Yeah. He’s been strangely silent for a few days.
He has no shot at heaven although he’d give St. Peter a good laugh.
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For purposes of analysis of what a senate trial will be like involves 3 groups of Republican Senators.
The first group is very small and may only be Susan Collins. She is hurt by Trump regardless. That is Trump being at the head of the 2020 ticket makes it less likely she will win reelection. In her case, and maybe a few others, the political expedient action may actually be to vote for removal or at least insist on a real trial.
The second group, consisting of Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and about 20 others, do not need Trump to hold office but need Trump to remain in the majority. That is without Trump’s base of racists and others who vote against their own best economic and other interests and created group 3, these senators would remain in the senate but in the minority and have diminished or no real power. But with Trump acting if not becoming a dictator, they must ask, what real power they have with Trump.
The third, largest and most diverse group, includes everyone from Cory Gardner to Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell who need Trump’s base of racists and their ilk to even hold office. That is several, like Gardner may lose anyway but without Trump have no chance of holding office.
In my view the 2nd group is the group to watch, those that will hold office regardless of Trump and his base. Collins and others who might be helped in their elections by voting to impeach Trump could still lose regardless. As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the reason ALL Republican, including all those leaving in the House are sticking with Trump over impeachment is they all want employment after leaving and between FOX and other extremist Rightwing “think tanks” that actually pay more and require much less effort than elected office, so long as they stick with Trump they will almost certainly get an easy life after leaving office.
But those 20 senators who are not looking for a golden parachute and in seats they will likely hold for as long as they want, have little personally to gain from choosing the constitution over Trump. If the Republican dam or damned, is to break, it will be from these senators.
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His attorneys probably have a dump client and keep retainer clause in their contract upon the first unapproved utterance.
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This is the Trump/Giuliani way, more properly credited to Al Capone (who also hates Trump).
And do the Republicans understand that anybody who supports Trump (including his voters, since you can cut the data down to the precinct level) are going to be severely damaged? Do they also understand that insider tell-all books are extremely lucrative?
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Even without removal, the label “IMPEACHED” needs to be on his term for historical significance.
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The sad legacy of the current crop of congressional Republicans will be their willingness to co-conspire with their corrupt, ethically-bankrupt Supreme Leader at all costs.
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Well, God is a secret Kenyan, socialist, Muslim. And Trump clearly would have the biggest, brightest and bestest wings, evah. And Satan? If you’re listening, where ARE St. Peter’s emails??
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I know that Republicans in the majority will be able to change rules on the fly as they see fit, but how much control over the “prosecutor” do they really have? Wouldn’t the “prosecutor” continue until he runs out of witnesses? I’m not really seeing a pathway for them to limit the length of the trial. Plus you have Roberts overseeing the whole thing as well. He would have to abide by any rule changes they make, but isn’t he ruling on things like admisability, etc.?
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Yesterday it was all “we got this” Moscow Mitch and Trump are best of buds and the fix is in. Had many here clutching their pearls. Now they are back to scattershot, no one knows what they are doing. The fear Trump is projecting is starting to wilt even the Fox talking heads who can’t get the orange stain off the phone. Keep up the good work, boys. 
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I believe your math is wrong on the first group, both that is bigger than Collins, and that she has any chance of winning by voting for his removal.
The reality is, I don’t think any republican up for re-election, can win by voting for Trump’s removal. They math is pretty simple, which has them between a rock and a hard place…they can’t win with just Trump supporters and they can’t win without Trump supporters. The caveat to that statement however is, they certainly cannot win if Trump turns the entire election into a grievance campaign about how badly he is being treated, which he certainly would do.
The problem with your second grouping, is people like Romney and Murkowski, are not running for office in 2020, so they do have a bit more leeway in their vote than people like Gardner, Collins, McSally, etc.
They have a Senate Majority to gain. And that ain’t nothing. Particularly when eyeing a Democratic President moving into the WH in January 2021.
IMO, its actually going to come down to republicans running for re-election in 2020, and it IS going to be difficult to convince them to vote to remove. Because of the above math. If you are Collins, McSally, Gardner, Ernst, Perdue…and a few others, you want Trump to resign and avoid the trial altogether.
