Sunday School 1/17/21

Which classrooms are demanding my attention today?  At least three had House members I wanted to hear from: Meet the Press, This Week with George, and CNN's State of the Union. Let's see how much we can fit in.

Before we get to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and her chat with Chuck Todd on MTP, I want to give you a quick highlight from Chuck's interview with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. Todd wondered how long they'd be living with the increased security and what "feels like an armed camp" in DC.

Bowser didn't pull any punches in her response. 

I think the question is a bigger question, Chuck. It is how serious is our country going to take domestic white extremism? And I think what we saw here last week is that we didn't take it seriously enough. We've never believed that so-called patriots would attempt to overthrow their government and kill police officers. But that's exactly what happened. And so, I do think we have to take another posture in our city that is more domestic terrorist focused than external to our country and act accordingly...

As her answer sinks in, let's hear from Rep. Mace. She was disappointed (as was I, honestly) that impeachment was the only option they could consider; the "bicameral, bipartisan effort" to consider censure instead was not an option.

That would one, hold the president accountable for his words and his actions and two, also prohibit from holding office again in the future. Unfortunately, the speaker wouldn't let us bring it up for debate or bring it up for a vote. There were measures, there were folks in place in both chambers, in both parties, that were willing to do that and go that far. But unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity at all last week.

And while she admitted that keeping Trump from ever holding office again via censure is "complex, constitutionally" they were willing to try and figure it out. Mace said it was "enormously disappointing" that, after she "literally had to walk through a crime scene" to vote to certify the Electoral College votes, leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, and other Rs still objected. That shows they "have reconciliation that needs to happen" within the GOP, and the country.

Mace thinks Liz Cheney will survive and keep her leadership role; not only that, but she noted the irony that "the same people that were complaining and screaming about the president being silenced on Twitter want to silence a dissenting voice within our own party," which is also "very hypocritical and very disappointing."

Part of the American experiment in this country is the ability and opportunity to debate ideas. Even when we disagree, we have the ability to agree to disagree and not attack one another. And there's so much division, not only within our party, but within our country right now. And we've got to do a better job. And I hope and I support Liz Cheney. And I hope that she stays a part of leadership. We need these voices right now more than ever.

We definitely need voices that are not beholden to any person or party, for sure. 

Over in the This Week classroom, George talked with Joaquin Castro (D-TX), one of the impeachment managers. He wasn't sure how long the trial would take, but he said they'd do whatever was needed to make the case for the American people and for members of the Senate. He correctly noted that Trump's been talking about the stolen election and being cheated "for months" and then "got these folks riled up on that day, asked them to march down to the Capitol and when all of this was going on, when there was a riot inside the US Capitol, also didn't send relief to quell it."

George noted that Trump asked people to be peaceful on January sixth, and suggested it was a First Amendment issue, but Castro disagreed. Referring to "the big lie" about the election, and all of the losing court cases, and that Trump "knew what he was doing, and watched as that mob took over the U.S. Capitol..."

He's also not concerned about the constitutionality of convicting a president who's already out of office, and that one of the points of doing it is to make sure Trump can't run for office again. And, they plan on fighting for every vote in the Senate, and making sure Trump is held accountable for "inciting this deadly insurrection..."

Next, George talked with Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), another newbie, and one of the ten Rs who voted for to impeach. He said he hasn't seen any evidence that members of Congress or any staffers were involved, and that it's "important" that folks don't "get ahead of the process."

... If anyone was responsible or participated, they should be held to the fullest extent of the law and we can talk about those remedial processes later. But at the moment, I think it's important we don't jump to conclusions.

And, he described the last few days as "absolutely gut-wrenching," saying impeaching a president from his own party was "nothing that we ever hoped to do."

Many of us deliberated deeply. This was not as easy as just saying what is in our best political interest, but, frankly, looking at the evidence, looking at the facts of the case, reading the article and - and asking, is this true by our own experience, by our lived experience? And it was.

Meijer also said that it's a "time for reflection, but also a time for accountability," something he's "deeply committed to."

You know, I'm calling on my party to restore trust, to restore the trust of the voting public and to ensure that we never allow the actions that led up to January 6th and what happened on January 6th, we never allow that outburst of political violence to occur in our name again.

He told George he can't really say a whole lot about any other people's votes on impeachment, or about overturning the election, although he did credit many of his colleagues with "honest and forthright" decision-making, He worries when individual concerns become collective concerns, something that happened after the election, which built into "something that ended up supporting the president's, you know, false idea that he had won in a landslide... "

We need to make sure that we have leaders who are telling folks who trust them what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear.

Politically, he may have cooked his own goose by voting to impeach, but stressed the importance of having "elected leaders who are not thinking solely about what's in their individual self-interest, not what is going to be politically expedient, but what we actually need for country." 

About Trump, he said that "it's time that we acknowledge that what happened on January 6th was a betrayal of what had been accomplished over the past four years... " and added

You know, the president brought some necessary energy. He brought some necessary ideas. He shook the tree. He was a change agent. The challenge was that he -- he didn't know when to stop, and he didn't draw a line.

