Category: SenateRepublicans

Senate Republicans have no excuse for their piss-poor coronavirus response. No excuse whatsoever

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

As the U.S. death toll due to the novel coronavirus climbs, congressional Republicans want to make sure they aren't left holding the bag for the federal government's piss-poor response in the early days of the burgeoning crisis. This week, GOP lawmakers have been trying out a new excuse: impeachment. That's right—that moment when 52 of 53 Senate Republicans voted to acquit Donald Trump, ensuring he would be at the helm right as the country was facing a burgeoning public health crisis unlike any seen in decades.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave their new excuse a test run on Tuesday during an interview with a conservative radio host, arguing impeachment had "diverted the attention of the government.” Later Tuesday, Trump himself shot that idea down, saying, “I don't think I would have done any better had I not been impeached." But after being singularly responsible for voting to keep the most incompetent president in history in charge of the federal response to a pandemic, Senate Republicans are pretty desperate to pin the blame on Democrats. 

“It’s unfortunate that during the early days of a global pandemic, the Senate was paralyzed by a partisan impeachment trial,” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton told Politico in a deeply reported piece on the congressional response. A GOP aide added, “The entire executive branch was consumed by impeachment, and it totally distracted Congress, too.” But for impeachment, the aide said, there would have been "a lot more public oversight to scrutinize all of this.”

So on one hand, Republicans are pinning the blame on Democrats for being the only party responsible enough to hold Trump accountable for trying to extort a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections. On the other hand, Republicans want the public to believe the party that has spent the last decade obsessed with stripping some 20 million Americans of health care access was suddenly going to take a keen and pointed interest in, well, health care.

Of course, when Republicans had the chance to feign interest in the issue, they didn’t. Here’s what happened: On Jan. 24, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held an all-Senators briefing on the novel coronavirus. It was poorly attended, with only about 14 senators present according to Politico. But that was the briefing that first kicked off an urgent round of stock sell-offs by several GOP senators and a Democratic one. Nonetheless, the bipartisan statement following the briefing from U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Patty Murray of Washington, Jim Risch of Idaho, and Bob Menendez of New Jersey was rather bland, saying they were "monitoring the outbreak" and thanking administration officials for the briefing. "The safety of U.S. citizens here domestically, as well as in China and other affected countries, is our first priority," read the statement. "We will continue to work closely with administration officials to ensure the United States is prepared to respond.”

That's about the level of urgency one might expect from any bipartisan statement. But it was Senate Democrats who picked up from there. On Jan. 26, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the federal government to declare the novel coronavirus a public health emergency in order to free up $85 million previously allocated funds to battle infection diseases. 

“Should the outbreak get worse they’re going to need immediate access to critical federal funds that at present they can’t access,” Schumer told reporters at his Manhattan office. At that point, just four cases had been confirmed in the U.S. after the first positive test had been confirmed in Washington State on Jan. 20. “We aren’t here to propel panic or stoke fear, but to rather keep a good proactive effort by the CDC from going on interrupted,” Schumer said.

Two days later, Washington Sens. Murray and Maria Cantwell sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar requesting continued updates on the nation's capacity to respond to the highly infectious disease.

“We write to express concern about the rapidly evolving 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), to urge your continued robust and scientifically driven response to the situation, and to assess whether any additional resources or action by Congress are needed at this time,” Murray and Cantwell wrote. “A quick and effective response to the 2019-nCoV requires public health officials around the world work together to share reliable information about the disease and insight into steps taken to prevent, diagnose, and treat it appropriately.”

It was also Democrats that pushed for an emergency supplemental funding bill to combat the virus at a private briefing on the matter with Sec. Azar on Feb. 5—the day Senate Republicans ultimately voted to acquit Trump on charges that he had abused his power and obstructed Congress. After leaving that closed-door meeting, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut was apoplectic about the nonchalance of Trump officials. “[T]hey aren’t taking this seriously enough,” he tweeted. “Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.” 

