This week, following the House’s impeachment of President Donald Trump, the Trump team sent out the president’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump herself for an interview on CBS. Although just the day before the impeachment vote, her father launched tirades like his six page screed including the claim that he’s being treated worse than the targets of the Salem Witch Trials, Ivanka argued that the president is “energized” and continuing to work for the American people. During a segment this weekend on MSNBC, reporter John Harwood ripped that claim to shreds, pointing out how it completely does not match the reality of her desperately flailing father, the president.
Discussing the way in which Ivanka tried to spin her father’s impeachment into a positive for the administration, Harwood commented:
‘Ivanka’s comments are ridiculous on a number of levels. First of all, it’s not energizing for the president. The president’s clearly upset and agitated about what’s happened to him. Second, the idea that impeachment has somehow prevented him from doing the work of the American people is also ridiculous. The president is somebody who’s made pretty clear that he’s not concerned or animated about substantive issues, he’s concerned about things that gratify himself and that cast him in a good light and that reward him in certain ways –his ego, that sort of thing.’
It’s true — rally highlights from an event that the president held the night of the final impeachment vote do not feature any kind of grand pronouncement of new policy to substantively improve the lives of Americans. Instead, the new additions to that monologue — which stretched to around two hours — include Trump’s gross suggestion that Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell’s late husband John could be in hell. That’s where Trump is focused, not on some kind of grand new vision for America.
He’s claimed that Democrats are “do nothing,” but while pursuing their investigations of his well documented belligerence, they have also passed hundreds of pieces of legislation — much of which has been simply ignored by Senate Republicans, who are in the majority in that chamber.
Harwood continued:
‘The idea that Ivanka is asserting that this is a president who’s faithfully serving the American people and is energized to do so even more because he’s now been impeached — it doesn’t pass the laugh test.’
Watch:
It’s true. Just taking Trump’s most recent tweets, outside of the majority of posts focusing on ranting and raving angrily about the Democratic “witch hunts” or whatever, he’s posted about… the Space Force, which had funding included in the recent defense spending bill that he signed. To him, Democratic advocates for developments like expanded health care coverage are trampling on freedom or whatever, but tens of millions of dollars for a Space Force is no problem, apparently!
At present, the House Democratic impeachment case against Trump is awaiting a Senate trial. Senate Republicans have asserted, in their own words, that they will not be impartial jurors during that trial, and in response, Democrats have responded by delaying selections like impeachment case managers until they can examine what the Senate comes up with.