Finally, on what incoming President Biden can do to help heal the divide?

I think it's incumbent on both parties to ensure that they are not promoting folks within their ranks who are engaged in a politics of deception, but rather having open, thoughtful, honest, engaged conversations. I hope that President Biden will do the same, that he will not give in to some of the more, you know, some of the lower impulses that -- that folks in the progressive wing may try to bring out, but rather say that this is a time for the country to focus on rebuilding; this is a time for the country to focus on rebuilding trust, rebuilding our institutions, rebuilding governance. You know, we need to get through the pandemic. We need to deal with the economic consequences and the fallout. But we also need to heal all of the divides that have been exposed over the past several years.

Wait, what? The lower impulses that the progressives may try to bring out? How can any Republican talk about the "lower impulses" of the other side, given (as I've said before) they play underground limbo on their own side of the aisle? Sorry, Rep. Meijer. I was with you for a while, but you lost me with that.

Unfortunately, we're out of room for CNN SOTU. I'll see what we can fit in to your Extra Credit. 

See you around campus.

Sunday School 1/10/21

Let's dive in to today's classrooms, shall we? 

First up? Former Trump Chief of Staff (etc. etc. etc.) Mick Mulvaney, who talked with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. Let's see if Chuck redeemed himself after last week's embarrassing scrum with Sen. Ron Johnson. 

Mulvaney said he doesn't know about the president's current state of mind, but he said the Trump of eight months ago or so would have dealt with things differently.

I thought that we'd never be here. I thought the president would be presidential. Clearly, that system has broken down. And whether or not the president is different or the people advising him are different or both, I don't know what's going on inside the Oval Office now, and I don't know what's going on inside the president's head.

And he said that policy differences or differences in style, personality traits you don't like, those are all

different than what happened on Wednesday. Wednesday was a fundamental threat to the United States. It speaks to what makes us American. It's an existential type of thing. It's not, it’s not superficial. It's deep and it's real and it's different, which is why you saw so many resignations this week, and didn't see them over the course of the last couple years. Wednesday changed everything.

Chuck played some of Trump's quotes, using "character is destiny" as the framework, and wondered how Mulvaney and others could say they never saw this "version of Donald Trump," and he wondered how this wasn't the inevitable ending. Mulvaney's response was, well, perfect Trumpeter.

Yeah. And I know it's, I know it's easy for folks now who've never liked the president or always disagreed with his policies or really disliked him as a person to say, “Why didn't everybody see this coming?” But keep in mind, so many of us that worked with him every single day didn't see him through a filter. In fairness, you saw him oftentimes -- you've had some face to face with him -- but most people saw him through the filter of a media that didn't like him very much. We saw him every single day. The reason that I wrote in The Wall Street Journal six weeks ago that I thought the president would leave presidentially is because I had evidence to that end. I had stories. I had background. I had seen that type of president, and I never thought I'd see what I saw on Wednesday. Yes, the rhetoric was very high and very fiery. You and I both know, however, that American politicians do this on a regular basis. I can pull you similar clips of Maxine Waters telling people to take to the streets. It's different though, when as you said in your entry, that people took him literally. I never thought I'd see that. I never thought I’d see a day in our country where people from any side of the political spectrum would storm the Capitol in order to intentionally stop the Constitutional transfer of power, which is part of what was happening on Wednesday. That's what's different, Chuck, that the country is different than I expected. 

I can't help laughing when people indignantly tell me that Maxine Waters and the president of the United States are on equal footing. Honestly, I can't not laugh at that.

Final question? "Should Trump be ostracized from the Republican Party as you know it?" Mulvaney said that's going to happen, but he thinks "the ideas will live on." And, he added,

But I think if you have any role at all in what happened on Wednesday, that you sort of, you don't deserve to lead the party anymore. The ideas are bigger than the people. But I think, I think the voters will take that into consideration... I can't tell you the number of people who've supported me for a decade who’s saying that Wednesday was a bridge too far. They love Trump, they love the policies, they were really pleased with the successes of the first four years, but he lost them on Wednesday. And I think that's, I think that's the right thing. I think people need to know that what happened on Wednesday is just different.

Next, we have DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who talked with Margaret Brennan on CBS' Face the Nation. The first question was whether DC is prepared for the inauguration and what comes after that. Brennan did note that a public emergency has been declared, and that there will be several thousand National Guard troops in the city.

Bowser admitted that preparations for the inauguration "has to be different than any other inauguration," and that she's engaged DHS and asked that they take extra steps, and she's also going to be asking the president to declare a "pre-emergency declaration" that'll allow for more federal participation.

She said she doesn't know who planted the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC, and that the FBI is looking into it.

