Category: trump

Republicans in disarray as GOP leadership fractures over Trump’s impeachment, removal

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

From the GOP rank and file to those in leadership roles, Republican lawmakers are placing their bets—about their own political futures, the future of the party, and even how history will reflect on this fraught moment for the country.

And while Democrats' resolve to hold Donald Trump to account for inciting violence has proven uniquely unifying for most of the country, the Republican party is dividing amongst itself between those who think Trump is culpable and even impeachable and those who have hitched their raft irrevocably to Trumptanic. And make no mistake, Trump's support is tanking, even among Republican voters. A Morning Consult poll of GOP voters released Wednesday found that just 42% of them said they would vote for Trump in a 2024 presidential primary. Given what Trump has done, that level of support still seems high, but it's slipped 12 points from a Nov. 21-23 survey when the outlet posed the same question. And it's a far cry from the high-80s/low-90s support Trump has enjoyed among Republican voters throughout his term.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House GOP's No. 3, became the highest ranking Republican Tuesday to firmly plant her flag on the side of impeaching Trump, saying, "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."

Last Wednesday, Cheney was attempting to convince her GOP colleagues to vote for certification when she received a phone call from her father informing her that Trump had attacked her in his rally speech. In her statement Tuesday declaring she would vote to impeach Trump, she wrote, “The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.”

Cheney's declaration marked a sharp break with her fellow GOP leaders, Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, both of whom echoed Trump's post-election fraud claims and then voted to reject the election results even after his cultists stormed the Capitol. 

Meanwhile in the upper chamber, soon-to-be Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, signaled his much squishier lean toward potentially convicting Trump through anonymous sources to several different outlets.

Among rank and file GOP members, a smaller anti-Trump cadre has emerged with some members faulting Trump and his GOP enablers for the siege and others even stepping up to back impeachment. 

“To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action,” New York Rep. John Katko, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee and a former federal prosecutor, wrote in a statement. 

The reality is, many of these GOP members stepping forward also fear for their lives now that Trump has turned the party into a raging mob. CNN is reporting that many of Republican lawmakers are getting direct pressure from Trump not to defect on the impeachment vote, which isn't exactly surprising but certainly underscores the urgency of his removal from office. McCarthy has reportedly urged his pro-Trump members not to verbally attack pro-impeachment Republicans because their lives could be on the line.

But at the end of the day, impeachment is happening, with or without House Republicans. And momentum is clearly on the side of Democrats' strong stand against Trump as corporate titans, big tech, public opinion, military leadership, and other entities join the push to draw a line in the sand. 

The McCarthy's of the world have bet wrong. There's simply no way he can erase his fealty to Trump, and he also doesn't have the spine to disavow Trump. And as hard as it is to imagine a Trump loyalist losing his leadership role in the party, it's equally as hard to imagine having a GOP leader who can't fundraise because he's been shunned by corporate donors and polite society alike as a seditionist. That is simply an impossible position for a GOP congressional leader.  

And if there's one way to judge exactly how incomprehensible that posture is, it's by looking at the Republican leader of the Senate caucus. McConnell's lower-profile openness to potentially convicting Trump is both a seismic shift and a window into his vision for safeguarding the future existence of the party. And if McConnell ultimately supports conviction of Trump, some GOP sources are openly wondering if the 67 votes to convict might actually materialize. 

"If Mitch is a yes, he's done," said one Senate GOP source who asked not to be named, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has been running around pushing to censure Trump in an effort to ostensibly hold Trump accountable without actually holding him accountable. Safe to say McCarthy's political fortunes aren't particularly bright at this moment. Perhaps he can form a support group with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri. 

This week on The Brief: Impeachment round two, more COVID-19 relief, ending the filibuster

Posted on by Dorothy He

This week, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld were joined on The Brief by two guests: Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who talked about the attempted terrorist coup at the Capitol, another economic stimulus package for coronavirus relief, and priorities under the Biden administration; and Adam Jentleson, former Deputy Chief of Staff to former Sen. Harry Reid and author of the new book “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate,” who shared his thoughts on the shifting makeup of the Senate, the emergence of a new centrist Republican contingent in Congress, and ending the filibuster.

