The United States keeps hurtling towards the 2020 presidential election, and although who exactly the Democratic Party will nominate to take him on remains to be seen, one thing is pretty crystal clear — opposition to President Donald Trump is surging to dramatic levels. This weekend on ABC, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) discussed some of the means the Democrats are using to respond to the Trump onslaught, summing up by insisting that his party must defeat Trump in 2020 because the state of American democracy itself is at stake.
He told host George Stephanopoulos:
‘I don’t think the country could survive another four years of a president like this who gets up every day trying to find new and inventive ways to divide us. He doesn’t seem to understand that a fundamental aspect of his job is to try and make us a more perfect union — but that’s not at all where he’s coming from. He’s going to be defeated — he has to be defeated.’
House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff says Trump “has to be defeated” in 2020.
“I don’t think this country could survive another 4 years with a president like this who gets up every day trying to find new and inventive ways to divide us” https://t.co/P6iz1j1VA4 pic.twitter.com/UxNrNk7SIT
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 12, 2019
At present, some of the top contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination include former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Kamala Harris (Calif.). Trump has already publicly sparred with every single one of them, deriding them as everything from “SleepyCreepy Joe” to “probably very nasty” Sen. Harris.
Before and in addition to the Democratic Party’s selection of a presidential nominee, concerned interests have got to grapple with other issues Schiff discussed this weekend, like the Trump administration’s ongoing obstruction of justice campaign. They have flatly refused to comply with House Democratic attempts at oversight, occasionally inventing whole new legal standards to justify their decision like in the case of the supposed lack of “legitimate legislative purpose” behind the House Ways and Means Committee seeking Trump’s tax returns.
On another front, the Trump team has refused to comply with Democratic efforts to get to the bottom of the Russia scandal. Attorney General William Barr flatly refused to comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena and they’ve since voted to hold him in contempt of Congress, and the president has declared executive privilege over the entire final report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation — even the parts, Schiff noted this weekend, from well outside of his tenure as a protected executive, meaning president.
He explained to Stephanopoulos that Democrats aren’t backing down from their confrontation of the Trump administration’s stonewalling, sharing:
‘We’re going to have other remedies like inherent contempt where if the courts take too long, we use our own judicial process within the Congress. I think if you fine someone $25,000 a day to their person until they comply — it gets their attention.’
How far will Democrats go to enforce contempt citations?
“We’re going to have to enforce much of this in court,” Rep. Adam Schiff tells @GStephanopoulos, and if “courts take too long,” Congress will have to “consider other remedies like inherent contempt” https://t.co/s5XgPCmrVq pic.twitter.com/6XAOch0WEy
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 12, 2019
Democratic aims at oversight have been wide-ranging so far, from the Trump administration’s security clearance process to the president’s personal finances to the Trump team’s response to hurricanes that rocked Puerto Rico in 2017. In case after case, the White House has adamantly refused to produce what Democrats have requested, acting like they are flatly above the serious oversight concerns.
Featured Image via screenshot
