Watch Stephen Colbert’s hilarious take on GOP’s latest impeachment fail

The Republican Party’s attempted impeachment fiasco and beleaguered House Speaker Mike Johnson were the subjects of late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue Wednesday night. Colbert observed that while the House Republicans targeting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “never identified a specific high crime or misdemeanor for the impeachment, which is usually kind of a thing,” the event was still historic.

It's only the second time in America that a Cabinet member has been impeached. The first was Secretary of War William Belknap back in 1876, which Congress accused of ‘prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.’ 

[In Trump voice singing Bette Midler song] Did you ever know that you're my hero …

Colbert then laid it on thick, claiming that his entire show would be dedicated to covering the Senate’s impeachment trial of Mayorkas, before someone off camera told him the Senate immediately voted to dismiss the articles of impeachment. 

“That was quick,” said a stunned Colbert. “So, what do you guys want to talk about?”

Colbert then pivoted to the precarious position GOP Speaker Mike Johnson finds himself in, even though “they just got rid of the last guy six months ago.”

Republican speaker of the House has joined the list of least secure jobs, just below No. 2 leader of ISIS; World's Oldest Man; and Rupert Murdoch fiancée.

Colbert: Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, seen here in his profile pic on HammerYourOwnPenis.com.

After playing a clip of Johnson telling Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo that Trump is "100% with me," Colbert threw to a clip of Trump being asked whether he will support Johnson.

Trump: Well, we'll see what happens with that.

Colbert: That is a dose of classic Trump loyalty. He's got your back ... so he can push you under a bus.

Zachary Mueller is the senior research director for America’s Voice and America’s Voice Education Fund. He brings his expertise on immigration politics to talk about how much money the GOP is using to promote its racist immigration campaigns.

Watch yet another House GOP hearing go totally off the rails

A House Oversight Committee hearing into China’s “political warfare” against the United States went off the rails Wednesday when Republican Rep. James Comer interrupted Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin to push attacks on President Joe Biden and his family.

Raskin was using his allotted time to point out that the “smoking gun” whistleblower who Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan were hanging their entire impeachment case on was in fact a Russian mole.  

“That's just simply not true,” Comer interrupted. “But go ahead.”

It is true and the two did go ahead, in an argument that escalated and went on for more than five minutes. 

Of course, Raskin had the benefit of facts and reality on his side. When Comer, who chairs the Oversight Committee, tried to repeat a thoroughly discredited claim that Biden received money from Chinese interests, Raskin reminded him that it was then-President Donald Trump who actually received millions of dollars from China.

Raskin then called Comer’s bluff and asked him to put up or shut up on impeaching Biden, something fellow Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz has previously attempted. That led to this exchange:

Raskin: Where is your impeachment investigation? If Joe Biden took a $9 million bribe from China, why aren't you impeaching him for that?

Comer: Well, who says we're not?

Raskin: I can invite Mr. Moskowitz to come back in. Do you want to move for impeachment today? Because I thought that that was your main agenda item. You said it was the paramount priority of the committee?

Comer: No, this is a hearing on China. And you all have an obsession with Russia and Trump. It's disturbing.

Raskin: We can talk about China and Trump, or Russia and Trump --

Comer: --You need therapy, Mr. Raskin.

Raskin: No, no, you need therapy. You're the one who's involved with the deranged politician, not me. Okay? I've divorced myself from Donald Trump a long time ago. You're the one who needs to disentangle from that situation. 

And I will tell you this: If you believe that it would have been illegal for Joe Biden to take $5 million from Ukraine, it certainly would have been. What do you think about Donald Trump taking more than $5 million from the Chinese government while he was president?

At one point, when Comer claimed that the ongoing GOP investigations into the Biden family didn’t cost many millions of taxpayer dollars, Raskin snarked, "Oh, it's been for free? Okay. All right. Well, you know what, then? We get what we paid for it because you got nothing. You got nothing on Joe Biden."

When Comer tried to continue on with a new speaker and dismiss “Mr. Raskins,” Raskin vociferously demanded his time back—but not before putting Comer’s disrespect on notice:

Let me start with this. My last name is Raskin. Okay? We've sat next to each other for more than a year. You don't have to add the S. Number two, I would like my time restored. Number three, you have not identified a single crime. What is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going? Why? Well, what is the crime? Tell America right now.