Sen. Schatz kicked off the episode by reflecting on last week’s attempted violent coup by Trump supporters and discussing what’s at stake as Democrats move forward with impeachment proceedings and welcome Joe Biden as the new president. In the aftermath of last week’s violence in the Capitol, Schatz emerged with an even stronger resolve to ensure that democratic processes would continue as normal in the face of threats and other acts of intimidation, saying, “We weren’t going to allow an attempted insurrection to intimidate us or to prevent us from discharging our constitutional duties.”

On priorities, Schatz is passionate about climate action, but he believes a COVID-19 relief package is the most crucial priority at this time—which is especially important for the millions of Americans who are jobless and struggling to make ends meet. He also believes that it is not contradictory for Congress to work on impeachment and also help the Biden administration carry out its policy goals within the first few months of his presidency:

I guess I just want to reject as publicly as I can this premise that the Senate can or should only do one thing at a time. The amount of damage that has been done to American institutions, and to Americans, is just too vast for to say, ‘Well, I mean, can we just fit that into a reconciliation bill? I don’t know.’ And the framing, even among liberals, has always been sort of that Rahm Emanuel conversation with Barack Obama: Do you want to do healthcare, or do you want to do immigration, or do you want to do climate, and in what order, because you know, you’ve only have so much political capital you can spend? … I really do think that we should reject that thinking.

In thinking about the impeachment process and passing legislation during the next four years under the Biden administration, Schatz also criticized another roadblock that has been normalized, which is the slow pace of passing legislation — making Congress less efficient: “Our inability to process legislation quickly is a huge part of the problem in the United State Senate.”

Next, the pair welcomed Jentleson onto the show, a veteran U.S. Senate staffer who weighed in on what the new chamber dynamic will like be now that Democrats have regained the majority after last week’s victories in the Georgia runoffs. But even with the majority, Democrats could find themselves obstructed due to the filibuster. To Markos’ question about whether or not Republicans might join in to help bring an end to the filibuster, Jentleson said:

You can sort of see this centrist party taking shape before our eyes, and mainly taking shape in the Senate, where you have Murkowski, Collins … Romney, and on our side, Manchin and King, and the thing about majority rule is that it would actually dramatically empower that group of centrist Republicans. That’s, you know, not my goal here. But it is still a fact that in a majority-rule Senate, those people, like Murkowski, are far more powerful than they would be in a sixty-vote Senate. In a sixty-vote Senate, they’re just one faction among many that you’d have to assemble to get to sixty. In a majority-vote Senate, they are the ones straddling that threshold, and they’ll be the kingmakers on every single bill.

When a minority of the Senate represents as little as 11% of the U.S. population, Jentleson emphasized, the filibuster process can result in particularly skewed policy results. Even the framers of the Constitution understood this:

Fundamentally, the problem that we face, and the reason Democrats are going to face obstruction from Republicans—and the reason that Biden’s agenda is likely to be blocked—is that Republicans will simply use this power to force a sixty-vote hurdle and block everything the Democrats want to do. And so reforming all the hours, and all that stuff, I don’t oppose it. But it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem—which is taking away the power from the minority to block the majority from doing anything … The reason that is such an important dynamic is that we live in such a polarized environment where … once side succeeds by making the other fail.

Ironically, this is exactly what the framers foresaw when they argued vehemently against imposing a supermajority threshold in the Senate. They wrote in the Federalist Papers that you can’t give what they called a ‘pertinacious minority’ the ability to block the majority, because if you did, they would be unable to resist that temptation, and they would use it to embarrass the majority repeatedly. So they knew exactly what was going to happen—they foresaw Mitch McConnell, they saw him coming … We have to take the option away from the minority to just block the majority for the purposes of making them look bad, and then the minority rides voter discontent back to power in the next election.

You can watch the full episode below:

YouTube Video

GOP lawmaker’s tweet about Nancy Pelosi during riot at U.S. Capitol sparks calls for her resignation

Posted on by Marissa Higgins

Just over one week ago, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert went viral because of a video she sent out to Twitter in which she appeared to be strutting around Washington, D.C., with a Glock handgun. (A spokesperson for Boebert later clarified that the lawmaker was not actually carrying the gun throughout the video shoot.) Since then, the pro-Trump Colorado representative has gone viral for an even more nefarious reason. In fact, this isn’t even just a head-scratching digital ad. Many of her colleagues are calling for Boebert’s resignation over her behavior both before, and during, the pro-Trump insurgency against the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.

