>> The House of Representatives has voted to officially impeach Donald Trump on one article
of impeachment regarding his incitement of insurrection. Now, unlike the first time
that Donald Trump was impeached in 2019. Today, we saw ten Republicans vote in favor of impeachment,
which is a big deal. Now, this is a historical event not only because of the fact that Donald
Trump has been impeached two times, the first president to be impeached two times.
But this is the most basic bipartisan impeachment. Which is an interesting way to look at this,
especially when you consider what happened last week with these insurrections rioting
in the Capitol. And then you look at the high volume of Republicans who are still
serving as apologists for Donald Trump and his
incredibly violent rhetoric, which not only incited violence last week.
Let's be clear, Donald Trump's rhetoric has incited violence in this country in
so many different cases, beginning with the hate march in Charlottesville. You have the
Tree of Life synagogue, you have the mass shooting in El Paso, you have Cesar Sayoc
sending bombs to members of the media and democratic politicians.
let's not pretend as if we don't know what's been going on in this country for the last four years,
Donald Trump has been inciting violence and this may be the first time that he's
actually paying some consequences for it. But before I give you some more details
on how this all went down yesterday, I wanted to get your thoughts, John.
>> Yeah, it's great that it is happening, it's gonna be made a lot more great if
there's anything that actually comes of it in terms of conviction and all of that. Just being
impeached again is something, it sends a signal the fact that it's the most bipartisan. I think
people said he's now been impeached as much as all of the Presidents combined which is historic.
I think I'm still counting all the votes, but he might have as many members of his own party
voting for it as like all of the others combined. I'm not sure about that one,
that's big. But if that is where it ends, then I don't know how much more
deterrent power it has than the first impeachment which didn't change much behavior.
It's great to have the ten, sorry, it looked
like you were about to say something? >> No, finish your thought because I do
have a response- >> Sure.
>> To what you said. >> Yeah, it's good to
have the ten crossover, so that we can say that this is an actual bipartisan thing.
It's good to get them on the record. Although, they're on the record literally the last week
of this whole Trump experience that we've had. You still had 95% of Republicans in the House saying,
yeah, no, add up all those things and it was saying and now add the
incitement to the attack, and the attack is the single worst part of a multi month effort.
To effectively end democratic elections for president in America. So it's the worst part
of a much bigger issue. And 95% of Republicans in the House are like no, that's totally cool.
Or I think it's bad but let's not do something crazy like impeaching him, which is,
that's the exact same thing as I think it's okay.
>> Right, exactly, I mean most Republican lawmakers who are against impeachment are like,
well, what he did was really bad. It was really bad. But impeachment doesn't really
make any sense. He only has a week left in an office. And so maybe we should do a censure.
No, look, this isn't about removing Donald Trump from office.
Clearly he only has a week left. The two main points to take away from this impeachment is
number one. It's meant to serve as a deterrent so people understand that
there are consequences for inciting violence the way that Donald Trump has been doing.
And then number two, it's an effort to prevent him from running for federal office again.
Of course there have been so many headlines regarding Trump's
plans to run for president in 2024. If he is Impeached and then also convicted in the Senate,
he cannot do that. And so, the update to this story is also the fact that Mitch McConnell
who we learned yesterday is actually in favor of these impeachment proceedings.
This was reported by the New York Times is not going to have the senate reconvene
in order to hear this trial. In order to either convict or exonerate Donald Trump.
And at first I was irritated by that but then I kinda stop and thought about it.
With Mitch McConnell and the majority of Republicans in the Senate.
I just don't trust them to convict Donald Trump. So the trial is likely to happen
when Joe Biden is already in office, when the democrats have a slim majority in the Senate.
And it's more likely that Donald Trump will be convicted for this article of impeachment,
and I think that's actually a better outcome.
Because again, it helps to fulfill the objective of preventing this person
from running for President again. So I think it's actually
whether Mitch McConnell meant it to be or not. A good move that would
more likely lead to Trump getting convicted of something that he's clearly guilty of.
>> Yeah, and I don't know. Jarrod and I were talking about Mitch McConnell and that thing
about him secretly being pleased and behind the scenes that I'm sure that look, he, Mitch
McConnell has never seemed like a person that was like wearing a red hat at home or anything.
Like he's not a true believer in that way. He's a more old school Republican,
and that means he's still awful. But he's awful in specific sort of policy based ways,
and judicial ways in terms of choosing judges. And so, I get that he would want if possible to
stop Trump from having even more control over the Republican party going forward.
It's not if Trump is stopped from pursuing federal office, that's it for Trump. I was never
super convinced that he was gonna seriously run in 2024 anyway, I think he might run,
but there's barely gonna be anything left of him by then. He's still gonna be out
there no matter what, you can banned him from Twitter and banned him from running for office.
He's still going to exist. He's still an issue. And so I get that Mitch McConnell would want
to throw up a few more barriers there. But I also on the show this morning before we found
out about the fact that he's definitely punting until he's no longer in charge.
He's not necessarily gonna stick his neck all the way out of the shell, so his head can be
cut off. Like he doesn't- >> No, you are
absolutely right. >> Know you're the one
who's gonna face all the ire, he would prefer that the democrats do it if the end result is the same.
So, it's not, it's like, okay, good. You don't like Trump that much. It's not a
profile and courage or anything like that. And so, whatever credit we wanna give him I think
it's necessarily, I think quite limited. >> Yeah, I give him no credit. Let's be
clear, I give him zero credit.
He has aided and abetted Donald Trump throughout his four years in office. So
I'm just saying that the outcome as a result of Mitch McConnell refusing to
have the current senate reconvene in order to have this trial. Is either intentionally or
unintentionally a good move for people who want this impeachment to fulfill the two objectives.
To serve as a deterrent and to prevent Donald Trump from running for office again.
I think that it serves as more of a deterrent if you have a Senate that convicts him as
opposed to a Republican majority senate that could potentially exonerate him.
Remember, in the first impeachment, Donald Trump was impeached in the House and then
he was exonerated in the Senate, and that sends all the wrong messages, right.
It sends the message of I mean, I was acquitted, like I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't found
guilty. Like it's that same feel and I don't want that to happen in this case.
>> It was just the Democrats. >> Exactly.
>> Yeah, yeah, I agree. >> So I think that today's
news is important and I am happy to see at least ten Republican lawmakers vote in the right way.
I believe we have a graphic we should know who they are and we don't. Okay,
so of course, Liz Cheney was one of the Republican lawmakers who was the most
vociferous in supporting this impeachment effort and of course there are nine others. I don't
like the reputation rehab that's happening right now on cable news in response to Liz Cheney.
It's like, this is a profile in courage. >> She is the best, she's great.
>> She's obviously not the best, but not to get too sidetracked by that.
I do also wanna point out that Republican lawmakers are terrified of Trump's base.
That's also a big part of this story, which is why so many of them are unwilling to go on the record
to do the right thing, to hold him accountable for his actions.