You can watch the full exchange in the video below.

Zachary Mueller is the senior research director for America’s Voice and America’s Voice Education Fund. He brings his expertise on immigration politics to talk about how much money the GOP is using to promote its racist immigration campaigns.

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GOP impeachment inquiry pronounced dead and ‘dunzo’ after latest hearing flops

On Wednesday, the Republican Party attempted, once again, to slander President Joe Biden. Using their control over the House Oversight Committee to hold yet another stunt hearing, ostensibly in their investigation of the president for possible impeachment. The hearing went so poorly that many are calling the evidence-free impeachment shenanigans officially dead. 

The fact that Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz wore a Vladimir Putin Halloween mask to the committee hearing, in a playful bit of political theater, illustrated how absurd this farce has become. Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz pointed out that even Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Donald Trump’s bestest buddy, chose to bury the hearing on his nightly show. If you can’t get the same bozos who ran your evidence-free propaganda to run it anymore … them’s the breaks. 

Rep. Eric Swalwell used his time to pronounce the sham inquiry “Dunzo. Bye bye. Rigor mortis. Lights out. Curtain drop. Mic drop. Peace. Adios. Sayonara. Au revoir. Or a language that you all understand, ‘Do svidaniya.’” 

Swalwell even put a time on the death of the impeachment!

Like previous Republican-led hearings on the matter, this latest hearing was one Democratic representatives pulled no punches. Rep. Jasmine Crockett took her time to remind everyone that Hunter Biden testified for hours, and the GOP got nothing out of it. Crockett pointed out that the only person Republicans seem to be unwilling to subpoena is the person who generated the “evidence” they claim they are investigating: Rudy Giuliani. 

“But, you know, kind of like when we were trying to get his cell phone, they shut it down, right?” Crockett said. “Like, they don't want the facts.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin allowed former Trump aide Lev Parnas to give some of the most damning testimony, casting absolute doubt on Giuliani’s “fact-finding” mission in Ukraine, and highlighting the complicity of right-wing propaganda operators like Sean Hannity in spreading misinformation.

The GOP “case” against the Biden family has consisted of disappointing "bombshell" evidence and star witnesses who contradict the Republican narrative. Last week, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee brought in former special counsel Robert Hur in an attempt to characterize the president as mentally unfit for office. It went poorly. Democratic members of Congress put together not one, not two, but three supercuts showing how bizarre Donald Trump is, once again making Biden’s competency as a world leader that much more striking.

Thoughts and prayers.

The president of the Center for American Progress, Patrick Gaspard, joins us to give his thoughts on what the Republican Party’s actual message is.

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Trump’s attacking a military family because that’s who he is

Donald Trump continues to go low in his attacks against primary opponent Nikki Haley. During a rally in Conway, South Carolina, over the weekend, Trump mocked Haley’s husband’s absence from her campaign appearances. On the one hand, these attacks are strange considering Haley’s husband, Maj. Michael Haley, is serving our country on a yearlong assignment in Africa. Something that was well-covered as his deployment came at the beginning of his wife’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

On the other hand, Trump has a long history of being dismissive and disrespectful of military servicemembers and their families. Trump famously received a medical exemption from serving in Vietnam in 1968 due to “bone spurs.” According to Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, Trump could not provide any evidence of having the malady, telling Cohen, “You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam.”

But Trump’s chicken-hawk bonafides haven’t stopped him from disrespecting other Americans’ service to our country. Back in 2015, Trump spewed this repulsive statement about the late Sen. John McCain: “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured.” Trump followed up his disapproval of McCain’s military service by refusing to lower the flags at the White House to half-staff after the senator passed away—finally relenting after hours of pressure from members of Congress, veterans, and staff.

When retired four-star-Gen. John Allen endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump called him “a failed general.” He followed that up by attacking Gold Star father Khizr Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died while serving in Iraq. Trump followed that up by implying Khan was a radical Islamic terrorist sympathizer. 

In 2017, Trump told the widow of slain Army Sgt. La David Johnson that “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” To add to Trump’s general cowardice in the face of facts, Trump denied the conversation had happened the way it was reported, including him forgetting Johnson’s name during the conversation with his widow. Johnson’s widow confirmed the account to CNN. 

According to The Atlantic, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because he worried the rainy weather would mess up his hair. Trump’s cavalier attitude towards fallen soldiers included him describing the cemetery as being “filled with losers.” That account was confirmed by Trump’s longest-serving former chief of staff, John Kelly, who added:

“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in A  merica’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

Trump’s disregard for service to one’s country led to hundreds of government workers being dismissed or resigning from their positions–people like Army Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, who Trump attacked relentlessly for testifying before Congress during Trump’s impeachment trial. The attacks on Vindman were as low as it gets, pushing an idea that he was somehow less patriotic or American because he had immigrated to the United States.

Trump’s attacks on military members’ and their families have always been frowned upon by most Americans. But the grotesque nature of Trump’s attacks have not seemed to have made a dent in the MAGA-cult’s confidence in him. Hopefully it helps to remind the rest of the electorate how bad a Trump presidency tastes.

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Congressman shreds Trump’s worst ‘ideas’ for border security

The House Homeland Security Committee convened on Tuesday to discuss and vote on two Republican-led articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Democratic members of the committee decided to take a two-pronged approach to managing today’s proceedings.

First, they pointed out how overtly political this impeachment process has been, and second, Democrats stressed how Republicans spend most of their time and energy complaining about border security while fighting tooth and nail to stop anything from actually being done about border security. That obstructionism includes trying to impeach Mayorkas.

Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California used his time to detail how “Donald Trump and House Republicans also have their own ideas for the border” and went on to helpfully list these actual proposed solutions. 

So let's review the majority’s border ideas, that they've actually presented. Here they are:

Donald Trump actually has said that he wants to build alligator moats along the border. That's one of his incredible ideas. 

Another idea that Donald Trump has promoted is he actually wants to electrify the border fence, and maybe even put some spikes on the border. That's another Donald Trump and MAGA-majority border idea. 

Another idea, which I'm not sure how well it would go, is he wants to actually bomb northern Mexico with missiles. That's another Trump idea.

And finally, I think one of the ones that I think is the most grotesque, is suggestions that instead we should maybe just shoot migrants in the legs as they cross the border. So once again, the Donald Trump and MAGA plan is alligator moats, bombing northern Mexico, shooting migrants in the legs, and electrifying the fence, and putting spikes on them. That is the Donald Trump border plan. 

And so again, we are here today with these horrific ideas being presented constantly by the former president. This is all about trying to get Donald Trump reelected. Donald Trump himself is saying he wants no solutions this year out of the Congress. And Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden continue to offer solutions every day and are ready to actually talk about real immigration and border solutions in this country.

The Republican Party has admitted too many times that these committee hearings and impeachment pushes are entirely political maneuvers, fueled by petty revenge and attempted power grabs. These partisan performances have nothing to do with the checks and balances in our Constitution.

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It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!

Watch: Republicans slammed for ‘debasing and demeaning’ the Constitution

On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee met to discuss the Republican-created articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The entire enterprise against Mayorkas has been an example of one of the most transparent weaponizations of impeachment provisions in our lifetime. 

Rep. Daniel Goldman decided to use his time to give a masterclass on how hypocritical, political, and ultimately dangerous this endeavor is, describing the proceedings as “completely debasing and demeaning the impeachment clause of the United States Constitution, and it is a gross, gross injustice to the credibility of this institution.” Goldman reminded the committee that impeachment has only been used against people who have abused their power and should not be used as a way to attack what you might believe to be “bad” policy. “That is for elections and that is for legislation,” Goldman continued.

He then drilled into the political nature of these proceedings, and how they are an attempt to give Donald Trump and congressional Republicans something to run on during this election cycle: “You are sitting here right now trying to impeach a secretary of Homeland Security for neglecting his duties literally while he is trying to perform his duties and negotiate legislation.” Finally, Goldman detailed the catch-22 of nongovernance being performed by the GOP, and how corrosive it is to our country.

So your own party is sabotaging and undermining this administration's efforts to address the border while you are trying to impeach him by saying that they're not addressing the border. The hypocrisy is the least of it. Your attack on the rule of law and our democracy is the worst of it. And you better be careful about the bed that you make. I yield back.