Now, as a quick review, Congress was set to vote to certify the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joe Biden’s win. Boebert, who has fully leaned into efforts to overturn the presidential election results, formally objected. That morning, before the insurgency, she tweeted: “Today is 1776.” What she tweeted while rioters were actually at the Capitol is what’s really chilling.

Here is the 1776 tweet.

Today is 1776.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 6, 2021

While pro-Trump insurgents were descending upon the Capitol, many lawmakers did take to Twitter. Boebert joined them … and decided to tweet out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the House Chambers. Though she did not specify where Pelosi had been moved to, obviously this tweet stunned countless people. After all, the viral photo of a man with his foot up on Pelosi’s desk is not quick to leave any of our minds soon. Nor is the report of a man who traveled from Colorado to Washington, D.C. who was arrested for allegedly making threats against Pelosi. There are reports that some who invaded the Capitol were searching for not only Pelosi but also Vice President Mike Pence and Schumer. 

So it’s safe to say Boebert’s tweets were both chilling and concerning.

The Speaker has been removed from the chambers.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 6, 2021

Boebert, however, only doubled down in releasing a statement on the calls for her resignation, saying in part, “We should take Democrats at their word when they say never let a crisis go to waste. Their hypocrisy is on full display with talks of impeachment, censure and other ways to punish Republicans for false accusations of inciting the type of violence they have so frequently and transparently supported in the past.”

In terms of her choice to tweet about Pelosi, Boebert argued, “They accuse me of live-tweeting the Speaker’s presence after she had been safely removed from the Capitol, as if I was revealing some big secret, when in fact this removal was also being broadcast on TV.”

She suggested that “leading Democrats” have encouraged “mob violence,” including former President Barack Obama and President-elect Joe Biden. She also accused a number of celebrities of doing the same, for who knows what reason, including Madonna and Johnny Depp.

And earlier Tuesday, she’s back with a pseudo unity call on Twitter.

Calling 75,000,000 Americans domestic terrorists is not unity.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 12, 2021

There are currently 211 House members, and 28 senators who are on record supporting impeachment & removal, and over 200 House members have cosponsored the impeachment resolution. Regardless of where your members of Congress stand, please send them a letter.

Republicans helped Trump inspire a violent insurrection. They have done nothing to disavow it

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

In the wake of a deadly attack many of them helped incite, Republicans are only continuing their descent into ignominy. The only way out is for them to take responsibility for their actions and actually admit that they helped their mentally unhinged leader—Donald Trump—sic a mob of his foaming-at-the-mouth cultists on U.S. lawmakers at the Capitol last week. 

Instead, they have dug in their heels and unleashed a Gatling gun round of finger-pointing at Democrats, who are moving swiftly to hold Trump to account through impeachment charges. Democrats, they claim, are being divisive by trying to protect the country from further abuses by a madman.

The Washington Post writes:

Shortly before convening a conference call of House Republicans on Monday, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sent a missive asserting that “an impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing our country together when we need to get America back on a path towards unity and civility.” ...

“After the abhorrent violence we saw last week, our country desperately needs to heal and unify,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said. “I have concerns that impeachment proceedings will only divide us further.”

McCarthy's empty rhetoric about "unity and civility" is particularly precious given his role in perpetrating Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. Not only did he sign on to the GOP legal challenge to the election results and vote to oppose congressional certification after the siege, he also used his platform to push Trump's baseless claims into the ecosphere.

.@GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy was laying the groundwork for the attack on the Capitol for months. 11/5/2020: “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes... join together and let’s stop this.” pic.twitter.com/9Ys6elhUln

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) January 12, 2021

Immediately following the election, McCarthy started pumping Trump's crap to the GOP base. “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet," McCarthy told Fox News viewers on Nov. 5. "We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes ... join together and let’s stop this.”

