"The impeachment trial of President Trump opened with footage of the January 6th assault on the Capitol, and the room fell so silent you could practically hear Ted Cruz eating his popcorn."
—Seth Meyers
"Whether or not the president is [convicted], or whether or not they do the right thing to keep him from holding office again, it is important that one time, as a nation, we look this straight in the face as it is laid out definitively for the unprecedented and premeditated violation that it is. Because only by facing this truth will we have any hope of stopping it from happening again. Also, I'm pretty convinced it wasn't Antifa now."
—Stephen Colbert
Continued...
"Former media influencer Donald Trump will not testify at his impeachment trial. … He'll be defended by the lawyers who refused to prosecute Bill Cosby, and who agreed to represent Jeffrey Epstein before his death. Which raises the question: what does Trump think he's being impeached for?"
—Colin Jost, SNL
"The Democrats made an excellent case. So much so that Trump's lawyers are now only planning to use three of the 16 hours they're allotted to rebut. Or maybe they realized he's only planning to pay them for three of the hours."
—Jimmy Kimmel
2021 Nikki Haley breaks with 2020 Nikki Haley who broke with 2015 Nikki Haley over 2016-2019 Nikki Haley https://t.co/3VVf20DtGv
"Usually presidents age because of the stress of the job. Obama went gray. George W shrunk like three inches. It's a hard job if you do it. Not Trump—he looks the same. But, good lord, he put a beatin' on us. We're all older. Even the Statue of Liberty got crow's feet."
—Wanda Sykes on Jimmy Kimmel Live
"Marjorie Taylor Greene, who looks like the mug shot of a former child star…apologized for her previous remarks, saying 9/11 absolutely happened. And to honor that day, Greene plans to hijack and crash the Republican party."
—Michael Che, SNL
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 12, 2021
Note: I'm told that today is "Clean Out Your Computer Day." So far I've picked enough crumbs out of my keyboard to re-assemble a chocolate chip cookie and six Doritos, and enough dog hair to knit a three-foot-long scarf. And that was just under the SHIFT key.
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By the Numbers:
36 days!!!
Days 'til spring: 36
Percent of Americans polled by Gallup who say they'll get the Covid vaccine, a new high: 71%
Percent by which double-masking can prevent the transmission of Covid-19, according to a new report from the CDC: 95%
Minimum number of Republicans who have left the party in 25 states since the January 6 Trump-incited insurrection at the Capitol: 140,000
Portion of Americans polled by Quinnipiac who blame Trump for the insurrection: 6-in-10
Percent of annual flower sales that happen on Valentine's Day, which is Sunday: 30%
Age of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Carole King's legendary album Tapestry as of this week: 50
CHEERS to #16. Happy birthday, Abe Lincoln, who turns 212 today. It's no surprise that he's considered by many to be our greatest president, including the 721 historians and political scientists who contributed their opinions to the book, Rating the Presidents:
Our poll rates the category of Lincoln's Character and Integrity the highest of any president's.
Lincoln was goth emo before goth emo was cool.
The poll also lauds his appointments. ... His steady leadership, rated second among presidents [after FDR], kept the Union cause alive during the Civil War's darkest days for the Union. Our experts describe this with remarks like "took America through its greatest crisis," "great moral leader," [and] "had broad strategic vision and a poet's wisdom." … He possessed qualities of kindness and compassion.
Lincoln also had the wisdom of magnanimousness in victory, especially needed for the national healing after the Civil War. Many of the men reaching the august office of the presidency have lacked these simple but uncommon virtues, which play so important a part in governing a nation.
And he had a few choice words that seem aimed directly at the impeached, disgraced leader of the red-hatted cultists:
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
"He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met."
"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
Pay your respects here. Today is also the 212th birthday of evolution guy Charles Darwin—aka Darwin Day. The creationism crowd, which spends most of its time mocking the idea that we evolved from chimpanzees, will spend their day the usual way: flinging poo and picking fleas out of each other's hair.
JEERS to the gallery of rogues. It can't be said enough how brilliantly the Democratic impeachment managers have presented an airtight, open-and-shut case against President Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection against the people of the United States. The facts are clear and overwhelming. The president's sinister, months-long plot to steal the 2020 election—violently, if necessary—is plain for all to see. And after feeling the cascade of evidence rain down on them like God's tears after watching the Bucs beat the Chiefs, C&J asked some of the presumably-gobsmacked Republican senators to describe the experience that has surely changed their minds in favor of conviction:
"Have you ever played with a fidget spinner? Omigod they are so amazing how they go 'round and 'round and such."
"I finally got around to reading Atlas Shrugged. Boy oh boy, now I know why Paul Ryan has a poster of Ayn Rand in a swimsuit on the ceiling in his bedroom!"
"Look—I drew a pitchure of dogs playing with a bone."
“We jointly finished the People magazine crossword in only 12 hours and 14 minutes.”
"There's a water stain on the ceiling. Someone should call maintenance."
“Church...steeple...open the doors...see all the people! They’re my fingers, see?”
"I love lamp!"
“Og.”
A republic. If we can keep it.
CHEERS to New Years Day, Part Er. Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year—the year of the ox. You know who's an ox? Former President Obama, who was born in1961, making him a proud member of the herd:
People born in the Year of the Ox are the supremely self-assured, and as a result are noted for inspiring confidence in others. Generally patient and thoughtful, they measure their words, and will speak clearly and concisely often when it matters most.
