Surprise! MSNBC thinks the Democrats are doing great during day one of the impeachment hearings. During the 6:30 PM break after hours of testimony, Tuesday, host Lawrence O’Donnell praised, “What we've seen so far is evidence versus rhetoric. The House managers showed up with evidence they have incorporated evidence into every bit of their argument to obtain further evidence. It seems like the Trump defense team showed up thinking this was just a procedural day.”
O’Donnell offered partisan cheerleading: “The House managers have used every minute to lay in the evidence, the actual evidence against the President.” This is the same O’Donnell who admitted on a podcast that “There will be no one defending” Trump on MSNBC.
After O’Donnell hammered the Republican response, MSNBC’s Ari Melber brought up GOP Congressman Joe Wilson and his “You lie” outburst against Barack Obama in 2009. What?
Many of us are old enough to remember when a member of Congress yelled out to the president, quote, “you lie” about a statement that was true. Today you have someone presenting on behalf of the President, and they are the one actually lying.
UPDATED: 2020-01-21 9:01 PM
The dated references continued in the 8pm hour. This time, it was Mitch McConnell and the 2016 Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland by Barack Obama: “Mitch McConnell is trying to Merrick Garland these rules. And when you Merrick Garland the rules, he does it proudly. He says, “Of course I don’t believe in anything. Of course it’s hypocritical. I’ll take a victory lap over that.”
A partial transcript is below:
MSNBC live coverage of impeachment
1/21/20206:34 PM ET
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: What we've seen so far is evidence versus rhetoric. The House managers showed up with evidence they have incorporated evidence into every bit of their argument to obtain further evidence. It seems like the Trump defense team showed up thinking this was just a procedural day. That all they needed to do was talk about the procedural issues and what they want to do is talk about the procedural issues that are behind us already. Not as much the procedural issues in the trial. The House managers have used every minute to lay in the evidence, the actual evidence against the President, and for hours on end, they were not saying one word about evidence. It was as if they didn't even know that the evidence filed. It may be they thought it would be procedural and they have more homework to do on the evidence. I’m sure they’ll have more to say about the evidence eventually. But it was just two completely different presentations.
And then the one thing that was so extraordinary to see in a Senate impeachment trial. This is the second one I've watched now in this country. You're not supposed to live through two Senate impeachment trials of a President but here we are. To see a lawyer stand up and tell an outright lie to the United States Senate. And that was about the House of provable lie, a lie that everyone in the room knew was a lie, that Republicans were not allowed to participate in the depositions. That was a complete and outright lie. Adam Schiff was very charitable in his characterization of it. But in all my time seeing it from municipal court rooms, from murder trials to senate impeachment trials, I have never seen a lawyer willfully lie in a way that was a provable lie at that moment in the actual proceeding. That was just an extraordinary thing for those senators to witness today.
ARI MELBER: Yeah. You lay it out. You say living through two impeachment trials. Many of us are old enough to remember when a member of Congress yelled out to the president, quote, “you lie” about a statement that was true. Today you have someone presenting on behalf of the President, and they are the one actually lying.
...
8:02
MELBER: Mitch McConnell is trying to Merrick Garland these rules. And when you Merrick Garland the rules, he does it proudly. He says, “Of course I don’t believe in anything. Of course it’s hypocritical. I’ll take a victory lap over that.”