Other GOP lawmakers also bear unique responsibility for helping to foment the deadly violence:

  • Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama speaking at the MAGA rally last week: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. ... Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?"
  • First-term Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado called the day Republicans’ “1776 moment.”
  • Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona repeatedly called Joe Biden an "illegitimate usurper" while promoting numerous "Stop the Steal" events. “Be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House,” Gosar counseled in an op-ed titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup d’État?” 

There's much much more, and The New York Times has a nice roundup of it. 

But the GOP, and particularly its leadership, is continuing to prove that there's no end to how morally bankrupt the party is—not even after they helped inspire a violent coup attempt that cost lives. Just like with Trump, there’s no bottom.

Trump finally addresses the nation after he unleashed rioters on the Capitol. It’s deplorable

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Donald Trump was given two chances Tuesday to turn down the heat of his cultists and take responsibility for his role in last week's deadly attack on the Capitol as he addressed reporters at the White House and then once again at Andrews Air Force Base. He took a pass both times.

Instead, Trump registered his grievances, calling impeachment a "continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics." Trump—forever the victim. And although he claimed he wanted "no violence," Trump blamed Democrats for the toxic environment and sympathized with his supporters. "For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it's causing tremendous danger to our country and it's causing tremendous anger."

Trump also brushed aside any culpability for inciting the riot at the Capitol. "If you read my speech," he offered, "it’s been analyzed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.”

Actually, exactly no one has said that. His cultists listening to him at The Ellipse knew exactly what Trump instructed them to do, so they marched straight over to the Capitol and did it. Hours into the insurrection, Trump's legal counsel and aides inside the White House finally convinced him that he must release a video telling his supporters to leave because he and his family could be legally liable for the death and destruction they caused. 

And as reluctant as the media has been throughout Trump's term to appropriately lay blame at his feet for his actions, reporters immediately drew a through line between Trump's incendiary language in the speech and the tumult that ensued.

In any case, Trump has now addressed the American people for the first time since the assault he unleashed on the U.S. government and lawmakers. He is a miserable failure of a leader, showing zero remorse, integrity, or any inkling of human decency.

Watch:

Trump on impeachment: "For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it's causing tremendous danger to our county and it's causing tremendous anger. I want no violence." pic.twitter.com/YfHnaogOql

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 12, 2021

Trump on speech just before deadly riot where he said "fight" or "fighting" more than 20 times: "It's been analyzed and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate." pic.twitter.com/USJmgmqkwi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 12, 2021

‘Lies, lies, lies’: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech about Trump and fellow Republicans goes viral

Posted on (Updated by Marissa Higgins

In the days since a group of pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., sending elected officials into temporary hiding and the nation into a period of shock and horror, a number of Republicans have spoken out against Donald Trump. Whether they’ve criticized his endless insistence that he actually won the 2020 presidential election (he didn’t), called for Trump to resign, both long-standing critics and newly vocalized GOP members are speaking out against Trump.

In a moving, personal video, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger succinctly described Trump as a “failed leader” and someone who “will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.” Direct jabs aside, however, Schwarzenegger also dove deep into serious matters and discussed intergenerational trauma, personal examples from his youth in Austria, and directed a very important message to not only Trump but the Republicans who enabled him. He also wished “great success” to President-elect Joe Biden for when he takes office in less than a month. Let’s check out the video below.

First, in reference to Trump, Schwarzenegger states, “President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.” Obviously, the extra layer of zing here is that Twitter (as well as a handful of other social media platforms) recently permanently suspended Trump from their platforms.

On a personal note, Schwarzenegger discussed growing up in the long-term wake of Kristallnacht (also known as the Night of Broken Glass). Schwarzenegger described Kristallnacht as “a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys,” and said the insurgent’s attack on the Capitol last Wednesday was “the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States. But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideas we took for granted [and] trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”

Schwarzenegger talked about how intergenerational trauma (though he didn’t use that term) can affect an entire society. In his case, Schwarzenegger described being a child and watching his father come home drunk once or twice a week, hitting and scaring his mother. He said it felt normal because he knew it happened at neighbors' houses, too. Why? According to Schwarzenegger, this behavior tied to collective guilt and horror after World War II, saying these men were “in emotional pain for what they saw or did.” In his words, he grew up “surrounded by broken men drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history."