Pucker up, Sugar Lumps.
Born to lead, Ox people can be quite stubborn---but also stubbornly loyal to those they love. However, when opposed, their fierce tempers are legendary. So always follow this very wise advice: never cross an Ox!
It also says that the ox gets along with rats and snakes. In other words, uniquely suited for politics.
CHEERS to women on the move. 101 years ago Sunday, the group that Republicans today call "that damned nuisance"—The League of Women Voters—was founded in Chicago under the direction of president Maud Wood Park. It still amazes me how hard women had to fight for basic equality in the land of "Liberty and justice for all." I guess we're just slow learners when it comes to complicated, high-falutin’ words like “all.” And while we’re on the subject, happy early 201st birthday to Susan B. Anthony:
"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."
”There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”
"I distrust those who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
“Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.”
We got her birthday present a wee bit early this year: the swearing in of Kamala Harris as our first woman Vice President. Sorry it took so long, ma’am.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The big TV news of the weekend is John Oliver's triumphant return for another season (his 8th already???) of Last Week Tonight on HBO. God only knows where he’ll plant his shovel first. But first, things get started tonight with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. Then at 10, HBO's Real Time features Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project, and some hippie slacker blogger by the name of Markos Moulitsas. (If I put his name in bold he gives me an extra spoonful of gruel for dinner.)
Gee, what will he have to talk about?
The most popular home videos, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The NBA schedule is here and the NHL schedule is here. Regina King hosts SNL. Sunday on 60 Minutes: how the Russians outsmarted our cyber defenses (Hint: they put Trump in charge of our cyber defenses), Simone Biles weighs in on the summer Olympics, and Bill Gates unleashes the tree-hugger within. Bart discovers his old teacher’s diary that reveals “a surprising secret” on The Simpsons at 8...or you can watch Kellyanne Conway’s daughter try out on the season premiere of American Idol (ABC)...but why??? And then the weekend wraps up with the aforementioned Last Week Tonight at 11. Goody goody.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD).
The new CDC director gets plenty of airtime Sunday.
This Week: Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Bill Cassidy (Q-LA); Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Face the Nation: British PM Boris Johnson; Rite Aid CEO Hayward Donigan on vaccine distribution; CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
CNN's State of the Union: CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky; Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Lindsey Graham (Q-SC).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 12, 2011
JEERS to problems that ain't gettin' solved anytime soon. Americans were asked by Gallup to list their major concerns, and the top three are: jobs, the economy and health care. Said House leader John Boehner: "We hear you loud and clear: abortion, abortion and abortion. Got it." Someone needs new batteries for his BelTone.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to li'l sweet nothings. Early Happy Valentine's Day! Moments ago I tossed some horny goat weed in my evening cocktail and now I'm madly in love with all of you and half the furniture in the house. Did you know that eight billion of those addictive Sweethearts candies are produced every year? It's TRUE!!! In a tradition we started a few years back, we present this year’s updated list of lovey-dovey candy heart sayings for the strange times in which we live:
WHISPER SWEET NOTHINGS VIA ZOOM
VACCINATED TOGETHER
BE MY DOGFACE PONY SOLDIER
“Happy Valentine’s Day, my little lotus blossom. I got you a box of Type-2 diabetes.”
WANNA SEE MY RELIEF PACKAGE?
MASK GOES OVER THE NOSE, LOVERBOY
BASIC COMPETENCE IS SEXY
306 EVS = TRUE ❤️
PUNCHING NAZIS MAKES ME HORNY
HOOCHIE COOCHIE FAUCI
ABOLISH MY FILIBUSTER
AIR HUG
DON’S GONE. WE DANCE!
LET’S FLIP FOX THE BIRD
BRAID MY PANDEMIC HAIR?
What can we say? That's amore.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
For as much time as was spent with Donald Trump’s legal team trying to erect miles and miles of beautiful wall using nonsense arguments about the First Amendment, or by digging through legalist definitions of incitement, it was all pretty pointless. Sure, Fox News will keep up the pretense that some of that mattered. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz—who consulted with Trump’s attorneys multiple times in the case—will claim that the answers that they wrote, to the questions that they posed, made a difference in their decision. But again and again, Senators in the chamber stepped right up to the biggest gaping wound in everything Trump’s team had to say.
Senators, on both sides of the aisle, quite understandably, wanted to know why when a howling mob of murderous f#ckwads descended on the Capitol, Trump did not do a damn thing to defend them. Trump may have welcomed the “calvary” to Washington D.C., but he certainly did not send it to the Senate chamber even though he knew the building was under assault from his supporters.
And nowhere was that more clear, than how Trump’s legal team responded to questions concerning Trump’s actions regarding Mike Pence.
The sequence of events that happened after Trump’s insurrectionist mob smashed their way into the Capitol was of deep concern to the people on the pointy end of the spears and flagpoles. The sequence of events surrounding Trump’s actions after his speech and before the National Guard finally arrived at the Capitol that evening was the subject of the most serious, and important, questions of the day.
During Friday’s session, Trump’s attorneys tried to build on the objection made by Sen. Mike Lee, to claim that the call between Trump, Lee, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville was “heresay.”That sequence became the direct subject of questioning on Friday evening during Trump’s impeachment trial, when Sen. Mitt Romney and Sen. Susan Collins sent this question to both Trump’s legal team and the House impeachment managers.