The first sign the Trump administration might be taking the novel coronavirus seriously originally came on Jan. 31, when the White House issued a ban on travelers from China and declared the public health emergency Schumer had been pushing for.

However, Trump spent the entirety of the next month downplaying the threat. At a Feb. 10 campaign rally, Trump declared, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away." He mocked "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" on Feb. 25 for urging Trump to ask for more than $2.5 billion for an initial supplemental to respond to the novel coronavirus. On Feb. 26, Trump predicted at a White House briefing that in a couple of days the number of coronavirus cases in the nation would be "down to close to zero," adding, "that’s a pretty good job we’ve done." Mission accomplished. 

The only thing Trump was really focused on after Senate Republicans voted to clear him in early February was a complete and total purge of nonloyalists in his administration and getting back to his beloved campaign rallies. 

On Feb. 13, Trump tweeted, "We want bad people out of our government!”

On Feb. 21, the Washington Post reported, "President Trump has instructed his White House to identify and force out officials across his administration who are not seen as sufficiently loyal, a post-impeachment escalation that administration officials say reflects a new phase of a campaign of retribution and restructuring ahead of the November election."

Trump tapped Johnny McEntee, a 29-year-old personal aide and former body man to the president, to run that operation. Top officials at the Defense Department and White House National Security Council were forced out. The White House was also combing through people at the Justice and State Departments. No mention in the article of the novel coronavirus or elevating people with solid expertise and time-tested credentials in certain aspects of governing. Trump was laser-focused on beefing up his administration with the lard of loyalists. He needed more sycophantic “yes” men, people who would feed his emaciated ego. That was Trump’s main focus in February as he started eyeing his reelection campaign.

Throughout February, the main thing that became clear both in public and private was that most top Trump officials exhibited a distinct lack of urgency about the coming pandemic. In addition, with very few exceptions, Senate Republicans weren't using any leverage to get Trump to act. Almost to a person, Senate Republicans continued to be dismissive about the threat, especially in their public statements. 

Meanwhile, starting in late January, Senate Democrats started sounding the alarm bells both behind closed doors and publicly. Some of the most vocal among them were Sens. Schumer, Murray, Murphy, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who was also running for president and pushed hardest on the issue among the remaining Democrats in the race.

Even by March 10, when Trump went to huddle with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, he was still selling the American people a bill of goods about the catastrophe ahead. The novel coronavirus would simply "go away, just stay calm," Trump told reporters, adding, "it's really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen." Senate Republicans just smiled along, giddily grinning ear to ear as Trump minimized the threat. For his part, McConnell announced he would simply step aside and let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi negotiate the first major coronavirus relief package directly with the White House. 

By the time Pelosi had finished those painstaking negotiations and passed the relief bill through her chamber on Saturday, March 14, McConnell was nowhere to be found. He had recessed the Senate and skipped town for a long weekend away. Ultimately, the Senate would delay passing the bill—intended in part to help struggling Americans through dire financial times—for another four days.

Senate Republicans knew the country was facing disaster yet still voted to keep Trump in office

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

After a week during which the nation began to watch the coronavirus horrors we have seen play out in other countries finally make their way into our own hospitals, it's worth remembering the active role Senate Republicans played in getting us here. During the critical early handling of the virus here in the U.S., senators from both parties had a window into what was to come—well before the virus had even made the radar of most Americans. 

But instead of focusing on preparing for a potential pandemic in the making, Senate Republicans were busy staging a sham no-witness impeachment trial for Donald Trump so they could ultimately vote to acquit him, ensuring that Trump would be at the helm as the nation faced the greatest public health crisis in a century. That trial began on Jan. 16 and concluded on Feb. 5 with Trump's acquittal. But that critical three-week period also included early warning signs that U.S. senators, in particular, were privy to. As one U.S. official told The Washington Post about the intelligence reporting shared with both Trump officials and members of Congress in January, "Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were -- they just couldn't get him to do anything about it. ... The system was blinking red."