“It all started with lies, lies, lies, and intolerance,” Schwarzenegger stated. “Being from Europe I’ve seen firsthand how bad things can spin out of control.”

In terms of his fellow Republicans, Schwarzenegger called out those who “enabled” Trump’s “lies and his treachery.” He also quoted former President Teddy Roosevelt to them, saying, “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.”

“To those who think they can overturn the United States constitution, know this: You will never win,” he stated, asking for the people responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol to be held accountable. 

Here’s the video on Twitter, which has garnered more than 6 million views at the time of writing. It’s about seven minutes long, but honestly, is worth the full watch.

My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week's attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/blOy35LWJ5

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021

You can watch the full video on his YouTube channel below.

YouTube Video

There are currently 159 House members, and 24 senators who are on record supporting impeachment & removal. Regardless of where your members of Congress stand, please send them a letter.

Harrowing attack steels Democrats ahead of uniquely consequential era of U.S. governance

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

If anyone ever doubted that American democracy was at least temporarily saved by voters defeating Donald Trump at the ballot box, they can lay that lingering doubt to rest. 

Just as people on the left have been warning for more than four years, Trump provided incontrovertible proof this week that he is an unmoored menace to society, an existential threat to the country, and a danger to the entire globe.

In fact, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter Friday morning reassuring her Democratic colleagues that she had spoken with military leadership about safeguarding the country's nuclear stockpile from Trump, it was likely as much about reassuring the world that someone reasonable was in charge as it was about comforting the American people.  

“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi relayed. "The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy."

Jan. 6, 2021 will live in infamy—as will the four years in which Republican lawmakers coddled a would-be dictator who grew so confident in his iron grip on power that he ultimately declared war on the very government under his command. The absolutely harrowing episode has so far resulted in five deaths, including one Capitol Police officer who died of injuries he sustained during the violent insurrection incited by Trump and his henchmen. But it could have been far far worse. The military gear donned by the terrorists, the zip ties or "flex cuffs" some carried, and the gallows the mob erected outside the Capitol left no doubt they were there for blood. Nearly the entire line of succession was in the buildings they stormed—Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley, all of whom were whisked away to a secure location.

But as Rep. Sean Maloney of New York later explained on MSNBC, the rioters were one door away from capturing any number of congressional members in the Speaker’s Lobby as lawmakers made their way to the only remaining escape route in the building. The Washington Post obtained video of the scene, capturing the tense moment that resulted in the fatal shooting of one rioter without getting overly graphic. Other lawmakers, congressional staff, and journalists also narrowly escaped injury or being taken hostage as they huddled in offices and congressional chambers, sometimes donning gas masks and hugging the floor for cover. In essence, the nation was one door, one gunshot, one execution away from a moment where no one could have earthly known what would come next. And as dangerous as the territory is that we are now in, that precarious moment of unknowing easily could have precipitated a far more perilous period for our country and the world. 

And yet, within the same 24-hour period surrounding this riotous assault on U.S. governance, Democrats clinched the 50th Senate seat that secured their impending control of both chambers of Congress, while congressional lawmakers still managed to certify 306 electoral votes ensuring President-elect Joe Biden will indeed become commander in chief at noon on Jan. 20. 

At the same time, the Republican Party has been indefinitely thrown into an epic tailspin. Its future leadership is an open question. Its electoral viability is a complete mystery after the party managed to lose the House, Senate, and White House in a period of four years. Will Trump voters still show up at the polls in future elections? Will conservative-leaning suburbanites stick with a party that aided and abetted a president who sicced a violent mob on the U.S. Capitol? Maybe that's why the GOP is currently splitting up between staunch pro-seditionists and those who are abruptly and belatedly advocating for a break with Trump after four years of helping him destroy the country's Democratic norms at every possible turn. 

If there's a silver lining in all this upheaval, it's that Democrats are finally at the point where (forgive me) they seem to have no f'cks left to give. Instead of a lengthy internal debate over whether it makes sense to impeach a president who literally tried to get them killed while overthrowing the government, they are ploughing ahead, electoral consequences be damned. That's a far cry from where they started the week, with some top congressional Democrats expressing their hope to simply move beyond any lingering investigations of Trump and his administration. But Trump's deadly meltdown paired with the GOP's feckless refusal to confront his unfitness for office seems to have finally pushed Democratic lawmakers over the brink. 

