is that tactic, is that strategy likely to work on somebody like mitch mcconnell? it s not going to work on mitch mcconnell, but it s not directed at mitch mcconnell. these are the same folks who wrote that article in the bulwark that you reported at the top, and that s bill kristol. remember, these are old-line republicans. bill kristol was a very, very important republican, especially 15, 20 years ago when he was a lot of people thought he was running the country. he was working for george h.w. bush, dan quayle, and george w. bush. so that part of the old republican party, you can say, well, they re history. they were taken over by the trump party. but if you re looking at people like susan collins, gardner and mcsally, these folks have a lot of people in their states who don t love trump.
chief justice playing a bigger role here. right now by most people s understanding this ball is really in the court of senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. with consultation with chuck schumer he ll set the rules for this. but what is the argument you re making, what is the role chief justice john roberts can play here and what should he play? it s one of the only explicit rules given to the chief justice by the constitution, to preside over an impeachment trial in the senate to remove the president. and ceremoniously this role has been played in the past in sort of a removed way. if you remember chief justice rehnquist during the clinton impeachment trial, he was really kind of hands-off. he was most notable for wearing a robe that riffed off gilbert and sullivan s ioanthe and had four gold stripes on either sleeve. but in fact there is a more muscular role that can be played by the chief justice in this instance. of course majority leader mcconnell will set the rules, but we re
the president in need of a vindication through as jonathan put it a real trial or do you think that he can sell himself to the american public with a sham trial? because it doesn t seem at least from what we ve been hearing mitch mcconnell say and the president say, they re really serious about a fair trial that could really exonerate the president. i think for the people who are his loyal supporters, who will not vary no matter what happens, it doesn t matter whether it s fake or real. but there are enough people in america who are undecided, who need to see a fair trial and who may be persuaded. and the senators who vote against a fair and full trial are going to have to either explain why they voted against a fair trial or they re going to have to explain why they didn t pay attention to the evidence once it s admitted. so if a fair trial happens, there is a chance that some republicans will end up voting to convict the president and
congressional republicans have really started to take on a lot of what trump does. you know, they started to wear that sort of mask that trump wears. either they lie, they peddle conspiracy theories, or they get angry. and usually it s a combination of the three, as we ve seen during the hearings on capitol hill. but regardless, what they ve really done is employ that patch and go strategy that leaves a lot of us really flummoxed about how they can possibly withstand the public really coming up against the president, this administration, i mean. the country is divided. half the people say what he did was impeachable. half say what he did was not impeachable. here inside the beltway a lot of establishment republicans say this i think what he did in regards to ukraine was impeachable. however, the democrats process, how they ve done this whole impeachment thing is all wrong. outside the beltway, in my home state of west virginia, for example, they say i don t think the president s don
jr., arena said of the president s eldest son. he called me back and said, man, i think they re really into it. but briny should not get too excited. the dally beast reached out to donald trump jr. and got a denial. don hasn t spoken to anyone about building a presidential library and has never even met vanilla ice. ouch. that s ice ice cold, baby. meanwhile, mr. ice himself has also tweeted a denial. i don t know donald trump junior. i don t understand why they said that. but if they want me to build a library in palm beach on the oaths, i m in. and then he took the opportunity of all the new eyeballs on his twitter account to append the following hashtag. vanilla ice project. never let publicity go to waste. notably, no one appears to have demanded a correction from the palm beach post. and this is trump, and this is vanilla ice. and this is florida. so who knows? that does it for me tonight. it s time for the last word