Before Friday’s session of the Senate impeachment trial, MSNBC’s hatred was on full display for those who wouldn’t be voting and thinking the way they’ve demanded, lobbing one firebomb after another while simultaneously decrying the lack of bipartisanship and civility.
Advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer/MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace led off, gushing that “the significance can’t be understated” concerning the latest (and clearly coordinated) leak by The New York Times of details in John Bolton’s book and that Bolton was like Tom Cruise in The Firm.
For good measure, she also made A Few Good Men reference, doubled down on her insistence that not doing as she wishes on witnesses in this “rigged” trial would be “political suicide,” and screeched that Trump is “a surrogate for Russian disinformation.”
If that’s what Trump is, then that’s MSNBC been the last four years pushing Trump-Russia collusion? And beyond that, isn’t Wallace’s unhinged punditry making Russia proud too?
MSNBC analyst and former Senator Claire McCaskill continued to show why she’s no longer in office, bashing the voters (click “expand”):
MCCASKILL: But [Lamar Alexander] basically called out the President for inappropriate, that was his word, behavior. But that the voters should decide. That is the rock they're going to hide under and that's what they're going to hide under when, in a few hours, they vote for no more witnesses and documents, that's the rock they're going to hide under on the campaign trail. It — by the way, that rock sucks.
WILLIAMS: All righty.
WALLACE: I'm just — I’m still reading. Let me just read one more paragraph here because I can’t —
WILLIAMS: Sure, pleasure.
WALLACE: — I've been a staffer a lot longer than I've had a job in television and if you’re a staffer your jaw is on the floor, You're getting the 911 code trying to get the chief of staff in here and saying you got to hear this.
She also claimed that, based on The Times reporting, Cipollone should be disbarred, so there was that.
The Root’s Jason Johnson was also aboard, stating Bolton’s new leak “is essentially the end of Clue” where we find out who as the murderer, where it happened, and with what weapon. Therefore, voting against witnesses will be seen as unsatisfactory to voters.
Former Republican-turned-desperate liberal hack David Jolly then suggested Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) lacks “personal integrity to know what’s right from wrong,” warning later that “[l]egacies are going to be forged and tarnished this week over decisions of Republican senators.”
After another swipe at the people who elected him (and thus allowed him to become a liberal hack), Jolly swooned that the 2018 midterms were a historic uprising against Trumpism and will be “sustain[ed]” with the lack of witnesses (and presumably acquittal). He then huffed that the GOP will have a “very bad” Election Day.
Okay then, Charlie Crist-wannabe.
At another point, Wallace uncorked a list of former Trump national security officials and wondered why they haven’t stepped forward a la Bolton and then Johnson responded that he’s “most frightened” by the fact that members of Congress don’t want to toss Trump and thus “don’t care” about protecting the country.
Lest we forget co-host Lyin’ Brian Williams, who gushed that “it is journalism that is royaling the U.S. Capitol. Something about being able to handle the truth.” And after a break, he boasted about a Just Security tweet showing obituaries of members of Congress during Watergate as a warning to Republicans that “you're remembered...for all time” based on how you vote.
Cue the eye rolls as newsflash to Brian, but it’s certain he’ll be remembered in his obituary as a congenital liar.
Speaking of that, Wallace had a bizarre fixation with Cory Booker and “hope” (click “expand”):
Despite the words of Cory Booker yesterday who described himself — what was it, Claire? As a hostage of hope. He sort of lifted me up for awhile....Oh, he was unbelievable. He was unbelievable. Some day I will have to explain how you pick your nominees, he seemed like a pretty good choice. But he — he — so — so — a revelation in a normal time with a normal Republican president would be a death knell. So, that's why I put this chapter and the Senate Republicans conduct in the same conduct as their conduct around Access Hollywood and around Charlottesville because this is as grave as a moral trespass.
(....)