On Jan. 20, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed the first case of novel coronavirus here in the U.S., a Washington man who had recently returned from visiting Wuhan, China, the city where the disease had first taken hold.

On Jan. 24, the Senate Health and Foreign Relations Committees hosted a private, all-senators briefing on the coronavirus with Trump health officials, including the CDC director and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. That date has gained some notoriety in the past week as reports emerged that four U.S. senators began dumping stock shortly after that briefing. In fact, one of them, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, reported her first stock sale on that very day. GOP Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma sold at least $180,000 in stocks on Jan. 27.

But the most glaring case was Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina unloading up to $1.7 million in stocks on Feb. 13 after getting access to all the latest intelligence on the virus as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Burr was also briefed on Feb. 12 by government health experts about overall national preparedness and how an epidemic might impact the U.S. In fact, there's no question Burr was alarmed by what he was hearing because he ultimately relayed a very stark assessment of the catastrophe ahead during a private meeting with wealthy constituents in late February.

Bottom line: Republican senators were getting a window into the calamity the U.S. might be facing in just a couple of months’ time. GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa put out a statement on Feb. 4 saying the panel he heads, the Senate Finance Committee which oversees the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had just been briefed by the National Security office within HHS.

“The coronavirus doesn’t appear to pose any imminent threat to Americans who have not recently traveled to the Hubei province of China," he said in a statement, downplaying the threat. “For now, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control have the resources needed to prevent any significant contagion from spreading into the United States. If more resources are needed, Congress stands at the ready."

The following day, Feb. 5, Grassley and 51 of his Republican colleagues voted to clear Trump of wrongdoing and keep him in office—every GOP senator except Mitt Romney of Utah.

They knew. They voted to keep Trump in charge. They own it. Never forget.

Let’s just stop and review what a useless bunch of creatures Senate Republicans really are

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Our first clue that Senate Republicans planned to be exactly useless for the entirety of the 116th Congress was when Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, backed by his caucus, conspicuously stood on the sidelines for weeks on end during what turned into the longest government shutdown in history, from Dec. 22, 2018—Jan. 25, 2019. Donald Trump alone manufactured that shutdown by demanding that nearly $6 billion in border wall funding be tucked into the budget deal, and McConnell decided he would simply let Nancy Pelosi and her newly elected majority tame Trump rather than help find a solution. 

In fact, McConnell seemed to have a good sense of exactly how useless Senate Republicans would be pretty early in Trump's administration. After the GOP-led Congress squandered most of 2017 on its Obamacare repeal debacle, Republicans just barely squeezed out their tax giveaway to the rich and powerful before the end of the year on December 20, 2017. By February 2018, McConnell was already selling his Senate majority as being "in the personnel business"—he just forgot to add the word, exclusively. And while it's undoubtedly true that McConnell's Senate has reshaped the federal courts by pushing through some 190 judges since Trump took office, it did so to the exclusion of almost all legislative work. Gloating over his chamber's unique lack of productivity, McConnell even embraced the nickname "Grim Reaper" for making his Senate the place where the people's business goes to die. McConnell has single-handedly refused to consider more than 400 bills passed by Pelosi’s House of Representatives.

Wanna restore sane leadership to the Senate? Give $3 right now to give Mitch the boot!

As for the one major piece of legislation Senate Republicans did manage to pass, that tax bill has now ballooned the deficit to nearly $1 trillion, hamstringing the government's ability to respond to a sudden jolt to the economy like the coronavirus. 

Speaking of which, McConnell's now running his "let Pelosi handle it" 2.0 play, tagging House Democrats with the sole responsibility of negotiating an economic response to the crisis with the White House. 

Simultaneous to that dereliction of duty, Republicans have stayed almost completely mum as Trump has spewed harmful lie upon harmful lie about the coronavirus. In fact, when Trump went to visit with the do-nothing GOP caucus Tuesday (because he refuses to meet with Pelosi), Trump told reporters the coronavirus would simply "go away, just stay calm," adding, "It's really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen." No. Hard no. A lot of good things are not happening. But to date, Senate Republicans have taken a total pass on correcting any of Trump's disinformation campaign.

Instead, they seem pretty content to rest on their success of banding together to run a sham impeachment trial with zero witnesses and ultimately vote to keep the most corrupt president in American history in office.

And by single-handedly refusing to remove Trump, Senate Republicans can now proudly share the credit for the epic economic and public health crisis that is quickly rippling through the country now. Heckuva job, Mitchy. See you in November.

 

GOP lawmakers ‘on edge’ as they watch Trump’s abysmal coronavirus response sink their reelections

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

In the annals of make-or-break political moments for a president, life and death situations often loom largest. The Iran Hostage Crisis and Hurricane Katrina come to mind immediately for helping to sink the approvals of a president who never quite recovered and indeed helped doom his party in the upcoming election. Katrina, for instance, shook America's confidence in the competence of the George W. Bush White House, helping Democrats notch massive wins the following year during the midterms that flipped control of both the House and the Senate. By the time Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he had the benefit of historic Democratic majorities to help him usher in a major change to America’s health system.

Now Senate Republicans hoping to hang on to their seats in November are fretting as they watch Donald Trump's bungled coronavirus response. After holding a sham impeachment trial and acquitting Trump of any wrongdoing, Republicans have now cosigned every disastrous mistake Trump makes. Among the things Republicans have gifted to America in this moment are Trump’s stunning incapacity for human empathy and total inability to understand even the most basic public health concerns. According to the Washington Post, Trump's GOP allies on the Hill have become "unsettled" and "on edge" as they watch Trump's overwhelming incompetence in the face of a life-threatening crisis.

Let’s give Senate Republicans the boot! Give $3 right now to help restore responsible leadership to the Senate this November. 

“It’s really bad for those who have kind of hitched their wagon to the president ahead of this year’s election and are relying on him and his base,” former senator Jeff Flake told the Post, in an admission more candid than any sitting GOP senators would be willing to make. 

Democrats, however, are plenty eager to state the obvious. 

“I don’t think we can ignore how disastrous their performance has been,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said of Trump and his administration. “In many ways this was the moment we feared: a true security threat to the nation and a president who can’t tell the truth, who can’t organize a consistent response, and doesn’t have enough experienced people on the job.”

Meanwhile, Trump's been openly mocking the media's coronavirus hysteria to his campaign donors. “It’s not that big of a deal,” Trump said at one event. Presumably that was before the stock market suffered its worst drop on Monday in over a decade. Trump sure rushed to the cameras after that Monday evening to reassure the markets and congratulate himself on how great his administration has been handling the crisis.

Speaking of which—congratulations to all the congressional Republicans who helped make Trump's stellar response possible. See you in November.

Senate Republicans were on trial. They chose to betray America

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

If watching Senate Republicans turn a blind eye to duty, truth, their oaths of office, public opinion, and the well-being of the republic left you with a pit in your stomach this week, then rest assured that you are not alone. But while most Daily Kos readers knew the fix was in before the Senate charade ever started, many Americans likely did not. In poll after poll after, voters told pollsters that they wanted and in some polls expected to hear from witnesses. For starters, it was common sense. Everyone knows that trials include witnesses, and historically every single impeachment trial until now has also included witness testimony. 

Making matters worse for Senate Republicans, Donald Trump's defenders in the House had whined relentlessly about "second-, third-, fourth-, and fifthhand" witnesses. They made firsthand witnesses indispensable and suggested America would never know the truth without them. Even Trump spent a good portion of the fall and winter clamoring for witnesses once the impeachment inquiry reached the Senate, where finally things would be fair.

And almost magically, the star witness appeared: former White House national security adviser John Bolton. He was a West Wing insider with direct access to Trump and a veteran of every Republican administration dating back to Ronald Reagan. He was a conservative stalwart and rock-ribbed defense hawk with sterling cred among GOP lawmakers. Even better, progressives typically despised him, making him among the most trustworthy of witnesses among Republicans. And lo and behold, unlike other Trump officials, he was willing to talk and even said so in a statement issued right as the Senate got back to work in the New Year. What luck!

