Throughout the entire impeachment drama our self-appointed arbiters of truth in the media have dutifully repeated the Democrats' talking points that this about much more than a mere policy difference. But as the theory that President's Trump's actions could best and solely be explained as a desire for him to get the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden succumbed to a lack of provable facts that idea became less and less believable. On Friday's special coverage of the Judiciary Committee vote on the articles of impeachment, Nicolle Wallace and Andrea Mitchell let the cat out of the bag that this really is about a policy difference.
Wallace articulated that Trump's initial decision led to dead Ukrainian soldiers, an assertion that is almost impossible to prove, because Ukraine is at war and combat deaths are an unfortunate fact of armed conflict regardless of what Trump did. She then emphatically declared, "This is about American national security. This is about America trying or supposed to stand with the good guys, in this case that's Ukraine."
If merely holding up aid is an impeachable offense, than surely Nicolle Wallace would know say President Obama should have been impeached, because he did not deliver aid at all.
Wallace then asked Mitchell her thoughts on the current state of the state of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine. "It just feels awful," she began before continuing the media's strange new respect for Ronald Reagan and taking a shot at Lindsey Graham, "You know, I covered eight years of Ronald Reagan, The Cold War, the first summits with Gorbachev, the end of the Cold War. These were huge stakes and bipartisan policies that traversed Democrats and Republican presidencies. And to see now people like Lindsey Graham and others just completely folding and caving in on the issue of Russia when there was bipartisan support for Ukraine and bipartisan opposition to what Vladimir Putin is doing."
Here is a transcript for the December 12 segment:
MSNBC
MSNBC Special Coverage
10:42 AM ET
NICOLLE WALLACE: You put down, I think some really important world events and I think the point was made by witnesses like Ambassador Taylor who left Ukraine to come and testify in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation who said Ukrainians died this week at the hands of Russians. This is about American national security. This is about America trying or supposed to stand with the good guys, in this case that's Ukraine. I know that's in dispute at Fox, but U.S. stated written policy that in the battle between Russia and Ukraine we are aligned with Ukraine. And over and over and over again, there are no new stories in the Trump presidency. Over and over and over again Trump weakens Russia's adversaries who happen to be our allies. Talk about what that looks like now three years in.
ANDREA MITCHELL: It just feels awful. You know, I covered eight years of Ronald Reagan, The Cold War, the first summits with Gorbachev, the end of the Cold War. These were huge stakes and bipartisan policies that traversed Democrats and Republican presidencies. And to see now people like Lindsey Graham and others just completely folding and caving in on the issue of Russia when there was bipartisan support for Ukraine and bipartisan opposition to what Vladimir Putin is doing.