If and then they say we don't want to hear any witnesses to that crime, that scandal, every Republican will be co-signing complicity in letting that happen without consequences, if and when they acquit him, same thing and it is exactly what people — and you see this in the GOP consultant class. The folks running The Lincoln Project, people like Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt, John Weaver I think tweeted burn it all down, the GOP. That comes from — and I understand that. That comes from despair and remorse about putting so many people in the offices they hold.
(....)
And it’s, you know, we talk about being hope junkies. I’m not as elegant as Cory Booker and you and I joke about watching too much Sorkin, you do hope for courage in that building. I mean, without Claire, there is less to start with. Without John McCain there, there’s a whole helluva lot less of it on the right, but I was talking before about despair and on the other side of despair is hope.
Then minutes before the trial, Johnson blasted McConnell as one of the “cowards” during this trial whom he wished will be “forgotten” and relegated to the “dustbin of history” when he dies since he “absolutely betrayed his commitment to this country.”
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from January 31, click “expand.”
MSNBC Senate Impeachment Trial
January 31, 2020
12:06 p.m. Eastern
NICOLLE WALLACE: The significance of this can't be understated. The pressure campaign for which Donald Trump was impeached began in may. It began in May and Bolton seems to implicate all of the players and I would like in that first Bolton leak, if you will, reported by The Times, to that scene where Tom Cruise runs into the firm and realizes that the whole firm was corrupt, this is the feeling captured by these leaks from the Bolton manuscript that what Bolton writes is that in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, Mike Mulvaney, Rudy Giuliani, and Pat Cipollone who was the acting defense counsel for Donald Trump who if he's brought along Republicans, if he’s shamed Republicans, he's the one who was part of the illegal scheme.
(....)
12:07 p.m. Eastern
BRIAN WILLIAMS: This is up against it on timing.
WALLACE: Well, and the — let me just read the next line. Mr. Bolton never made the call. So Donald Trump called in the code red, Donald Trump told his national security adviser, not his national security adviser, the country's national security adviser, to call Zelensky and tell him to do a deal with Giuliani.
(....)
12:07 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: So, the idea that the pressure campaign began in May has never been corroborated, has never been put out there by a firsthand witness and I’m telling you this makes that vote against witnesses political suicide. I hope they take it.
(....)
12:10 p.m. Eastern
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: But [Lamar Alexander] basically called out the President for inappropriate, that was his word, behavior. But that the voters should decide. That is the rock they're going to hide under and that's what they're going to hide under when, in a few hours, they vote for no more witnesses and documents, that's the rock they're going to hide under on the campaign trail. It — by the way, that rock sucks.
WILLIAMS: All righty.
WALLACE: I'm just — I’m still reading. Let me just read one more paragraph here because I can’t —
WILLIAMS: Sure, pleasure.
WALLACE: — I've been a staffer a lot longer than I've had a job in television and if you’re a staffer your jaw is on the floor, You're getting the 911 code trying to get the chief of staff in here and saying you got to hear this.
(....)
12:11 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: It's unbelievable. We have in the Oval Office a surrogate for the Russian disinformation.
(....)
12:31 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: Mitch McConnell is on the phone with anyone, it's with the political sort of campaign operatives that help the Senate Republican Committee and they're saying, how bad does this hit? Can Susan Collins withstand a hit that says how rigged was the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, it was so rigged that the man defending him was in the room when Trump extorted Ukraine. That's the call Mitch McConnell is making right now.
MCCASKILL: We've been talking offset, and David pointed this out, and we’ve all pointed this out and it would be great to get a mash-up of some of Cipollone's statements during the trial, but if he's in a meeting in May and hears this plan and then he stands up in a lawyer in a tribunal and says the opposite argument as a fact witness, that is — you lose your law license over stuff like that.
WALLACE: And here's what he did between May and then. He wrote a letter. He's the architect and the signatory to Article II, the second article — of the stonewalling campaign. That's his name. Was he protecting the President or was he protecting himself?