Now just imagine America's surprise as the perfect firsthand witness went untapped for weeks on end. After months of Trump hyping all that witness testimony in the Senate, he suddenly went cold on the idea. When his attorneys began to argue their case, the nation was told that House managers had utterly failed to prove Trump's guilt on one hand but that further inquiry was verboten on the other. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even tried to kill the mere prospect of witness testimony before the trial ever started, but he was ultimately reduced to making handwritten adjustments in the margins of his resolution so that calling witnesses could be considered after both impeachment teams had made their case. Apparently, even some members of McConnell's caucus didn't see how they could sell that preemptive gag order back home. 

As the trial ground on, suspense built with headlines emerging about what Bolton had committed to paper in his forthcoming book. First, the public learned Trump had told Bolton directly he wanted to continue withholding aid to Ukraine until the country's top officials started investigations into Democrats and, more specifically, the Bidens. Next, Bolton's manuscript expressed his distress over Trump granting personal favors to autocratic leaders in his view. Finally, as the trial headed toward that crucial vote on witness testimony Friday, another morning jolt brought news that White House counsel Pat Cipollone—Trump's lead attorney at the trial—had witnessed Trump ordering Bolton to help with his pressure campaign by facilitating a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Rudy Giuliani. 

As if all that wasn't enough, news also broke Friday that Giuliani associate Lev Parnas was prepared to detail the entire conspiracy in testimony, front to back, with receipts. As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance noted on MSNBC, "This is a prosecutor's dream, right? You've actually got Lev Parnas and John Bolton in a bidding war over who gets to be your star witness." Wow, how could Republicans possibly pass up the wealth of information beating down the doors to the Senate chamber? 

And yet, that's exactly what they voted to do late Friday. In the face of polls showing nearly three-quarters of the country agreed on the need for witnesses, Senate Republicans turned their backs on America. Sure, they're public servants who've been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the Constitution. But when the time came to take a principled stand, they saluted to Individual 1, circled the wagons, and deep-sixed testimony for the remainder of the trial. All that's left of the Senate proceeding is a bunch of self-gratifying speechifying as Senate Republicans try to recast their cowardice in acceptable terms. 

The cover-up is complete. And it wasn't just helpful to Trump, it was an absolute necessity. If Bolton had testified, he would have implicated multiple Trump officials in Trump's scheme, including Cipollone, Trump's chief defense attorney. Just to be clear, most legal scholars were aghast that anyone from the White House counsel's office was defending Trump in the first place. It's a taxpayer-funded position charged with representing the Office of the President, not the president him/herself. But what we know now is that he wasn't just protecting Trump, he was protecting himself, serving himself—on the taxpayers' dime. Trump's Ukraine conspiracy was a global effort among his top advisers. Everyone knew, even the White House counsel (who, by the way, is supposedly leading an inquiry into who put the transcript of Trump's July 25th call with President Volodymyr Zelensky into the super secret server.)  Or as Gordon Sondland said repeatedly, "Everyone was in the loop." Yet, among Trump's looped-in top advisers, only one person is willing to talk.

As a matter of civic service, the nation could have benefited from hearing Bolton's truth during the Senate trial. Some Americans who had not followed the House hearing closely enough to see how corrosive Trump's actions were would have walked away better informed about the unimaginable danger he poses to the nation.

But politically speaking, this proceeding was never about putting Trump on trial—everyone who had been paying attention knew the outcome in advance, including Nancy Pelosi. It was about putting the GOP-led Senate on trial. That's why Pelosi held the articles of impeachment for nearly a month, so she could frame the proceeding as a referendum on Senate Republicans. And guess what? They failed spectacularly in a disgraceful show of craven hubris. They couldn't even fake impartiality long enough to allow for witnesses to be heard. In the end, they offered America no justice—no feeling of finality—just a hollow sense of being wronged with no recourse. 