Mayorkas has been a publicly convenient symbol for Republican attacks on immigration policy. No matter how jaw-droppingly obvious the fallacy of their attacks may seem, it is all that they’ve got. Since the GOP continues to fail to gin up enthusiastic electoral support from its voters by way of culture wars attacking trans children and banning books on race and history, trying to impeach Mayorkas has become their substitute for doing anything substantial about our country’s immigration policies.

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New letter exposes Republicans’ latest absurdity in their impeachment stunt

The Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee kicked off the new year by wasting everybody’s time with new impeachment hearings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And on Wednesday, Chair Mark Green sent a letter to Mayorkas asking that the secretary provide written testimony since he “declined to appear” before the committee.

But that’s not exactly true. Also on Wednesday, NBC News obtained a letter from DHS contradicting Green’s assertion that Mayorkas “declined” anything. According to NBC, after the Republican-led committee originally requested that Mayorkas testify in person on Jan. 18, DHS replied that the secretary could not testify on that date due to scheduling conflicts. Specifically, Mayorkas would be hosting a delegation from Mexico to discuss immigration issues. In other words, the exact issue Republicans are pretending to be interested in working on as lawmakers.

In the letter, DHS explained that Mayorkas remained willing to testify in front of the committee at another date, but as DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg described it in a statement following Green’s letter, Republicans’ “rush to impeach” Mayorkas seems to be taking precedence over having a reason to impeach him.

This is just the latest example of Committee Republicans’ sham process. It’s abundantly clear that they are not interested in hearing from Secretary Mayorkas since it doesn’t fit into their bad-faith, predetermined and unconstitutional rush to impeach him. Last week, the Secretary offered to testify publicly before the Committee; in the time since, the Committee failed to respond to DHS to find a mutually agreeable date.

Instead, they provided this offer of written testimony to the media before any outreach to the Department. [Homeland Security Committee] Republicans have yet again demonstrated their preference for playing politics rather than work together to address the serious issues at the border.

Mayorkas has long been a target for the do-nothing Republicans in Congress because immigration has been an amorphous boogeyman they use to (successfully) frighten their base. Sometimes, though, Republican lawmakers can’t keep their conspiracy theories straight, such as when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mistakenly claimed during another hearing that the FBI was part of the Department of Homeland Security.

As a DHS official told NBC, Mayorkas has testified 27 times in 35 months—more than any other Biden Cabinet official—and has answered hundreds of questions concerning immigration and the southern border. The first two-hour hearing that Green chaired last week was unable to bring up a single piece of evidence that might rise to the level of impeachment.

Green’s choice to try and paint Mayorkas as dodging these circus-like impeachment proceedings is possibly twofold: It allows Republicans a chance to throw suspicion on Mayorkas’ as guilty of something while also ensuring that the secretary won’t publicly embarrass them the way he recently humiliated Sen. John Hawley.

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GOP congresswoman defends Trump’s Nazi talking points

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York went on CNN Monday evening to defend Donald Trump’s recent fascist rhetoric. Specifically, Trump’s transparent use of Nazi references to racial impurity, saying things like immigration is “poisoning the blood of our country.” 

Host Abby Phillip attempted to get Malliotakis to admit that, at the very least, Trump’s repeated use of authoritarian rhetoric was worrying, reminding her that Malliotakis’ own origin story includes being the daughter of a Cuban refugee. Malliotakis didn’t see it that way:

Abby Phillip: Let's talk for a second here about the fact that Trump continuously, repeatedly uses this rhetoric that now maybe you could say the first time he didn't know the references, the parallels to authoritarians—he knows now. Why does he keep saying it over and over again?

Nicole Malliotakis: Well, look, I just think he's trying to bring attention to the issue.

Is there anyone more narrow-minded and group-thinky than a Republican lawmaker? In Malliotakis’ defense, she has maintained a rather stolid hypocrisy when it comes to immigration policy. Her 2022 campaign for the 11th District of New York consisted of attacking asylum-seekers.

What makes this an extra-special kind of hypocrisy is that Malliotakis is willing to defend the heinous rhetoric of Trump, a man she herself claimed in 2017 to have regretted voting for. Of course, that was when she was running for mayor of New York City, a place where Trump isn’t well liked.