DAVID JOLLY: Cipollone is in a hornet's nest of legal ethics issues right now as an attorney
(....)
12:33 p.m. Eastern
JASON JOHNSON: This disgusts me. This — it absolutely disgusts me because it highlights what we've talked about before, he knew all of this. He knew Cipollone was there. He's basically the EMT that catches you after car accidents, like, I'll help you, but listen to my sound cloud. He pretty said I'm not going to tell the truth until you can buy my book. All of this was available.
WALLACE: We don't know that he didn't talk to the whistle-blower. We don't — we don’t know that he called the Justice Department.
JOHNSON: But he wouldn't testify. He wouldn’t testify with the House. He said I'll sue you. He said I won't do it. When his deputies were coming forward, he wouldn't do it because he knew he had a book coming out. So, that's the first thing that disgusts me. From an informational standpoint, yes, it's great. This is essentially the end of Clue. The butler did it in the Oval Office, you know, with a — with a hatchet, everything like that.
WILLIAMS: In May.
MCCASKILL: In May.
WILLIAMS: And Cipollone was there.
JOHNSON: When Cipollone was there.
WALLACE: Oh, and a bonus: what they were wearing.
JOHNSON: Right, and what they were wearing. [INAUDIBLE] with some crocs, right?
WILLIAMS: Cipollone and the candlestick.
JOHNSON: So now we know the whole story which is great and wonderful. I will say this, though, the acknowledgment that Trump did something wrong but it wasn't bad enough, not only does that pretty much end Trump's argument that he can say, well, hey, I was exonerated cause you’re not exonerated when everyone says you’re a terrible person. But I will also say this to the average voter, that's not going to satisfy me when it comes from Susan Collins. That’s not gonna satisfy me from Cory Gardner.
JOLLY: Fair.
JOHNSON: If you're saying a guy did something wrong, why aren't you doing anything about it?
WALLACE: That's why Mitch McConnell is on the phone with the campaign operatives that do senatorial campaigns, saying how bad is the hit? I'm calling Gardener, whoever else is vulnerable now if it comes out that the guy defending Trump in front of all of us was part of the scheme, was part of the conspiracy
JOLLY: The voters are going to assess the senator's judgment in two areas and I think they can clearly do this: Does a United States senator have the personal integrity to know what's right and wrong, right? They are going to be able to distill the Blackburn from —
WILLIAMS: Can I get back to you on that?
JOLLY: — yeah — well, the Marsha Blackburn from Lamar Alexander, right? the one who puts their head in the sand or the one who’s willing to say it was wrong. And then they will also be able to distill and judge what do you when you catch somebody in that situation. Is there a punishment or not? Lamar Alexander says no.
(....)
12:45 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: This goes to your point of disgust and, look, I don’t — I don't — I think you sort of — you cover Trump with the sources you've got and if we got Bolton and we've got a book, I want to know what he knows. That's why — I take your point about why would you buy the book if you could have testified. But we took that anonymous op-ed because it was all we had. I don’t think there's honor in blowing a whistle for the newspaper. I think there’s honor in what the actual, anonymous whistle-blower did by following the whistle-blower law and going to superiors and having the protections afforded to him or her by law, but, you know, this idea that all of these national security officials saw Donald Trump as a threat to national security is disgusting, is alarming and where is Jim Mattis? I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't working on a second book for post-presidency. Where is H.R. McMaster? Where’s his deputy, Dina Powell? They stood in the Oval when Lavarov was there, when Donald Trump gave out classified information. I mean, Rex Tillerson has started to speak out. John Kelly through the weight of his credibility and reputation behind the Bolton book, but where is everybody else?
