Editor’s note: Each Sunday, the chattering class fills American airwaves with the thoughts and opinions of Washington’s most powerful Swamp-dwellers. Often these interviews make headlines and inform the public about what to expect in the coming week. If you want to stay informed but don’t have the time to devote to all the political punditry, there is hope. Liberty Nation author Kelli Ballard sifts through the shows for you and presents the high and lowlights in this weekly column.
To say that the focus this week was on impeachment would be a yuuge understatement. As the lines were drawn in the sand, a couple of Dems crossed the aisle, refusing to vote to impeach. The division, however, remains evident.
This Week With George Stephanopoulos – ABC
Senator Ron Johnson
One question seemingly on everyone’s lips was whether the White House will call witnesses at the Senate trial. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said, “I just think it’s kind of bizarre that they [Democrats] had to rush to this impeachment vote and then all of a sudden she’s [Nancy Pelosi] sitting on it. I don’t think the Senate should be making the case the House should have made in their presentation. My guess is they weren’t able to make the case. As I said, the charges are pretty thin gruel. I don’t see anything impeachable in that.”
Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) argued that his party “and the American people” deserve a full and fair trial and that the only way to do that is to bring forth the witnesses, such as White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Meet the Press – NBC
After more of the same rhetoric from other media sources, with the Dems demanding witnesses and the Republicans just wanting to get the whole sordid affair over, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said no one, on either side, was happy with having to impeach the president. He even managed to take it a step more personal and bragged:
“None of us are happy about this. As a guy who’s a big competitor, I want to beat Donald Trump mano e mano, I want to face him down on the debate floor.”
What a holiday treat that would be! Imagine Spartacus going toe-to-toe with Trump in a political debate? He wouldn’t last beyond the ringing of the first bell.
Face the Nation – CBS
Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) had a point when he said articles of impeachment “need to make sense before they’re sent over [to the Senate], not leave it up to the Senate to try to make sense out of a case that the House says they clearly made.”
Face the Nation seemed flabbergasted when Trump’s daughter and adviser, Ivanka, said his mood after the impeachment was “energized.” She commented:
“It is pretty unprecedented that support for impeachment has decreased. Over time as more information was presented to the American people, it’s decreased, not increased. So with all of this time spent, with all of these witnesses who didn’t have firsthand knowledge, with all of these people that have been paraded in front of the American people, support for this action has decreased.”
Will America get the gift of seeing this impeachment resolved, or will the grinch (Pelosi) steal Christmas, leaving all the Whos in Whoville wondering until election day?
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Read more from Kelli Ballard.
