It should have been an easy Monday interview for Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin (D). After all it was on MSNBC and his interviewer was Katy Tur who claimed that she wanted to throw up when Donald Trump won the election in 2016.
Unfortunately for Raskin, even Tur couldn't allow Raskin's outrageous claim about not wanting to impeach Trump to go by without challenge. It happened right after Raskin talked about setting up a commission to determine if a president is fit for office. Hey, it could be any president, not necessarily Trump. Or so Raskin ridiculously claimed followed up by the flat out falsehood that he never talked about impeaching Trump. To his surprise, Tur did not let that phony claim pass without a fact check as you can see in the following video. Note the comedic highlight when Raskin looked off to the side as if desperate for help while being called out on his lie.
JAMIE RASKIN: The legislation we're talking about, H.R. 1987, doesn't mention Donald Trump's name. It's not a body set up devoted to looking at Donald Trump's fitness for office.
KATY TUR: So why introduce it now?
RASKIN: Well, I just got elected to Congress in January. It's the body that's called for in the 25 Amendment to examine the capacity of the president to successfully execute the powers and duties of office.
TUR: Here's the thing, Congressman. You want to impeach this president. You've said so.
RASKIN: "No, I haven't. When did I say that?
TUR: You've said you wanted to impeach this president.
(Tur reading)
TUR: "I want to say this about Donald Trump though I may well be voting to impeach over the next year or two." Applause. This is a January 2017 rally. And you opposed Congress's vote to certify the election result so you definitely don't want him as president.
At this point, as you can see, a shaken Raskin tried to spin his way out of his lie by saying that the media has been trying to conflate impeachment with the 25th Amendment. Um, that still doesn't answer why he lied about not wanting to impeach Trump. You can see how enthusiastically Raskin declared he might vote for Trump's impeachment in the following video from January 2017 before Trump was even sworn into office.
Later in the same video, Raskin tells The Young Turks reporter that he would base impeachment of Trump upon violation of the emoluments clause.
Exit question: Should a commission be set up to determine if Jamie Raskin is fit for office?
