CNN's Poppy Harlow Slips Snide Merrick Garland Shot Into Impeachment Trial Talk

December 31st, 2019 10:16 AM

It's been almost four years, but the liberal media just can't get over Mitch McConnell preventing the confirmation of Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. 

On CNN's New Day on New Year's Eve, substitute host Poppy Harlow managed to work in a snide Merrick Garland shot at McConnell in a discussion of the pending Senate impeachment trial. CNN analyst and Washington Post reporter Rachael "Merry Impeachmas" Bade was on hand. The topic turned to McConnell's reluctance to call Joe and Hunter Biden as witnesses, on the theory that it would increase pressure on Republicans to call witnesses like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Mick Mulvaney.

Out of the blue, and with no logical link to the subject matter, Harlow blurted out:

"We know Mitch McConnell can hold out on things, like hearings for Supreme Court justices." 

 

Co-substitute host Jim Sciutto (the former Obama bureaucrat) rode to Poppy's support, murmuring, "there's some history there."

Poppy is obviously still smarting from the Garland episode. Imagine her fury, and that of her MSM cohorts, should President Trump have the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice sometime before the 2020 election, with McConnell shepherding the nomination through the Senate!

Here's the transcript.

CNN
New Day
12/31/19
6:49 am ET

RACHAEL BADE: Yeah, three words: mutual assured destruction. That is what Senator Mitch McConnell told his Republican colleagues. This is why he doesn’t want to call any witness. You hear the president talking about sort of having this other trial when it comes to Joe Biden and bringing in Hunter Biden and sort of using the trial to pivot to going after his opponents. 

The Senate majority leader has said he doesn’t want to do that, because if they do that, this opens Republicans up to increased pressure like we’re seeing right now to call in these first-hand witnesses about Ukraine: Mulvaney, Bolton, Pompeo. And I think Republicans know—Republicans do know privately when you talk to them, you know, not, anonymously—that that would be bad for the president and that that would put more pressure on them in terms of an impeachment trial and drag this thing out. And so that is not something they want to do. So I know that they’re going to continue to feel pressure including today and in the coming weeks, you know, after this New York Times story but I mean, again, I think they worry this is just going to hurt the president in the long run.

POPPY HARLOW: Yeah, well, we know Mitch McConnell can hold out on things, like hearings for Supreme Court justices. 

JIM SCIUTTO: Yeah.

HARLOW: Does it mean he may be willing to hold his breath on this one, too?

SCIUTTO: There's some history there.