Romney and Collins: “When Pres. Trump send disparaging tweets at 2:24 PM was he aware that Pence had been removed from the Senate by Secret Service for his safety.”
While Rep. Joaquin Castro made it clear Trump had to have known that the Capitol had been breached, and that the call to Sen. Tuberville made it clear Pence had been removed from the chamber, the answer from Trump’s legal team was even more telling … they didn’t have one.
Instead, Trump’s lawyers fell back on something they would repeat every time someone asked about Trump’s action or Trump’s knowledge: They blamed the House for “not doing a full investigation.” Which is an astounding claim, because the only one who had the knowledge that could answer the question is their client, Donald J. Trump.
The refusal to answer this question was the loudest silence of the whole impeachment trial. And it wasn’t the only time this happened. Here’s another question, this time from Sen. Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Donald Trump’s legal team just told senators that they have no idea when their client learned of the attack on the Capitol. They blamed their ignorance on the House managers, saying they should have uncovered what Trump knew, what he did, and when in their investigation. Wow. pic.twitter.com/KsZnG55slK
Note that Trump’s attorneys also continually acted as if the House managers had access to video or other information that was not provided to them. This is not true. Trump’s legal team had access to the same materials as the House team. Again, the only missing information here is that which could only be found in the skull of their client — a client who was invited to testify, and who refused.
Senators weren’t done poking at this obvious weak point. Sen. Bill Cassidy sent a question to both sides saying “Sen. Tuberville reports he spoke to Trump at 2:15 and told Trump that Pence had just evacuated. Presumably Trump understood that rioters were in the building. Trump then tweeted that Pence lacked courage. Does this show that Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Pence?”
Trump attorney van der Veen answered, “Directly no, but I dispute the premise of your facts.” He then returned to attacking the House managers for not having information exclusive to their client.
Trump attorney dismisses Tuberville's account as "hearsay" that he spoke with Trump about 10 minutes before Trump attacked Pence on Twitter on Jan. 6. This is what Tuberville said this week: "I said, “Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go.'” pic.twitter.com/yhnVUZNceq
As the Senators were leaving the chamber on Friday, Sen. Tuberville underlined the weakness of this point by sticking a fork in the “heresay” argument.
NEWS: Tuberville speaks to reporters just now and stands by account he gave to @burgessev on Wednesday "I said Mr President, they've taken the vice president out. They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go ... probably the only guy in the world hung up on pres United States"
The removal of Pence happened at 2:15. It’s recorded on the cameras of the Senate chamber.
Mike Pence taken from Senate chamber at 2:15 PM
Then, just after Trump hung up from his conversation with Tuberville, with full knowledge that his mob was in the Capitol building and that Pence was in danger, Trump tweeted again.
This is just one sequence out of hours in which Trump displayed total disregard for either the security of the nation or the lives of those in Congress. But no other moment may so completely describe his malice and criminal indifference.
Finally, just as the session was ending on Friday, CNN reported on another aspect of Trump’s refusal to act on Jan.6 — his confrontation with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy. That conversation had already been the subject of a report used by the House managers; a report which Trump’s legal team also dismissed as “third hand.”
Now CNN has more details of the phone call between Trump and McCarthy. In that call, Trump told McCarthy that the insurrectionists “cared” more about the election than McCarthy.
"Well, Kevin,” said Trump, “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
McCarthy was still begging Trump to do something to call off his supporters when rioters were breaking smashing the windows of his office. Finally, frustrated that Trump was doing nothing to help, leading McCarthy to shout. “Who the f--k do you think you are talking to?"
Apparently Trump knew exactly who he was talking to … someone who would vote against Trump’s impeachment and come right down to Mar-a-Lago to beg forgiveness for ever raising his voice to his king.
Witnesses. The House managers should demand witnesses. And McCarthy should be at the top of the list.
“So the point I’m trying to make is you don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. [...] Because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
No, that’s not Reps. Jamie Raskin or Stacey Plaskett this week laying out the case against Donald Trump. It’s then-Rep. Lindsey Graham in January 1999 speaking as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial of Bill Clinton for lying about sex. On Thursday, Sens. Graham and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee met for an extended period strategizing behind closed doors with the Trump defense team not on how to cleanse and restore the office of the presidency, but how to twist the record to defend Trump against behavior that tens of millions of Americans with a television saw him do repeatedly over the past several months.
Okay, pointing out Lindsey Graham’s hypocrisy long ago reached the level of cliché. Even quoting him being scathing about what he thought of Trump before the election and the utter servility we see now doesn’t matter to him. And it obviously doesn’t matter to the South Carolina voters who in November stuck him back in the Senate for another insufferable six years. Neither does hypocrisy matter to most other Republican senators. After all, 13 who were representatives who voted to impeach Clinton or senators who voted to convict him 22 years ago are now in the Senate, every one of them primed to acquit Trump. Only a few Republican senators haven’t told us directly or indirectly how they expect to vote when the time comes.
