anti-impeachment, thinking that trump wasn t guilty. so, what we have is a duplicitous speaker trying to do anything that he can to retain the minimal power that he has, alicia. mark, it s so striking to me that the reporting that this move came as a way of getting out from under trump s pressure to issue a presidential endorsement. so, when you have a republican speaker of the house, who is potentially willing to bring a vote like this to the floor, so that he does not have to come out and endorse the person who is currently the front runner in the race, that says something about the state of the party. not only that. remember that what really created this advice for mccarthy is when he came out and said the truth, which was that he speculated that donald trump may not be the best republican candidate for president next year. and that is when this all started. and so, he s been backsliding ever since then, trying to get
teresa kumar, and mark mckinnon. maria teresa kumar, as some have pointed out, there s nothing to expunge if you have been acquitted, which trump was, plus you ve got multiple republican centrists making it clear today they don t support this, a vote could hurt them back home in their swing states. so, what is the point of this, maría? i think he is just trying to kick the can down the road. he doesn t want to be beholden to the extreme right of the republican party. and so, he is hoping that he will wait it out. he recognizes, though, that he does have a very thin margin in congress, and so we need to protect those republicans as best he can. but let s i mean, we have mccarthy on tape before he made these really ambitious votes, anti-impeachment, thinking that trump wasn t guilty. so, what we have is a duplicitous speaker trying to do anything that he can to retain the minimal power that he has, alicia. mark, it s so striking to me