Republican leaders seem to be in a hurry to fall over each other to see who can contort the most in deference to their Dear Leader Donald Trump. This weekend on ABC’s This Week, number two House Republican Steve Scalise (La.) spent minutes refusing to answer a simple question of whether he thinks it’s appropriate for Trump to have asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his domestic political opponents. He brazenly lied about the nature of what happened with the furor of someone desperately hiding wrongdoing.
Host George Stephanopoulos bluntly asked Scalise what’s become a bane for Republicans — whether or not he thought it was appropriate for Trump to have asked for that dirt. Scalise’s multiple, even contradictory non-answers offered within the span of just a few minutes illustrate just how empty-handed Republicans have been.
Despite the call record that the White House released and we all can read, Scalise insisted, mentioning a debunked conspiracy theory that missing Democratic email hardware were in Ukraine:
‘First of all, that’s not what was happening on the phone call. Even when the president said, will you do me a favor, he then went on to ask about Crowdstrike. That wasn’t about Joe Biden.’
Stephanopoulos retorted:
‘No, but it’s about his domestic political opponents. The transcript clearly shows the president was asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his political opponents — both the Democrats in 2016, Joe Biden going forward. Do you think that was appropriate?’
Scalise shot back:
‘That wasn’t, first of all, about political opponents. The law, George, requires President Trump, or any president, when they’re sending foreign aid, taxpayer money, to any other country, to first ensure that country is rooting out corruption.’
Rep. Scalise: “That’s not what was happening on the phone call.”
“The transcript clearly shows the president was asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his political opponents,” @GStephanopoulos says, repeatedly pressing Scalise if it’s appropriate https://t.co/GInwp1CUM8 pic.twitter.com/OdQPCNdUuf
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 3, 2019
To be clear — the aid had already been approved. As Stephanopoulos also noted, the only instances of supposed corruption that Trump asked about involved his personal U.S. political opponents — not even anyone in Ukraine. Also — in the span of less than a few minutes, Scalise veered from insisting that Trump didn’t ask for an investigation to claiming he did but it was okay because “the law!”
And we’re supposed to believe them that Democrats are the ones without a fair foundation? At another point in the interview, Scalise whined about his Democratic colleagues:
‘They don’t want fair rules. They just want to hurt President Trump’s chances to win re-election. It’s all about reversing the results of the 2016 election. There are no high crimes or misdemeanors.’
Rep. Scalise says the president’s legal counsel was able to ask questions during the Clinton and Nixon impeachments.@GStephanopoulos: “The president is going to have that right once he gets to the Judiciary Committee.”
Scalise: “There’s no guarantee” https://t.co/GInwp1CUM8 pic.twitter.com/Fy8wf1zrT8
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 3, 2019
Scalise is not the first Republican leader to flatly refuse to answer the question of whether they think it’s appropriate for the president to ask for foreign help with a political campaign.
Towards the start of the impeachment inquiry, figures like Sens. Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) led the way, and more recently, Alaska Congressman Don Young simply headbutted the camera of a progressive team asking him the same question. Literally — he headbutted it, and muttered simply:
‘There you go.’
That’s the best they’ve got. Soon, public hearings as part of the impeachment probe will begin, and it’ll be even harder for Republicans to jump up and down and hope it all just goes away.