Yet even now, when newscasters, media analysts, and veteran political junkies repeat that no way will 17 Republican senators be persuaded to join Democrats in convicting Donald Trump of inciting insurrection, you can still sometimes catch a whiff of hope in their tone that perhaps they’ll be proved wrong. That perhaps those Republicans actually paying attention to the proceedings will not remain impervious to the truth. That they will abandon the view that an impeachment trial after the defendant has left office is a waste of time as well as the debunked assertion that it is unconstitutional. That they won’t align themselves with the eight senators who cozied up to Trump’s lies about fraud and voted to overturn the election results. That their vote on impeachment won’t cause gagging across the land every time in the future they label themselves “patriots.” That maybe, just maybe, enough Republicans will stop cowering at the feet of the departed Trump and quit worrying about what his cultists may do in two years at the polls.
Unfortunately, no maybes about it.
The worst part of this is that these men and women aren’t blind and they aren’t stupid. Whatever they say for the cameras, they know the truth of the situation. They know that Trump has been ramping up the incitement since his campaign began in 2015. They know that injecting a “be peaceful” into one incendiary speech out of the dozens he’s made isn’t acquittal territory. They know that he’s overturned practically every presidential norm in existence, ultimately topping it with the cherry of incitement dedicated to undermining the foundations of democracy. They know that if he had been reelected, he would right this minute be enhancing the autocratic practices with which he already had damaged the presidency and the republic in his four terrible years in the White House. They know he’s a liar, they know he’s a thief, they know he’s a relentless conniver, and they know—with nearly half a million Americans dead of COVID-19—that his ineptitude knows no bounds. Most of all, they know that Trump’s behavior may well have irrevocably split the Republican Party.
But still these senators will vote to acquit. They will ignore the criminality the videos at the Capitol show. They will deny the assertions of the insurrectionists who said coming to Washington was in answer to Trump’s call. They will prove that they just don’t give a good goddamn for the democratic values they tell audiences on the campaign trail and patriotic holidays that they hold sacred.
After Clinton’s acquittal, Lindsey Graham said, "People have made up their mind in a political fashion that will hurt this country long term." You can be sure he won’t be repeating that line again today. Nor will he be talking about cleansing the office of the presidency or restoring its dignity and integrity. He’s shown himself way beyond being able to restore his own.
I’m ashamed to admit that this didn’t register the first time I saw video of Donald Trump’s supporters marching through the Capitol, methodically hunting door-to-door for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, smashing down doors and chanting her name.
Thanks to Monica Hesse, writing for TheWashington Post, I get it now.
As rioters made their way through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, some went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. New footage of this was released at Wednesday’s session of the impeachment trial. The mob roamed hallways, searching for her office, and as they did, they called for her. “Oh Nancy,” one man cried out, three syllables ricocheting off the walls. “Oh Naaaaaaancy.”
Sure, they wanted to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence. And they would have, in a heartbeat. But they had something special planned for the women they encountered, Nancy Pelosi most of all—and they wanted her to know it.
The video below, played during the House managers’ case, is just one example.
It wasn’t some high-minded notion about the election that motivated a lot of these folks. Yes, they all were avid Trump supporters, but, for many of them, Trump was just an authority figure who finally validated their anger and hostility. He was someone who had confirmed and stoked their deep-seated hatred and made them feel good about themselves. He was a soothing presence telling them that it was okay to be a racist and okay to be a misogynist. When he told them it was okay to march on the Capitol, they felt a sense of freedom. They could be exactly the people they always wanted to be, unbound by any constraints.
And that’s exactly how they behaved, Hesse explains.
Oh Naaaaaaancy is said in a singsongy voice. It is the same voice that a child would use to say, Come out, come out, wherever you arrrrre in a backyard game of hide-and-seek tag. It is playful. It is sinister. It says, I am planning to take my time, and it will not be pleasant, and it will not end well for you. The men looking for Pelosi in the Capitol were strolling, not running.
Hesse cites a revealing investigation by Alanna Vagianos, conducted forHuffington Postin the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Vagianos looked into the history of several of the prominent faces arrested in connection with the riots, and found that a startling number had something singular in common: “a history of violence against women―ranging from domestic abuse accusations to prison time for sexual battery and criminal confinement.”
By acting out their innermost misogynistic fantasies, these men, caught on camera roaming the halls in search of Speaker Pelosi, revealed their intentions as clear as day: They intended murder, but they also intended sexual assault. “Nancy” was the name that popped into their head, but it could have been any woman that they met in those hallways. The goal was to terrorize, and if the opportunity arose, well, who could say?
For those who may still not quite understand, Hesse patiently explains what these people were really about:
Oh Naaaaaaancy is also self-aware. It knows it sounds like a horror movie. It is the sort of affectation a bad man might pick up after too many viewings of The Shining. It is what a man stalking a woman thinks a man stalking a woman should say.
Retired Air Force veteran Larry Brock, famously photographed in tactical gear and carrying zip-ties (also known as flexible restraints) was one of these men with an ugly history of violence towards women. While in the process of finalizing a divorce, Brock was apparently fond of sending abusive text messages to his then-wife, such as. “Do the right thing and kill yourself already.”
“I have better things to do than speak to a whore”; “Nobody loves you”; “Narcissistic whore.” Her ex-husband, Larry Rendall Brock Jr., had been sending them like clockwork for three years. A court had ordered the couple to communicate through a specialized portal while their contentious divorce was finalized. Larry often used it for threats.
Another man arrested for the riots, 48-year old Guy Reffitt, was also an abuser.
In 2018, police responded to a domestic disturbance at Reffitt’s home during which he and his wife were physically fighting. Reffitt and his wife, Nicole Reffitt, were both drunk, their children were present and he had a gun, according to the police report. At one point, Reffitt pushed his wife onto a bed and started choking her until she almost lost consciousness, the report states.