Who we saw charging the Capitol building were trained people in many cases, former military, former law enforcement. I think we may find other- other trained people, trained at marching and surging and sieging buildings. So, we have to take it seriously. We too, have to take seriously how we're spreading our resources. That's why we're very focused on making sure that the federal government is providing enough coverage for federal facilities, including the- the Capitol, but many federal buildings across the district so that other law enforcement, our- our law enforcement can focus on other threats across the district's eight wards.

Brennan questioned a letter she had sent on the 5th to the Pentagon and Justice Department discouraging "any additional deployments without immediate notification and consultation with the police if such plans are underway." Brennan wondered if that might have "played a role in the underreaction."  Bowser said no. Rather,

that letter calls attention to the federal government or other federal policing agencies and asks the federal government to coordinate with us if they were going to be on DC streets. That letter has nothing to do with the Capitol or other federal facilities.

Obviously, that letter was a reaction to the federal government's over-reaction last June to the Black Lives Matter protests; the law enforcement presence then, and their actions, have been compared to what was around last Wednesday, and to say the differences are striking is a gross understatement. 

And, I'll close with House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who talked with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union. Clyburn said he was doing well, and he praised his security detail, while saying that "the shame is the fact that the leadership above them did not give them the right kind of directions. And, therefore, they were not able to be -- effectively doing their jobs throughout."

Tapper changed the subject to impeachment, wondering if articles would be submitted on Monday. Clyburn said they papers would be drawn up or finished on Monday, and possibly there'll be action Tuesday or Wednesday, but he thinks it will be this week. He congratulated  Rep. Jamie Raskin for "a job well done" on the article that's been drafted, saying that.

...he brought into that article the issue that concerned me. And that is whether or not we would ignore what the president did regarding the vote down in Georgia that is the presidential vote in Georgia. We heard him on the phone talking to the secretary of state, in fact, almost ordering him, begging at one time and ordering at the other time, and threatening him with criminal action to overturn the vote, to find him 11,700-some-odd votes that he needed in order to be declared the victor. That is impeachable. And I think it should be brought into the discussion. Now, I know the state laws were -- are applicable, as well as local laws. But I think that we in the House of Representatives has got a responsibility to maintain the integrity of a federal election. We tell the people all the time that your vote is your voice. Well, our vote is our voice. And we must voice disapproval of what the president did.

Tapper noted that an impeachment trial in the Senate could start as early a 1PM on January 20th, but noted "it could distract the Senate from considering any Cabinet nominees for Joe Biden, passing coronavirus relief."  Do you have any concerns that Congress will be distracted if this trial goes forward, instead of focusing on the Cabinet and coronavirus?

Clyburn said both he and Speaker Pelosi have concerns, and then he turned on Mitch McConnell.

Mitch McConnell is a pretty good legislator. And he's doing what he thinks he needs to do to be disruptive of President Biden. But I would say to Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi is smarter than that. We will take the vote that we should take in the House. And she will make the determination as to when is the best time to get that vote and get the managers appointed and move that legislation over to the Senate. It just so happens that, if it did go over there for 100 days, it could - let's give president-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running. And maybe we will send the articles sometime after that.

I'm getting stressed just thinking about that possibility, aren't you? Hurrying to get the article(s) done, and they'll not be bipartisan to any degree, and then waiting to send them over to the Senate? It's like Deja vu all over again, right?

Tapper turned to suggestions Clyburn made that there might "be some Capitol Police officers who aided the rioters, who were complicit in the attack," and that "something else was going on untoward here." He asked what evidence there was to support the statements. Clyburn said he has an 

unmarked office that you have got to know exactly where it is. It is where I spend most of my time doing my work... And that office is where I do most of my work. And for some reason, these people showed up at that office. But the office where my name is above the door -- or on the door and my position above the door was not disturbed. So, I'm just saying, they didn't go to where my name was. They went where I usually hang out. And so that, to me, indicates that something untoward may have been going on.

And the final question has to do with race, and Nancy Pelosi's comment that the insurrectionists "have chosen their whiteness over democracy."  Tapper wondered if Clyburn agreed was what happened on Wednesday.

Oh, many of them, absolutely. I can't tell you how many times in my life I have heard people say to me, to my teeth, so to speak, that that is what is paramount with them. Why would anybody be going there with this so-called Confederate Battle Flag? I have been telling people all the time there is something else about that flag that people don't focus on. That has never been the Confederate Flag. And when people tell you it is all about heritage, it is not about heritage. That flag was never adopted by the Confederacy. They always rejected that flag.  Nathan Bedford Forrest put that flag out here when he was forming the Ku Klux Klan, or when he was running it, though he said he didn't found it. But the fact of the matter is, that flag has been adopted by skinheads and white supremacists in Germany. You can't -- it is illegal for the swastika to fly in Germany. So, they took that flag. So, when that guy walked in there with that flag, he wasn't talking about the Confederacy. He was talking about his whiteness. That flag is the flag of white nationalism and the flag of white supremacy.

Tapper left it there, and so will I. 

See you around campus. Wear a mask. Stay out of crowds. And if you know anyone in the videos from the attack on the Capitol, the FBI would love to hear from you.