According to NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes is his most frequent guest and the two joined forces again on Tuesday to laugh at Republican misfortunes on the first vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that failed, while labeling the second one “terrible” and “one of the most… shocking abuses of procedure I’ve seen.”
Meyers lamented, “And it seems like the only thing the House actually wants to do about the border is impeach Secretary Mayorkas, which they failed to do, but they're going to try again because they didn't miss by many votes the first time.”
Cracking himself up, Hayes recalled, “By the way, you've done this on the show, I think, but the way they missed the first time is amazing. Al Green, Democratic congressman from Texas, had surgery, literally rolled up to the Capitol in a wheelchair and hospital scrubs. To cast the deciding vote to defend Mayorkas.”
By the time the show aired in the early hours of the morning, Mayorkas had been impeached, but when the show was taped, that was still in the future, as Hayes continued, “Now they're going to do it again, and the reason they're doing it again is because they might lose the one vote of their majority if the special election today goes the wrong way, and they are impeaching a cabinet secretary for the first time in 150 years.”
Moving on, Meyers mourned, “So this is a terrible precedent, which is shockingly what may be only, I guess, three Republicans, the first time—their case for why not to do it is "This is a terrible precedent. We cannot even name a crime we're accusing him of committing.”
Naturally, Hayes agreed, “It's manifestly one of the most, sort of, shocking abuses of procedure I've seen. There is not even the pretext of a scandal or a high crime, misdemeanor. There is a policy difference at the level of policy, anger at the way that things have been implemented, which is fine. That's politics. That happens everywhere. You can drag him for oversight hearings, you can try to defund the department you can do whatever you want to do.”
Perhaps Democrats should’ve considered that when they started plotting to impeach Donald Trump before he even took office.
Here is a transcript for the February 13 show:
NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers
2/14/2024
1:07 AM ET
SETH MEYERS: And it seems like the only thing the House actually wants to do about the border is impeach Secretary Mayorkas, which they failed to do, but they're going to try again because they didn't miss by many votes the first time.
CHRIS HAYES: By the way, you've done this on the show, I think, but the way they missed the first time is amazing.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: Al Green, Democratic congressman from Texas, had surgery, literally rolled up to the Capitol in a wheelchair and hospital scrubs.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: To cast the deciding vote to defend Mayorkas. Now they're going to do it again, and the reason they're doing it again is because they might lose the one vote of their majority if the special election today goes the wrong way, and they are impeaching a cabinet secretary for the first time in 150 years.
MEYERS: So this is a terrible precedent, which is shockingly what may be only, I guess, three Republicans, the first time - their case for why not to do it is "This is a terrible precedent. We cannot even name a crime we're accusing him of committing.”
HAYES: It's manifestly one of the most, sort of, shocking abuses of procedure I've seen. There is not even the pretext of a scandal or a high crime, misdemeanor. There is a policy difference at the level of policy, anger at the way that things have been implemented, which is fine. That's politics. That happens everywhere. You can drag him for oversight hearings, you can try to defund the department you can do whatever you want to do.
There is no high crime or misdemeanor here, and they know that, 160 years ago when the cabinet member, Belknap, was impeached, there was like -- it was like this enormous kickback scheme where he was, like, getting payments from people he was putting into positions, like, that's the kind of bar for this, and now we've got it, we don't like your politics, we just killed a border bill, and we need to keep the issue alive. Hence, we're going to impeach you.