There’s Jacob Lewis, a 37-year old gym owner, who gained national notoriety by refusing to close his California club in light of COVID-19 restrictions. Lewis had a restraining order against him for potential domestic violence.
There was 26-year-old Samuel Camargo, who had previously attacked his sister. There was Matthew Capsel, another abuser who had violated his own restraining order, threatening a woman with violence even after his arrest for the Jan. 6 rioting. There was Proud Boy Andrew Ryan Bennett, who had previously assaulted his sister and attacked a woman in a tattoo parlor.
And then there was this guy:
Another Capitol rioter, Edward Hemenway of Winchester, Virginia, was released from prison in 2013 after serving five years on rape, sexual battery and criminal confinement charges. According to court records, Hemenway lured his estranged wife to a hotel in 2004, where he handcuffed her and duct-taped her mouth shut.
Of course, these are only the ones who’ve been arrested, and whose newfound notoriety permits their histories to be explored. But there were doubtlessly hundreds more of these types in the crowd that day. As Vagianos’ article points out, the white supremacist ideology driving many of these people meshes perfectly with misogyny, because both attitudes thrive on white male insecurities—about race and about women, respectively. Trump deliberately played to these men’s insecurities, so it took little effort to convince them that a threat to him was equally a threat to themselves.
And that’s exactly what played out inside the Capitol halls as they chased down their prey.
Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is probably not the only concern he currently has. Twitter, Trump’s social media platform of choice, confirmed that the former president is facing a lifelong ban, not a temporary ban, from the platform. Whether or not Trump decides to run for president again will not impact this decision—he will remain banned, Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal told CNBC News.
“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform — whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO, or you are a former or current public official,” Segal said. “Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don't allow people to come back."
Segal’s statement comes amid Trump’s impeachment trial in Congress. If acquitted, Trump would not be barred from seeking the presidency again in 2024.
"The way our policies work, when you're removed from the platform, you're removed from the platform whether you're a commentator, you're a CFO or you are a former or current public official," says $TWTR CFO @nedsegal on if President Trump's account could be restored. pic.twitter.com/ZZxascb9Rz
Despite more than four years of consist racist and ill-advised tweets, Trump was only removed from the platform in January after the Capitol riots following concerns that his words carried “risk of further incitement of violence.” The move to remove him was probably because Democrats were transitioning to power, not because of his references to violence since he’s been doing that for years—and in some cases, his tweets have been far worse—but better late than never. Just before his Twitter ban, Trump not only tweeted about the “stolen” election and his refusal to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration, but about other conspiracy theories as well.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company announced in a blog post on Jan. 8.
Calls to ban Trump from Twitter and other platforms go back years before his role in the White House. While he was never banned before, Twitter began temporarily locking his account and flagging several tweets as misinformation. Following the Capitol insurrection, Facebook and YouTube also took action, with Facebook prohibiting Trump from posting "indefinitely" and YouTube confirming it would issue strikes on his account. Snapchat has also permanently banned Trump.
Trump’s Twitter ban didn’t stop him from his tweeting addiction, though. He was so desperate to use the platform that he attempted to tweet from @TeamTrump, the official Trump campaign account, and his @POTUS account. Both tweets were quickly deleted. While @TeamTrump was issued a ban, the @POTUS account was not since it was a government account, which was later transferred to Biden.
In response to Twitter losing users on the platform after banning Trump, Segal noted that many users joined the platform despite the known ban.
“We added 40 million people to our DAU [daily active user count] last year, and 5 million last quarter,” Segal said. “In January, we added more DAU than the average of the last four Januarys, so hopefully that gives people a sense for the momentum we’ve got from all the hard work we’ve done on the service.”
Usage details inearning reports backed this statement in which the company noted that it ended 2020 with 192 million daily users—a number that continued to grow in January despite Trump’s ban. While daily usage figures weren’t shared for January, Twitter told The Verge that daily user growth was “above the historical average from the last four years.”
Either way, one thing is for sure: No matter how much he denies it, Trump is definitely upset that he was removed from Twitter for good. Who knows—maybe he’ll attempt to make Parler his home.
While some users have said they’re missing his tweets as the platform no longer has the same drama it used to, online misinformation, especially about the election, decreased 73% following Trump’s ban, research from Zignal Labs found. As his followers continue to leave the platform, perhaps Twitter and other social media platforms will be more credible outlets for users to seek information from.
Americans' views of the Republican Party have taken a serious hit ever since the November election and the party's repeated efforts to overturn the election results, according to new polling from Gallup.
Just 37% of adults say they have a favorable view of the party, a precipitous 7-point slide in just a few months from the 43% who viewed it positively in November. In the same period, the Democratic Party gained a few points in favorability, with 48% of respondents now viewing it favorably. That gives Democrats what Gallup calls a "rare double-digit advantage in favorability."
But what is perhaps most striking is where the GOP is bleeding support from—its own ranks. "Since November, the GOP's image has suffered the most among Republican Party identifiers, from 90% favorable to 78%. Independents' and Democrats' opinions are essentially unchanged," writes Gallup. That image problem isn't merely theoretical; it has already resulted in tens of thousands of GOP defections across the country since November as conservative voters officially switch their party affiliations to something other than Republican.