But here's the silver lining: During a time when Washington commanded the attention of most Americans and when polling consistently showed that voters overwhelmingly craved resolution, Senate Republicans exposed themselves a nothing short of tools of Trump's regime. They no longer serve the people, they serve him and him only.

Pundits across spectrum smelled trouble for Senate Republicans. "I think (McConnell) underestimates the backlash to this vote," conservative radio host Charlie Sykes told MSNBC. "I think people are going to be a lot more angry about this vote on the witnesses than folks in Washington really understand. And it really does put the Senate in play."

Former GOP operative Nicolle Wallace called the vote “political suicide,” adding, “I hope they take it." They did.

So as we enter the start of the Democratic nomination contest in earnest on Monday, bundle up all that rage and take it to the polls. Let it drive your engagement and participation throughout the rest of the year until Election Day.

"Never stop being a prisoner of hope," Sen. Cory Booker told MSNBC this week at a dark moment, invoking the resolve shown throughout history after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Birmingham Church bombing, and the showdown at Stonewall. "This election is about so much more now than a choice between a Democrat and Republican president."

Pelosi slams Senate sham trial: ‘You can’t be acquitted’ if you don’t have witnesses

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn't played all her cards yet, and she's already declaring the Senate trial a sham. “I disagree with the idea that he could be acquitted," Pelosi told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Editorial Board on Friday. “You can’t be acquitted if you don’t have a trial, and you can’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and you don’t have documents."

Pelosi made the comments heading into a day of closing arguments in which Senate Republicans appeared poised for a vote to quash witness testimony entirely with an acquittal vote soon to follow. (That vote is now expected to be held next Wednesday, following the State of the Union.)

Pelosi also directed withering criticism at Trump's defense team. "To say in a proceeding in the Senate if a president thinks that his election is in the best interests of the country anything is justified," she said, referencing the argument made by Alan Dershowitz, "I don’t know how they have any integrity or respect left.” 

Pelosi said the argument was completely antithetical to the Constitution. “What you heard the president’s lawyer say so undermined what is a democracy, our republic, [by suggesting the Constitution’s] Article II says I can do whatever I want," she said. "No, it doesn’t. That’s not what the Constitution is about."

Pelosi also laid blame for the procedure squarely at Leader Mitch McConnell's feet. “The founders always had in their mind that there could be a rogue president, and that’s why they put guardrails in the Constitution. And impeachment," she noted. "But they probably didn’t figure we would have a rogue president and a rogue Mitch McConnell."

Pelosi said in the interview that House Democrats would continue their push in the courts for oversight and more subpoenas to be honored, “or else we have a monarchy.”

Pelosi clearly isn't finished yet. And given all the loose ends being left by Senate Republicans, she will almost surely spend the rest of 2020 pulling those threads. It's honestly a mystery that McConnell thinks he's going to get away without calling witnesses without Pelosi making life a living hell for Senate Republicans from here till November. 

Cartoon: The Grand Ol’ Adaptable Party

Posted on by Mark Fiore

x Vimeo Video

With each new revelation or bit of evidence, Republicans in the Senate (and the House, for that matter), soften their spines a little more. Remember when Lindsey Graham thought withholding an Oval Office meeting wasn’t that big of a deal but withholding military aid, well, that would be just wrong!

It really has come down to the “So What?” defense for Donald Trump and his supporters. Wrapped in a little Alan Dershowitz legalese about the Founders only intending to impeach a president who robbed a bank for his own personal gain, and it’s looking even more likely Senate Republicans won’t budge.

Apparently a president has to say “I am presently going to commit high crimes and misdemeanors” while the offending act is witnessed by a Senate Sergeant at Arms in order to be convicted and removed from office. Enjoy the cartoon, and keep those fingers and toes crossed. (And be sure to visit me over on Patreon for prints, sketches and other behind-the-scenes goodies!)