Democrats coalesced around removing Trump from office by any means possible within 24 hours of the siege. They immediately pressured Pence and Trump's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. After Pence failed to even return the phone calls placed by Democratic leaders Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Pelosi told House Democrats impeachment articles would be introduced on Monday. 

In a teaser clip of Pelosi's 60 Minutes interview set to air on Sunday, Pelosi went further than removal, calling for prosecution of Trump.

“Sadly, the person running the Executive Branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States and it will be a number of days until we can be protected from him," Pelosi told Lesley Stahl, adding that "nothing" was off the table. "He has done something so serious that there should be a prosecution against him."

Outside of Trump and his cultists, absolutely no one wanted the horrific events that unfolded this week to take place. It was one of the darkest and most shameful moments in U.S. history. But the unimaginable episode also appears to have inspired a resolve among congressional Democrats that could prove a game changer heading into an era that may arguably be among the most consequential years of U.S. governance since the years surrounding the Civil Rights movement, the Great Depression, and even the Civil War.  

Watch the teaser for Pelosi’s 60 Minutes interview: 

NEWS: Nancy Pelosi calls for President Trump to be prosecuted. This is a preview of a @60Minutes interview airing this Sunday on CBS. ‘Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls President Trump “deranged, unhinged, dangerous” and says he should be prosecuted. Lesley Stahl reports’ pic.twitter.com/tXbiG7VwJU

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) January 9, 2021

Republicans claiming they want the party to break with Trump can start by removing him from office

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Following Donald Trump's attempt to violently overthrow the U.S. government, Republicans have quickly retreated into two camps: Those who have had the sudden epiphany that they must break with Trump to save the party and those who are clinging to him like a life vest to buoy the party’s future.

Make no mistake, they have all been complicit in building Trump and his rabid base into the monster that has swallowed the party whole. Decades of GOP lawmakers carefully nurturing the ignorance of their followers left GOP voters uniquely susceptible to the manipulation of a buffoonish yet dangerous conspiratorial carnival barker like Trump. He is the pinnacle of their creation—able to say and do absolutely anything with impunity to the mindless acceptance and adoration of the Republican base.

The Republican lawmakers who want to stay the course even after Trump's shameful betrayal of the country this week are an irredeemable stain on the conscience of America. That's particularly true for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who eagerly supported a lawsuit backing Trump's fraudulent challenge to the election results, voted to object to certification of those results even after Trump's insurrectionists terrorized the Capitol complex, and then issued a statement Friday saying impeachment would "only divide our country"—never mind the fact that Trump poses an existential threat to the republic. McCarthy and his ilk helped plant the seeds of fascism Trump has supercharged, and they very obviously would gladly disenfranchise the American people to cement their enduring power if that opportunity were to materialize. 

But for those who now claim they want to break with Trump and indeed must do so in order to save the party, they can all start by telling the truth to their constituents—that Trump bamboozled his supporters, betrayed his oath of office, and must be removed from office immediately. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah at least got the truth part of that equation right when he spoke from the Senate floor on Wednesday following the melee. "The best way we can show respect for the voters who were upset [by the election results] is by telling them the truth," Romney said.

The Republicans who now seem eager to leave Trump in the rear view mirror vary between people like Romney, who has at least repeatedly criticized Trump and even voted against clearing him of impeachment charges, to squishy opportunists like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has consistently stoked Trump fervor over the years. Rubio, who unequivocally celebrated the caravan of Trumpers that forced a Biden campaign bus off a Texas highway in November, has now lamented the siege at the Capitol as a "national embarrassment" and told GOP voters that "some misled you" about the Vice President's ability to reject certification. 

Somewhere in between there's someone like Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the GOP leadership that has done everything in its power to coddle Trump while capitalizing on his populist appeal. 

“What happened in Georgia, what happened today are all indicative that we have to chart a course,” Thune told the New York Times. “I think our identity for the past several years was built around an individual, we got to get back to where it’s built on a set of principles and ideas and policies.” Whatever Thune’s motivations, his diagnosis of the problem is at least somewhat clear eyed. 