On the flip side, Democrats' gain in favorability has come mostly from independents, whose positive views of party have increased by 7 points since November, 41% to 48%.
The GOP has "often" sunk into sub-40 territory, according to Gallup. When Donald Trump forced a lengthy government shutdown over his border wall in January 2019, for instance, GOP favorability fell to 38%. But news of the party's plummeting image comes right as GOP lawmakers rally around Trump—the main driver of their recent disfavored status—to prevent his conviction on impeachment charges.
Historically, the party that initiates impeachment proceedings takes a political hit. But Trump and his flagrant efforts to subvert the will of the people have proven to be historically unpopular, and Democrats are actually gaining in popularity due to their efforts to hold Trump accountable and safeguard American democracy.
Republicans, on the other hand, are sticking with Trump no matter the consequences because they simply can't imagine a world in which they have to appeal to anything beyond white identity to win elections.
Republicans are desperate to have no witness testimony at Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. They’d much rather run on the pretense that the whole thing is unconstitutional for mumble mumble reasons, and power through the whole of the presentation from the House impeachment managers with hands clamped tightly over their ears. After all, as long as they can pretend to be voting on a technical issue about impeachment, it’s less obvious that they’re actually signing on as full participants in sedition.
On the other hand, Democrats in both the House and Senate seem content to also run the impeachment trial without witnesses. Part of that comes from a concern that if there is a trial stretching out for weeks, Republicans will be on television every day pounding the “the Senate is getting nothing done because of this trial” drum—and ignoring the fact that “getting nothing done” was the definition of almost every day that Mitch McConnell controlled the Senate. Democrats also feel like they already have a solid case against Trump without needing testimony. After all … what he’s accused of is an event that everyone in the nation saw unfold. Every member of the House and Senate was a witness.
But the one person who seems determined to force the House impeachment managers to call witnesses against Trump is … Trump. That’s because the direction he’s taking his legal defense practically screams with the need to bring in people who can explain the truth.
Over the last week, Trump’s legal team and the House impeachment managers have filed a series of letters and replies. In the latest of these, the House team walked through the response that Trump’s attorneys made to the original statement from the impeachment managers.
The first three-fourths of that response lean heavily on the idea that trying Trump after his term in office has expired is not constitutional. It’s an argument that is based largely on quotes taken from work by Michigan State University Professor Brian Kalt, only every single instance has been taken out of context, or misquoted, to completely reverse the intention of Kalt’s readings. That alone may be enough to nudge House managers into calling a witness, because having Kalt appear to take apart the statements by Trump’s legal team has to be tempting—especially since this house of straw is the shelter where every Republican in the Senate is hiding from the big bad wolf of facts.
But there are actually two other parts of Trump’s defense that are even more tempting, both when it comes to calling witnesses and focusing the the case by the House.
First, Trump’s team has inserted into the response the claim that Trump felt “horrible” about the events on Jan. 6, and “immediately” took action to secure the Capitol. That’s pretty amazing, because the most “immediate” response that Trump seems to have taken was to focus the attack on Mike Pence. Ten minutes after the first insurgents smashed their way into the Capitol building, Trump tweeted this:
"Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!"
It was an hour and a half later that the announcement was made that National Guard forces were on their way to the Capitol. And that announcement cited approval by Pence. There was no mention of Trump. There were multiple phone calls and communications that afternoon between the Pentagon, local officials, police leadership, and Pence. Not one of these calls seems to have involved Trump.
As The Washington Posthas reported, “Trump was initially pleased” by the assault on the Capitol and the resulting halt in the counting of electoral votes. According to Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, Trump was “walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building.” Witnesses said that Trump “belatedly and reluctantly” called for peace only after ignoring people both inside and outside the White House trying to get him to stop his supporters. Then, when Trump finally appeared before the public—following a demand that he do so by Joe Biden—Trump told the people smearing feces along the halls of Congress, “We love you, you’re very special.”
The claims that Trump was immediately horrified and that he acted quickly to restore order are both clearly contradicted by events and statements on that day. In making these claims, Trump’s legal team makes it more likely that witnesses will be summoned to directly counter these false statements and show that Trump is still lying to the American people.
But there’s one last thing about Trump’s final response that may make it even more necessary to call witnesses, no matter what kind of strange threat Lindsey Graham makes. That’s because Trump has apparently made it clear to his attorneys that at no point can they admit he lost the election. Instead, as The Daily Beast reports, every mention of President Biden is only as “former Vice President Joe Biden” and at no time can the attorneys admit that Trump’s lies about voting machines, dead people voting, truckloads of ballots, sharpies affecting outcomes, or any of the other conspiracy theories raised over the course of months … are lies.
Trump is insisting on running a defense that doesn’t just make false claims about his actions on Jan. 6, but one that extends his incitement to violence right into the impeachment trial itself. And that needs to be made clear enough that no flimsy shelter of “we’re only here to talk about technical issues” can protect Republicans when they give the last scrap of their party to Trump.
Democrats are having a public fight over something that really matters: how much assistance hurting people are going to get from them in survival checks. It's a stupid fight, summed up best by Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Unbelievable. There are some Dems who want to lower the income eligibility for direct payments from $75,000 to $50,000 for individuals, and $150,000 to $100,000 for couples. In other words, working class people who got checks from Trump would not get them from Biden. Brilliant!