JOHNSON: They are so many people that — they’re writing their books. They’re getting ready and I think, you know, there was probably an idea — and I think this is also the voters, in addition to the state department who were thinking, you know, when Trump was running his mouth about I know more about generals, people probably didn't think it would be this bad. And the empathy that I do have, as disgusted as I am, is people who have dedicated their lives, even if I ideologically differ from them, dedicated their lives to protecting this country who say, my god, this guy really doesn't care, he's really putting us in danger, and — and the problem that I see is that even when you have the experts, the men and women whose lives have been dedicated to this country coming forward and saying this is a problem, you have the elected representatives of the people they're supposed to be protecting saying we don't care. That's the most frightening part that the people who are representing those of us who are protected by the John Boltons of the world are saying, we don't care, our political background — our political future is more important than what John Bolton has to say and that's the danger of this impeachment proceeding, that’s the danger of not having witnesses, and that’s the danger of eventually acquitting this President.
(....)
12:53 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: Despite the words of Cory Booker yesterday who described himself — what was it, Claire? As a hostage of hope. He sort of lifted me up for awhile.
MCCASKILL: We must remain a hostage of hope.
WALLACE: Yeah, so I am.
MCCASKILL: And he called Trump a moral vandal. I thought that was great
WALLACE: Oh, he was unbelievable.
MCCASKILL: He’s something.
WALLACE: He was unbelievable. Some day I will have to explain how you pick your nominees, he seemed like a pretty good choice. But he — he — so — so — a revelation in a normal time with a normal Republican president would be a death knell. So, that's why I put this chapter and the senate Republicans conduct in the same conduct as their conduct around Access Hollywood and around Charlottesville because this is as grave as a moral trespass. This was a conspiracy hatched in the Oval Office in May with the White house Counsel, the national security adviser present, and White House chief of staff present and the scheme went like this: pressure the leader of an ally, Ukraine, to give us dirt on the highest polling Democrat, Joe Biden, and we won't give him his weapons to protect himself and his country and his civilians and his military from Russia until we get that. That’s what happened. Even Lamar Alexander co-signed the factor pattern yesterday. No one disputes the fact pattern. If and when they say we don't want to hear any witnesses to that crime, that scandal, every Republican will be co-signing complicity in letting that happen without consequences, if and when they acquit him, same thing and it is exactly what people — and you see this in the GOP consultant class. The folks running The Lincoln Project, people like Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt, John Weaver I think tweeted burn it all down, the GOP. That comes from — and I understand that. That comes from despair and remorse about putting so many people in the offices they hold.
WILLIAMS: And what this vote will mean for all time.
WALLACE: Yeah, but again, I mean, we said this at the beginning of the hour, we should have seen this coming. Donald Trump as a corrupt individual is the through line. I mean that is the through line.
JOLLY: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: That is not an anomaly. A source close to Trump said look at the language he uses around the call. If he just admitted it wasn't perfect and made a mistake, this will tamp down. He maintains it's perfect because he’s likely done it more than once.
JOLLY: Legacies are going to be forged and tarnished this week over decisions of Republican senators and to those who suggest Donald Trump somehow hijacked the Republican Party, he didn't, he walked through the front door to their open arms. I would say though, and I think we are in an interesting electoral environment, it was just 16 months ago that American people, particularly in the suburbs, stepped up and replaced 41 house members because the politics of Washington were going too far towards Trumpism. A historic election. Normally in those midterms it is a blip and it is hard to sustain the energy of opposition. This vote, this week, this behavior by Republican senators, I think will sustain the opposition to Trumpism into November 3rd, and I think it’ll be a very bad Tuesday for Republicans in November.
WILLIAMS: Final break before we're gaveled for the day and points unknown after that as, again, it is journalism that is royaling the U.S. Capitol. Something about being able to handle the truth, when we come back
(....)
1:00 p.m. Eastern
WILLIAMS: And Democrats have alternatively said of the Republican involved in this the whole world is watching. Different versions of your grandchildren are watching and paying attention. The folks at Just Security posted obituary headlines just yesterday as a message to people that these votes get to be how you're remembered when you leave this good Earth. Look at all of these people and you can tell the type faces in some of these headlines are from The Washington Post, New York Times, you're remembered as a supporter or a vote against for all time and it is an important reminder and it refers to some directly in the chamber.
