the work force, children falling behind because schools aren't open, too many small businesses closing, police and firemen losing their jobs, and more. She said "we need a package that's big enough to address this full range of needs. And I believe that the American Rescue Plan is up to the job."
Regarding the risk of inflation, which she has "spent many years studying,, she said there are tools to deal with that if needed. And, she said, if we do nothing, "we would have a long, slow recovery" like we did after the Great Recession, according to the CBO. But, according to folks at Moody's and the Brookings Institution, this plan will put people back to work much sooner. Not only that, but she said if the package is passed, she expects that "we would get back to full employment next year."
Yellen said Biden is willing to work with folks in Congress to "define what's fair" and that he wouldn't want to see families making over $300K getting a stimulus payment, but that middle class families do need to get support. She didn't get any more specific than that, other than to reiterate that going big is important.
She said the SEC is working on a report giving all the facts of what went on with the GameStop trading and after that, folks can decide if new regs are needed. They'll review to "make sure the markets function efficiently, that investors are protected, and also that they understand the risks that they face when they engage in trading."
Regarding her own financial history with Wall Street types, including one of the hedge funds that was short-selling GameStop, she pointed to her ethics agreement and said she'd "religiously adhere to" that, and "will certainly abide by my ethics obligations."
Tapper dug up some old tape of Yellen saying, back in '98, "On average, women now earn about 75 percent of what men earn." And now, with women earning 81% of what men do, Tapper wondered what she wanted it to look like when her tenure as Treasury Secretary is over.
Well, I would like there to be equal pay for equal work. And I would like to see the barriers that remain that impede the progress of women in the labor force addressed. Once upon a time, labor force participation of women in the United States exceeded that of most European countries.
The opposite is true now of Europe and other developed countries. And big differences are the availability of child care and paid family and medical leave. And these are things I think we need to work on in order to make it easier for women to work and to combine work with family life.That would be fun, right?
I'll have Mayor Pete, er, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in your Extra Credit.
See you around campus - masks on, of course. And Go, Bucs in the Super Bowl!
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