But if any of those Republicans are serious about redeeming and reclaiming their party at any level, they must start by making an unmistakable break with their past. That seems unlikely as only one GOP senator (Senator tally here) has expressed an openness to considering the removal of Trump: Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Even Romney advised Americans to just "hold our breath for the next 20 days" until Biden is sworn in rather than invoke the 25th Amendment. Sorry, but that's not going to cut it. It won't save the Republican Party and it certainly won't save the country from the party, which is now little more than a haven for radical extremists awaiting an opportunity to mount a violent coup.

In fact, just look at where the GOP rank and file in the states are. State party chairs, thrilled with the post-election results of their down-ballot candidates, have said they don’t want to change a thing about the Trumpist direction of their party despite Trump's failure at the top of the ticket.

“As far as I’m concerned, everything’s great,” Stanley Grot, a district-level Republican Party chair in Michigan, said last month even after Trump lost the state by some 150,000 votes.

On Thursday, Trump was reportedly "greeted with applause when he dialed into a breakfast at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee." On Friday, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel betrayed not even a hint of remorse or reflection about Trump’s insurrection when she enthusiastically told the gathering, "Democrats, get ready. Buckle your seatbelts, because we are coming."

If any congressional Republicans truly believe it's time for a different course, they are going to have to take decisive action. These weak whiffs of passive resistance nearly all of them are currently offering are a pathetic mismatch for the present political moment. One would think they might have learned a little something after spending four years registering their discontent by whispering to each other in the cloistered recesses of the Congress. 

And if they're not concerned enough about the preservation of the country to take a stand, they may want to think about the fact that if the pitchforks come the next time, they won't be coming for Democrats alone. Just ask Vice President Mike Pence.

Calling for Trump’s removal, Schumer signals more aggressive posture for Democrats moving forward

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

It shouldn't be a surprise that the incoming majority leader of the soon-to-be Democratic-led Senate has come out in favor of removing a U.S. president who incited an armed insurrection at the nation’s Capitol, but frankly it is. And it's a welcome development from Sen. Chuck Schumer that just might signal a more aggressive posture for the soon-to-be Democratic-led Congress during the first couple years of the Biden administration.

Democratic voters and liberals have spent four years lamenting the light touch of our elected leaders in the face of a president who was ripping our country to shreds in real time. Eventually, House Democrats did the right thing by impeaching Trump, but only after a transgression so glaring and obvious and publicly accessible, they really had no choice but to take action lest they violate their sacred oath to the Constitution. 

Following a weak performance by down-ballot Democrats in November, many progressives have been bracing themselves for more of that light Democratic touch—a complete reversion to the centrism mindset that dominated the '90s and early aughts. And to be sure, congressional Democrats now face real challenges in both chambers, with a one-vote edge in the Senate (where Democrats still need 10 more votes to reach the 60 needed to beat a filibuster) and just 222 Democrats in the lower chamber (where 218 votes are needed to pass legislation). But you don't get what you don't try for, and for far too long congressional Democrats have been their own worst enemy in terms of negotiating themselves down before they even get to the bargaining table.

That's why Schumer caught my eye prior to the election last year when he sent several signals that Democrats needed to act more aggressively than they had during the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency when they had commanding majorities in both chambers. In the months leading up to the election, Schumer rejected his longtime centrist persona, pondered an FDR-style response to the problems facing the nation if Democrats controlled the levers of government, and warned Republicans that "nothing is off the table for next year" if they proceeded to ram through a replacement for recently passed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

So Schumer announcing his strong support for removing Trump by any legal means possible in the wake of his betrayal of the country suggests Schumer meant what he said last fall, which would in turn incentivize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push her caucus as far as it can go in passing progressive legislation as quickly as possible in the early stage of Biden's presidency. 

Leadership matters. Since Schumer issued his strong call for Trump's removal Thursday morning, momentum has already grown exponentially. Speaker Pelosi has joined the effort. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has finished drafting Articles of Impeachment and Democratic support for either impeaching Trump or invoking the 25th Amendment keeps rolling in. These are the signs we want to see in the days immediately following Democrats' historic victories in two Georgia Senate runoffs. Keep it coming, Democrats. Time to save the American enterprise—this isn’t a dress rehearsal.