He's not alone in this with powerful support from Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, the new chair of the Finance Committee. The other side is being spearheaded by Sen. Joe Manchin, with back-up from Mitch McConnell's favorite "bipartisan" water carrier, Sen. Susan Collins. They're trying to keep payments from what they call "high-earning" families.
Look at how Manchin explains this: "An individual of $40,000 income or $50,000 income would receive it. And a family who is making $80,000 or $100,000, not to exceed $100,000, would receive it," Manchin said. "Anything over that would not be eligible, because they are the people who really are hurting right now and need the help the most." Who's missing there? Yeah, everybody making more than $50,001. So he's not even arguing in good faith here, couching this as cutting off payments at $80,000 when that's not what he wants to do.
The gap between $50,000 and $80,000 includes a lot of people who, as Sanders says, got two checks already from the Trump administration and are expecting the third one everybody is talking about, a point also made by Wyden: "I understand the desire to ensure those most in need receive checks, but families who received the first two checks will be counting on a third check to pay the bills." That's so glaringly apparent that it's hard to understand there is any constituency for this fight, including in the White House.
It gets even worse when you drill down to find out where the impetus for the cut comes from, as David Dayen has done at The American Prospect. The debate is being driven by a paper from Harvard economics professor Raj Chetty and others which showed higher-income households not spending the last, $600 round of checks immediately. Dayen uncovers the fact that the Chetty research is not on household-level income data. Instead, data for about 10% of U.S. credit and debit card activity sorted into ZIP codes by the address associated with the card. Those ZIP codes are then grouped "using 2014-2018 ACS (The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey) estimates of ZIP Code median household income," according to the appendix in the Chetty paper. So, as Dayen says, the conclusion that low-income people spent their checks immediately while higher-income people did not, "is by saying that ZIP codes that had lower-income people in them between three and seven years ago contained a higher level of immediate spending than ZIP codes with higher-income people during this period." A period before the pandemic.
That's a damned big supposition. Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve and Council of Economic Advisers economist, tells Dayen, "I think the paper is unsuitable for the policy discussion. […] It's one paper at odds with 20 years of research. […] I know the sampling error has to be in the thousands of dollars, there's no way it’s that precise." What's even worse about this paper is that they didn't even disclose the out-of-date ZIP code basis for their data until late last week, more than a week after it had been highlighted in the traditional media and started taking hold. It's still out there, with The New York Timesopinion page giving Chetty and colleagues space to continue their badly sourced argument.
All that's aside from the larger argument: we're in the middle of a global pandemic and the economy is in tatters—just spend the money helping as many people as possible and worry about sorting out who should have to pay any of it back later. Because the need is so great and this isn't a time to skimp. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said as much, and thankfully appears not to be so much on board with this push to reduce payments, though the White House has been vaguely supportive. "The exact details of how it should be targeted are to be determined, but struggling middle-class families need help, too," Yellen said on CNN this weekend. Asked if she thinks the targeting should be higher than $50,000 per person but less than $75,000, Yellen responded: "Yes, I—I think the details can be worked out. And the president is certainly willing to work with Congress to find a good structure for these payments."
There's also this: they're still going to base the payments on 2019 income unless they have 2020 income filed by the time the relief bill is passed. Which means you need to file immediately if you've had a big drop in income. Which means the IRS is going to be flooded with returns at the same time it's trying to make income determinations and trying to determine who gets what. But at least there is the recognition that a lot of people did not have the same income in 2020 as 2019.
Again, the survival checks have been means-tested already, with the first rounds of checks phasing out starting at $75,000 based on out-of-date data. Compounding that is this new argument based on really bad and irrelevant information. Not that what anybody does with their survival checks really matters right now, anyway. Worry about saving the maximum amount of people possible. That will make the economy come back stronger and faster and then the rest can be sorted out, if necessary, with tax reform.
The Republican Party, which has now firmly staked its claim as a “big” tinfoil tent, is deploying some of the very same lawmakers who perpetrated a giant election fraud lie to assure the nation that impeaching Donald Trump is unwarranted, unfair, and unconstitutional.
“I mean, the House is impeaching him under the theory that his speech created a riot,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Face The NationSunday despite being directly involved himself with pushing the very lie that fueled the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. At one point, Graham even pressured Georgia officials to commit fraud themselves in order to overturn the election.
But that's where the Senate GOP is: pushing out liars who lied to poke holes in the impeachment case assembled by House Democrats. Please proceed, senators, because the impeachment presentation Democrats are getting ready to make starting on Tuesday is going to be a doozy.
“The story of the president’s actions is both riveting and horrifying,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead prosecutor, told TheNew York Times. “We think that every American should be aware of what happened — that the reason he was impeached by the House and the reason he should be convicted and disqualified from holding future federal office is to make sure that such an attack on our democracy and Constitution never happens again.”
The Democrats' case will rely heavily on a video recreation of the violent siege, viscerally reminding both lawmakers and citizens alike of the trauma Trump inflicted on the nation that day. Since Democrats will need the votes of at least 17 GOP senators to convict Trump and only five have signaled a willingness to consider the arguments on their merits, winning a Senate conviction seems unlikely. But convicting Trump and his GOP enablers in the court of public opinion is clearly worth the energy—particularly as Republicans spend the next couple years whining about President Biden sidelining them in his effort address the country's urgent needs. Congressional Republicans spent four years helping Trump shred the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of stealing another election. Now they think they deserve to be equal players in a presidency they sought to nullify by overturning the will of the people. Democrats are going to remind The People that Trump engineered an attack on the homeland specifically to disenfranchise them and the Republican Party aided and abetted that effort.