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Sen. Ron Johnson goes on CNN, makes wild election claims, then struggles to provide proof

Sen. Ron Johnson went on CNN Monday evening to talk about the Republican Party’s continued attempts to tie providing aid for Ukraine with conservative bogeyman border policies. At the end of the interview, host Kaitlan Collins mentioned recent news about Wisconsin’s 10 fake Donald Trump electors cutting a deal in their civil case. Collins wanted the senator to weigh in on calls for one of the fake electors, Robert Spindell Jr., to resign his position on the state elections commission.

Johnson is nothing if not duplicitous and he stayed on brand, citing “all kinds of irregularities in Wisconsin in the 2020 election” and saying that having “an alternate slate of electors” was some kind of common practice, “just like Democrats have done repeatedly in all kinds of different states.” Collins reminded Johnson that these fake electors have admitted that what they did was at the very least “improper,” and Johnson responded by saying all the civil cases against them were “a travesty of justice.” That led to this exchange:

Collins: You think it's fine that someone who tried to overturn a legitimate election is still on a board that helps certify [elections]--

Johnson: –Democrat electors have done that repeatedly. Democrats have done the same thing.

Collins: Which one? In Wisconsin—fake slates of electors?

Johnson: No, it's, it's happened in different states …

Collins: Which ones, sir?

Johnson: I didn’t come prepared to give you the exact states but it’s happened repeatedly. It has happened repeatedly, just go check the books.

Collins: Which books?

Johnson: There have been alternate slates of electors by Democrat electors in our history. Again, you didn't—this wasn't what this interview is going to be about. I'll come and I'll provide you that information.

Not long after Johnson’s pathetic appearance, the senator went to his X (formerly Twitter) account to post his “examples,” which included Democratic reps objecting to the election results in 2017 and did not involve fake electors. Surprisingly, this also didn’t include creating a revolt at the Capitol building, and Donald Trump was certified without anyone being killed or injured.

His other example is the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Nixon had lost the election, but Hawaii was initially called for Nixon by 140 votes. Three Democratic electors chose to sign a slate saying Kennedy won. Of course, at that time there was a recount underway that would eventually reveal Kennedy got more votes.

Johnson’s part in the attempted coup on Jan. 6 has been the subject of much speculation, as the things he’s said in public and his alibi do not square with the evidence. Johnson has been secretly recorded admitting that there was no election fraud, and definitely not the kind of Big Lie-mythologized fraud that might have actually reversed the outcome in Wisconsin.

Since the failed coup, Johnson has consistently tried to downplay the severity of what happened at the Capitol and across the country after the 2020 election.

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After embarrassing interview, James Comer runs to Newsmax to call CNN a ‘low-IQ audience’

 House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer went on CNN last Friday and gave a sad defense of his tax-dollar-wasting impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden. Host Jake Tapper’s willingness to ask about the glaring holes in Comer’s conspiracy theories once again exposed the absurdity of the pointless Republican witch hunt. It was embarrassing.

On Monday, Comer was forced to answer another hard question, this time from Newsmax host Rob Finnerty: How does the Kentucky Republican deal with the fact that half the country sees his investigation as a joke?

Rob Finnerty: [Tapper is] making your investigations sound like a joke, and he's trying to make you look like a joke. And then half of America sees that and they think your investigation is a joke. How do you work around that? How do you work through that?

James Comer: Well, that's the first time I went on CNN in three months. We thought we would give it a try. You know, Jake Tapper is an intelligent guy, but he's playing to a low-IQ audience.

A pretty famous study from the past decade shows that conservative ideologies and prejudice are both linked to low intelligence. These people then seek out their information from conservative propaganda outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, which, in turn, loops their poorly developed ideologies back to them, reinforcing the cycle. One of the best ways to manage people with poorly thought-out ideologies is to tell them everybody else is stupid—with their facts and all. 

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Markos and Kerry give their thoughts on what the country is facing in 2024. The Republican Party is running on losing issues like abortion and repealing the ACA—with no explanation of what they plan on replacing it with. Trump has a lot of criming to atone for, and the Republican platform remains set on destroying democracy.