Democrats have become the Party of Impeachment. Whether they like it or not, their obsession with ousting Trump makes them the party they are today—a party that is ignoring the business of the American people in favor of undoing the 2016 election.
During Nancy Pelosi’s CNN Town Hall Thursday evening, impeachment was obviously the most relevant topic, seeing as she had just instructed the Judiciary Committee to proceed with Articles of Impeachment, but it turns out Nancy didn’t want to give the issue its due, and just over a half-hour into the town hall she pleaded with the audience to ask non-impeachment questions.
“Can we not have any more questions about impeachment?” Pelosi asked. “I don’t mind questions, but to ask me questions through the prism of the White House is like, what?”
Amanda Carpenter, CNN contributor and Never Trumper, was shocked at how quickly Nancy Pelosi wanted to move from impeachment. “35 mins into Nancy Pelosi’s CNN town hall she asks that no more questions about impeachment be asked. Um, What? Haven’t we spent hours and hours on hearings and she doesn’t want to take more questions?” she tweeted. “Sorry this just doesn’t jibe. We are talking about [the] possible removal of a president. Spare an hour, Madame Speaker,” she added.
There is something bizarre about Nancy not wanting to talk more about impeachment—especially considering the friendly setting and audience. If Nancy believes she’s acting in the best interests of America, why not devote more time to such an important issue? She could have droned on about “abuse of power” and “protecting democracy” and “no president is above the law” and that crowd would have eaten it up without even calling her out on her hypocrisy.
I think it’s obvious that as much as Nancy Pelosi pays lip service to Democrat talking points, she knows that the party will pay a huge price for what was ultimately her decision to impeach. She may have been against it for a long time, but she’s the one who ultimately caved and started the official impeachment inquiry. There’s no turning back now, and while she has to appear to be all-in on impeachment, the rapid pace that’s been set is about getting it over with quickly in the hopes that the attempt will satisfy the base enough while leaving enough time to reverse the shift in polls in Trump’s favor in swing states.
If impeachment was a political winner for the Democrats, Pelosi would want to talk about nothing but that issue. Instead, she opted to move on to policy, which is amusing considering all the things that aren’t being done because the House is distracted by impeachment. Nope, for Pelosi, impeachment is about doing the bare minimum to appease the fringe of her party that might sit out the 2020 election if their demands aren’t met—and what they demanded from the very beginning was Trump’s impeachment. But it’s clear that Nancy wants to move past impeachment quickly.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis