A go-to pundit revered in liberal media janitor Brian Stelter’s daily newsletter from Mars, MSNBC’s host Chris Hayes opened Tuesday’s All In by beating the now-mummified dead horse that the Trump-Russia probe is like Watergate except worse because congressional Republicans haven’t decided to push for the impeachment of President Trump but instead become “co-conspirators” in “destroying their own branch of government.”
For good measure, Hayes also threw in the notion of Trump and the GOP triggering “a constitutional crisis” and screeched about how “[t]hey are doing it out in the open again” perhaps suggest there was Trump-Russian collusion going on or some other sort of wrongdoing going unpunished.
Hayes began his monologue by engaging in the doomsday-sort of nonsense that’s made liberal cable news such a dumpster fire: “[T]he President and his administration are currently attempting to destroy the capacity of Congress to do what it needs to do to preserve American checks and balances.”
He then uncorked his Watergate analogy (click “expand”):
Think of it this way in the thick of Watergate, Republicans had the majority in the Senate and we’re just like, “well, whatever, we are going to power through” and they backed the President when they said, “no, you’re not getting anything. No, I am not turning over those tapes. No, no, no.” That's akin to exactly where we are headed right now. The Nixon administration fell apart because political support from Republicans evaporated. But if the political support had stayed there, this is what it would have looked like. The Trump administration is testing the fence. They are poking and they are prodding to see what they can get away with and they’re going to keep pushing on everything until something stops them.
After citing examples such as the President’s tax returns, whether Don McGahn and Robert Mueller can appear before Congress, and Congress demanding to see the unredacted Mueller report (so they can presumably leak it), Hayes rhetorically hyperventilated about it amounting to “a full-scale assault” trying to trigger “a constitutional crisis whereby Trump can essentially route his competing power.”
“Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress, rather than defending their institutional prerogative, are co-conspirators in all of this. They working to destroy their own branch of government from the inside,” he added.
Hayes juxtaposed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s speech about the Mueller probe with Facebook delisting more Russian disinformation accounts and FBI Director Chris Wray’s testimony about Russian trolls, Hayes closed with takes that would make anyone from the liberal CNN jealous:
This all while the President in front of all of us sends big, wet air kisses to Vladimir Putin. They are doing it out in the open again. The question is: Are Democrats up to the moment to basically meet constitutional fire with constitutional fire as a fundamental, principal question about the nature of the American republic. One of the few Democrats who has been calling to meet Trump head on is Senator Elizabeth Warren, who followed Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor this morning, read from the Mueller report for nearly 40 minutes, and basically said, “this is it, guys.”
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s All In on May 7, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s All In
May 7, 2019
8:01 p.m. EasternCHRIS HAYES: First, the President and his administration are currently attempting to destroy the capacity of Congress to do what it needs to do to preserve American checks and balances. Think of it this way in the thick of Watergate, Republicans had the majority in the Senate and we’re just like, “well, whatever, we are going to power through” and they backed the President when they said, “no, you’re not getting anything. No, I am not turning over those tapes. No, no, no.” That's akin to exactly where we are headed right now. The Nixon administration fell apart because political support from Republicans evaporated. But if the political support had stayed there, this is what it would have looked like. The Trump administration is testing the fence. They are poking and they are prodding to see what they can get away with and they’re going to keep pushing on everything until something stops them. Despite the clear direction of the law, plain as day, black and white and in text under a U.S. statute passed after a tremendous presidential — a corruption scandal, mine you, the Trump administration is currently refusing to hand over the President's tax returns.
They’re also making this weird, too clever by half, assertion that Don McGahn can't comply with the subpoena. They’re blowing off a formal subpoena to DOJ to turn over the full unredacted Mueller report and they’re now toying with blocking Mueller from testifying as well. All in all, it amounts to nothing short of a full-scale assault on Congress, meant to instigate a kind of constitutional crisis whereby Trump can essentially route his competing power. Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress, rather than defending their institutional prerogative, are co-conspirators in all of this. They working to destroy their own branch of government from the inside. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got up today and declared the Russia investigation, case closed. And while he was saying that, Facebook was delisting more Russian trolls who — oh, I just coincidentally are pumping up the latest conspiracy theory about Joe Biden that’s being pushed by Rudy Giuliani. At the same time, FBI Director Chris Wray is telling Congress that the divisiveness spread through social media has been fairly unique to the Russians.
This all while the President in front of all of us sends big, wet air kisses to Vladimir Putin. They are doing it out in the open again. The question is: Are Democrats up to the moment to basically meet constitutional fire with constitutional fire as a fundamental, principal question about the nature of the American republic. One of the few Democrats who has been calling to meet Trump head on is Senator Elizabeth Warren, who followed Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor this morning, read from the Mueller report for nearly 40 minutes, and basically said, “this is it, guys.”
