This week, President Donald Trump was officially impeached by the U.S. House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and as this weekend approached, the Trump team sent out none other than the president’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump herself to attempt to do clean-up. When pressured by Face The Nation‘s Margaret Brennan about the impeachment situation, Ivanka floundered with vague and ignorant platitudes blaming Congressional Democrats for obstruction and asserting that actually, the perpetually frenzied Rudy Giuliani’s work for her father hasn’t been a drain.
She said:
‘I know Rudy Giuliani in a very different context as one of the greatest mayors in the history of this country and- and a real hero in New York. So that is- that is the experience I’ve had with Rudy for a very long period of time. He’s smart and thoughtful and- and- and a real warrior and was a great- a great mayor.’
She’s not exactly unique here for knowing Giuliani as a mayor. He led New York City. That’s not a small city.
She went on from the above to call the host’s description of Giuliani’s work as complicating the situation for the White House just her “assessment.” In reality, literally while the final full House vote on impeachment approached, Giuliani was in Ukraine keeping the exact same work going that got Trump into the impeachment proceedings in the first place. He kept seeking dirt from the country on Democrats and the Bidens. How is that not damaging? How willfully blind really are these people?
She went on to complain about Congressional Democrats with a slightly — only slightly — more carefully worded version of her father’s consistent insult that they’re “do nothing.” They have passed hundreds of pieces of legislation that Senate Republicans have simply refused to consider, but Ivanka rambled on anyway. She said:
‘What’s deeply disappointing is the amount of work that we could be doing to further the shared goals that we have and the American people want us to be finding common ground on. If you think about this past week and what has been accomplished by this administration, despite unprecedented resistance and a climate of tremendous raw politics — it’s been remarkable!’
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Ivanka also claimed, among other things, that impeachment “draws into relief the stark contrast in priorities between Republicans and Democrats.” That’s accurate, but not how she meant it. During the impeachment proceedings, Trump supporting members of Congress have made their cult-like allegiance to him loud and clear. One even compared impeachment to the crucifixion of Jesus, while another compared it to the World War II-era Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
As Ivanka’s appearance demonstrates, the president and his supporters are still struggling to come up with any kind of substantive defense to the impeachment case. Now, the president’s supporters in the Senate have resorted to simply obstructing. GOP leaders are refusing to agree to calling witnesses and evidence for the trial following the House’s impeachment approval, and some have even explicitly said that they will not be impartial jurors.