WALLACE: I saw that tweet. It caught my attention too when they put it up. And it’s, you know, we talk about being hope junkies. I’m not as elegant as Cory Booker and you and I joke about watching too much Sorkin, you do hope for courage in that building. I mean, without Claire, there is less to start with. Without John McCain there, there’s a whole helluva lot less of it on the right, but I was talking before about despair and on the other side of despair is hope. Mitt Romney gets more credit than he gets because his career has been uneven, up and down, but he has been calling for witnesses since the beginning. He only does it because he doesn’t need the Trump vote in his state because in his state, they hate Trump — or they dislike him strongly. Hate’s too strong of a word. He’s not — he’s not the political power house that he is in other states, but I guess what is depressing and to the Republicans we talked about before feeling despair is that there’s nothing but politics any more and Claire, I wonder if you saw that coming or how that makes you feel that way.
WILLIAMS: Let's these Democrats full, by the way, as they exit their caucus while we talk. Claire, forgive me.
WALLACE: Read some lips.
MCCASKILL: Listen, I think this was coming, you know, it kind of began to break up apart when Republican leaders were going out to take out Daschle. That’s kind of when it began unraveling and then it got worse and worse and worse as people can have an opportunity to get affirmation have sources rather than information and everyone began retreating into their own bubbles, but Trump has taken this to a level that I didn't think was possible in this country. I really didn't think it was possible to get some of my former colleagues to twist themselves into some kind of a pretzel that will actually give this guy a pass.
(....)
1:09 p.m. Eastern
JOHNSON: I mean, the number of people who have been cowards, the number of people who’ve backed up, but it goes to what you were showing before. The tweet about legacy, right? And thinking about this is going to look. How this look in six months, how this looks in two years, how this looks when the Trump administration ends and everybody wants to right their books. What I would like from these individuals, cause Mitch McConnell years and years and years from now when he passes, yes, he’ll be known as the person who enabled Trump. He’ll also be the person who — who redid the American judiciary. I hope he’s forgotten. I hope he’s lost in history. I hope his obituary is like Selina Meyer in Veep where it just gets bumped out by something else because we decide to talk Tom Hanks because to have absolutely betrayed his commitment to this country the way he has, I hope he is lost in the dust bin of history rather than be remembered for what he’s done in this country lately.
WILLIAMS: Our friend Tim Alberta of Politico has written something this morning that I wanted to get to something before we got under way that may explain Trumpism to people who don't quite get the pull — the gravitational pull of it. And he says this: “I’ve spent a LOT of time with retired (and retiring) congressional [Republicans] since 2016. Most feel zero sense of liberation to bash Trump on the way out. If anything, they’re even more cowed & cautious, fearing that being out of favor w: POTUS (and his party) limits their earning power. And it’s not just about money. I’ve had numerous retiring Rs talk warily — sometimes fearfully — about the ‘cult’ of Trump supporters back home. They worry about harassment of their families, loss of standing in local communities, estranged relationships, etc.”
(....)
1:11 p.m. Eastern
WALLACE: But — but I mean — it explains again — Jim Comey in his first interview with George Stephanopoulos describes going in to meet with the Trump campaign after the Russian attack on democracy, said it was like meeting with The Family. They run their operations, whether it’s the TV show or what not, the White House, like a mob family.
MCCASKILL: It’s unbelievable.
JOHNSON: And Obama wasn’t vindictive, right? I mean, like, you literally can fear Trump’s vengeance. He will send people after you. You know, he has from Giuliani to Cohen, it’s been abundantly clear. I mean, Rahm Emanuel might have been a rough guy, but he wasn’t as rough as some of these other people.