Republicans' chief argument against convicting Trump is that it's unconstitutional since he's no longer in office. But remember—Sen. Mitch McConnell stalled the Senate trial until Trump was safely out of office. As luck would have it, Senate Republicans are now basing their key defense strategy on a loophole McConnell created.
But it's not only a phony loophole, it’s also a weak loophole at that. The notion that presidents can't be held to account for their conduct during the entirety of their tenure is ludicrous. As the House impeachment managers wrote in their brief, "There is no 'January Exception' to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution."
Even conservative stalwart and constitutional law expert Charles Cooper is calling BS on the notion that a president can't be held accountable for their actions in office merely because they are no longer in office. Specifically because the Senate has the constitutional authority to bar people from holding office in the future, Cooper argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “it defies logic to suggest that the Senate is prohibited from trying and convicting former officeholders.”
So GOP efforts to discredit the impeachment trial come down to sending out a bunch of discredited Republican lawmakers to make a preposterous constitutional argument based on circumstances that they themselves manufactured.
Sounds totally reasonable, said nobody who was sane enough to vote for Biden in the first place. And just maybe a few people who voted for Trump but were repulsed by the lethal Jan. 6 riot—or who had hoped the Republican Party would redeem itself in a post-Trump era—will find the Republican posture equally as revolting. The Capitol siege already set in motion a wave of conservative voters who are fleeing the party. The sentiment fueling those defections is only likely to gain steam as Americans watch the impeachment trial and the GOP’s bogus defense of Trump and, by extension, themselves.
Republicans want to sweep the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol under the rug. They want us to forget how violent, how brutal, how hateful it was, and most of all how seriously it threatened our democracy. Republicans want us to forget this even though in some cases their own lives were at risk, too. Because they’ve decided it’s politically expedient to stand by their man and defend Donald Trump against impeachment for having incited an insurrection.
House Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are not interested in letting this be swept under the rug. One of their most powerful tools is a simple one: They’re telling their stories. Following AOC’s powerful Instagram Live recounting of her experience on Jan. 6, a group of Democrats rose Thursday night to speak. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee compared fleeing the Capitol on Jan. 6 to fleeing it on 9/11, describing the smoke from the Pentagon in one case and the sounds of shooting in the other.
“We must get to the bottom of this. We cannot let white supremacy … dominate the goodness of what this democracy and this Constitution stands for,” she said. “I’m here on the floor to say that we shall not be denied. We are never going to give up our love for democracy, nor its vitality, nor are we going to let this country be dominated by the insurrectionists who came to this place to do nothing but act in a bloodthirsty manner. We are not afraid of you.”
Rep. Dean Phillips—an average-looking white guy from Minnesota—recounted how the Capitol attack made him understand white privilege in a new way. “Recognizing that we were sitting ducks in this room as the chamber was about to be breached, I screamed to my colleagues to follow me. To follow me across the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber, so that we could blend in—so that we could blend in,” he said. “For I felt that the insurrectionists who were trying to break down the doors right here would spare us if they simply mistook us for Republicans.
”But within moments I recognized that blending in was not an option available to my colleagues of color. So I’m here tonight to say to my brothers and sisters in Congress and all around our country. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For I had never understood—really understood—what privilege really means. It took a violent mob of insurrectionists and a lightning bolt moment in this very room. But now I know. Believe me, I really know.”
Phillips’ emotional apology adds context to the testimony from some of the colleagues he was referring to—people who could not hope to blend in with House Republicans. He described his fear that day, but some of his colleagues have lived with fear like that and experienced the insurrection as too close to what they already knew.
Rep. Cori Bush showed how she became a movement leader with a searing speech tying the experience of being in the Capitol on that day to her experience of protest, saying, “People were calling this a protest. Let me say this: That was not a protest. I’ve been to hundreds of protests in my life. I’ve co-organized, co-led, led, and organized protests.” Sitting in her office, with her staff, watching the attack on the Capitol on television, Bush vowed “If they touch these doors, if they hit these doors the way they hit that door and come anywhere near my staff—and I’m just going to be real honest about it, my thought process was, we bangin’ till the end. I’m not letting them take out my people and you’re not taking me out. We’ve come too far.”
Where Bush emphasized her readiness in that moment to go down fighting—a measure of the level of threat she felt, but also a truly stirring call—Rep. Rashida Tlaib described herself as “paralyzed” by the threats she has received. Sobbing almost from the beginning, she recounted getting her first death threat on the first day of orientation after her election to Congress. “I didn’t even get sworn in yet and someone wanted me dead for just existing,” she said. “More came later, uglier, more violent.” One even mentioned her son by name. Tlaib wasn’t in the Capitol on Jan. 6, but with years of death threats in her experience, the sight traumatized her again.
These are amazing moments and they are profound witness to the horror of Jan. 6—the horror of what Donald Trump spent years laying the groundwork for, months setting the stage for as he tried to overturn the election results, and a morning inciting live and in person. Trump of course had a solid bedrock of U.S. racism to build on, but this specific event was something he really worked for and owns. Republicans want to wish it away to protect their own. That must not happen.