There is of course the possibility that gets brought up that the Senate could change the rules and make it a secret ballot. I find that an extremely unlikely scenario. McConnell is crafty enough to see that there isn’t a good outcome for him or his party if that happened…if Trump IS removed that way, EVERY republican will be accused of voting against him by the Trump supporters (and McConnell himself would be hung out to dry for making the change). If pressured into considering such a change, look for McConnell to poison the vote by inserting other changes that will never pass, thus insuring the whole thing fails.
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I am extremely skeptical of these time lines of the House being done and passing it over to the Senate in January. Pelosi is giving ZERO indication of that, and is actually floating the idea that it could go on well past January.
My own personal belief is still to look for sometime in March for the House to vote and give it to the Senate. It could possibly be even later.
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That will happen. Particularly if republicans try and do a short trial and quickly vote to acquit.
That’s their dilemma right now. They know they ARE going to acquit, but they know its going to cost them dearly. Their path out of this quagmire is pretty clear, too. Get Trump to resign ahead of a trial.
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No. They came dangerously close to getting away with it. Trump actually sees Biden as his most likely opponent, or at least, the one that would give him the most trouble. But it also pretty likely that they are busily trying to manufacture dirt on everyone they consider having a credible chance of winning the Dem nomination. We just haven’t found out yet.
Yeah, Biden is making mistakes. He has been making mistakes since he declared. But no one is coming close to challenging him with Black voters. And with the front loaded primary schedule this year, the timeline for that shift to happen is getting smaller.
Biden becomes even more worrisome as a nominee, if Trump does resign.
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The impeachment hearings seem to have been well planned. They had weeks of confidential testimony, and used that to prep the public hearings. It is hard to find fault with how they sequenced the public witnesses. It is a bit surprising how much the Republicans seemed to be surprised by what came out. Their defense was reduced to yelling conspiracy theories at the witnesses.
That doesn’t get any votes in the Senate. It also doesn’t mean that the Democrats have shown all their cards. This will go to a trial, at which point we will see how Democrats approach a truly hostile (but stupid) witness like Mulvaney, and wild card Bolton. Limiting it to two weeks will look bad, it will look like GOP is shutting it down in the face of a bad result. Dismissing it on its face would play better in Deploria, but there are a few Senators who aren’t that shameless.
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I never believed that McConnell wanted to extend this trial to try to force Dem candidates to attend a trial as opposed to campaigning. Speechifying at an impeachment trial makes for great campaigning! And it seems obvious that any ongoing trial could only hurt Trump.
A two week trial is about as institutionally unsound as the rush job they did for the Kavanaugh confirmation.
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I think Biden is the easiest Democrat to beat because Biden is the one most closely tied to the establishment. He doesn’t appeal to anyone worried about the corrupt insider elites. Trump has to be afraid that a more populist candidate will peel off some of his support. Sanders and Warren, especially Warren, are appealing to the Joe SixPack voters who feel they have been abandoned by the Democrats. To a lesser extent some of the other candidates appeal to those folks as well. Amy Klobuchar is right. To win an Democrat is going to have to win Michigan and Wisconsin. I don’t see Biden doing any better in either than Hillary.
I think the House Managers have some say in the length of the trial as well, but I would suspect they can get the job done in 2 weeks.
Vs. Trump? He definitely will do better/Trump will do worse.
Both states seriously stepped up their voter suppression efforts in 2016. Now both have Democratic governors, which makes taking those steps a great deal more difficult. And the fact that both voted in Democratic governors is a pretty solid indicator of where voters are at. Enthusiasm in terms of Democratic voter turnout is running very high, and will continue as long as Trump is in office.
In fact, his campaign is worried about their chances in MI (as they should be, he is seriously upside down in MI, WI and PA)
I don’t buy that for a second. Trump voters are not going to vote for either Sanders or Warren. If those voters feel they have been “abandoned” by Democrats, it’s not about “economic anxiety”…its about racism. They don’t want “the Other” getting what they think they deserve. Both Sanders and Warren’s message raises those fears, it doesn’t diminish them.
Trump knows who his base is, and how to motivate them. It through “owning the libs” and hating “the Other”. It is not, nor was it ever, about any sort of economic messaging. In a large part, that is why he has engaged in his tariff wars. Its economically damaging, but its hating “the Other”, so his base likes it.
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