As the nation focuses on the Democratic effort to impeach President Trump, Democratic House leadership devotes its focus to… prescription drug pricing? The COMMENTARY podcast wonders what Democrats are thinking as they make a muddled case against Trump. Also, Bernie Sanders’ health worries, Elizabeth Warren’s ascension, Joe Biden’s stagnation, and the spectacularly bad decision in favor of racial discrimination at Harvard.

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  1. JuliaBlaschke Lincoln
    JuliaBlaschke
    @JuliaBlaschke

    Nothing makes Warren seem more genuine in my opinion. On top of calling herself a Native American to gain preferment in her professional life, she just recently concocted a story about a guy sexually harassing her when she herself laughingly dismissed the incident at his funeral. She will say anything. Plus her “plans” are dangerous nonsense. 

    • #1
  2. Daniel Sterman Inactive
    Daniel Sterman
    @DanielSterman

    I strongly disagree with the assessment of the phone call. If it is at any point firmly established that Trump really did suspend aid to Ukraine with the intention of holding it over Zelensky, whether or not Zelensky knew about it is irrelevant.

    As I said in another comment thread on this site, the mobster doesn’t have to throw a brick through your window before he makes the “nice shop you got here” speech. Usually he only throws the brick after you refuse his generous, non-refusable offer. In this case, Trump very clearly gave the speech, and the brick was very clearly thrown before it. The questions therefore are:

    • Did Trump throw the brick for the purposes of later giving the speech, or for some other (potentially legitimate) reason?
    • Did Trump assume that Zelensky knew about the brick at the time of the phone call? I can see a scenario like this one: Trump stops aid to Ukraine, and thinks that by the time he calls Zelensky that the latter must know what’s going on, but doesn’t realize Zelensky hasn’t found out yet, so the shakedown doesn’t come across as intended.

      That latter would certainly be consistent with how the Trump campaign came across in the Mueller report: so desperate to break the law and get dirt on Hillary from the Russians, yet too amateurish to actually accomplish it. There’s the famous Ben Wittes quote, “Malevolence tempered by incompetence.”

    • #2
  3. Daniel Sterman Inactive
    Daniel Sterman
    @DanielSterman

    That said, I’m 100% on board with John’s description of how the Democrats have been behaving. It’s absolutely clear they wanted to impeach Trump from day one, and that if they hadn’t been banging on about it for every little thing they would find it much easier to impeach him for the (to my opinion) maybe three things he’s done that could actually warrant it. Abe’s assessment of AOC’s tweet is absolutely right: you don’t get retroactively proven right if somebody commits a crime later that you accused him of in advance.

    I also don’t get the whole 25th amendment obsession. John hinted towards it, but it’s worth saying explicitly: Removing the president with the 25th amendment requires the exact same number of Senators as removal-by-impeachment does. I don’t know what you’d have to be smoking to think that’s viable.

    • #3
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