#BREAKING: Pelosi says time for 25th Amendment for Trump for “seditious act,” if not Congress may impeach

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 7, 2021

Pelosi to speak soon to reporters pic.twitter.com/voOi6YuDjp

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 7, 2021

Not hard to tell where the momentum is for Democrats right now. pic.twitter.com/d9qB6JZFLm

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 7, 2021

Impeach Trump IMMEDIATELY. He is a direct threat to U.S. national security and the republic itself

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

Nearly 30 Democratic members of the House have expressed a desire to impeach Donald Trump a second time following his incitement Wednesday of an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers attempted to certify the results of the November presidential election. 

They are absolutely right. Trump is a direct threat to the sovereign. For more than two months, Trump has spewed a constant stream of disinformation about the election being stolen from him and his supporters being disenfranchised. On Wednesday morning, Trump spent some two hours urging his followers to storm the U.S. Capitol at a “Save America” rally. “We will never give up. We will never concede,” Trump told several thousand of his cultists who had gathered on the Ellipse to see him speak. 

His supporters, hopped up on conspiracy and grievance, then marched over to the Capitol and staged a violent insurrection—pushing back Capitol police, shooting mace at them, threatening lawmakers and journalists, breaking windows, destroying property, and ultimately overtaking the building along with several others on the Capitol complex. 

Several hours after images of the violent takeover had flooded new outlets and social media streams, Trump finally posted a video urging his cultists to go home peacefully. But even that video was riddled with more conspiracy and grievance-stoking by Trump. 

“I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side,” Trump falsely stated before telling his followers to go home. He then went straight back at it, lamenting, “There's never been a time where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country.” And finally, “So go home. We love you. You're very special,” Trump concluded, offering a warm embrace to the terrorists who had stormed the Capitol to stage a coup attempt.

The unfathomable breakdown of law enforcement during this entire episode will be investigated and parsed for years to come. But what we do know is that it took hours for the D.C. National Guard to be called up to provide reinforcements, partly because it is not controlled by the D.C. mayor but rather the president. After D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both sent a formal request to the Department of Defense to deploy the National Guard, Vice President Mike Pence finally approved the deployment, not Trump. Trump, still the commander in chief, apparently couldn’t be bothered to send in reinforcements to protect U.S. lawmakers, the Capitol complex, and all its denizens. 

To recap, Trump spent months pumping his low-information voters full of crap; he then personally directed them to storm the Capitol on the day of congressional certification; when his supporters did storm the Capitol, he posted a video justifying their ire and lavishing praise on them while also declining to deploy troops in order to protect U.S. lawmakers and federal property. Many of those protesters—who were inexplicably allowed to exit the building on Wednesday evening without suffering any consequences—told journalists and others they planned to return at a later date with their guns. 

And finally, once the worst of the occupation appeared to be over, Trump celebrated the seditious actions of his cultists. “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Trump tweeted Wednesday evening. Twitter finally locked Trump’s account by day’s end, but lasting damage to the heart of our democracy had already been done.

What unfolds over the next 14 days between now and the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden remains entirely unclear. What is clear is that Trump’s cultists aren’t done yet, and Trump himself is perfectly happy to stoke their worst impulses while leaving the nation’s Capitol, along with our duly elected U.S. lawmakers, unprotected. Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to American democracy, our systems of government, and the republic itself. He must be impeached immediately after Congress finishes the business of certifying the Electoral College votes. As Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told MSNBC Wednesday evening, “Democracy's not safe right now. … I don't trust this president.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota announced Wednesday afternoon that she was drafting articles of impeachment. Omar was among the first of several lawmakers to express support for impeaching Trump following his direct involvement in one of the most shameful episodes in our nation’s history. The effort has quickly attracted the backing of a diverse group of Democratic lawmakers, from progressive representatives like Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Pramila Jayapal of Washington to more moderate members like Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Jim Cooper of Tennessee. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must take up the matter immediately following congressional certification. Few if any instances in American history have ever posed such an obvious and urgent existential threat to the United States of America.