With this past week featuring action-packed news cycles, there’s plenty of fodder for cable news and looniness emanating from liberal media talk shows.
Thursday’s Hardball didn’t disappoint as MSNBC host Chris Matthews touted the latest snarky Time cover, compared President Trump to a man alone on an island late at night, and a panelist claimed that the Founding Fathers would support Trump’s impeachment.
“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Didn’t the people around Donald Trump pay attention to that old crime show warning? Didn’t they know that if you committed federal crimes, you could be squeezed by federal prosecutors to rat? Didn’t Donald Trump know that if he did business with such people that he, Donald Trump, would end up being the fall guy,” Matthews screeched at the top of the show.
He then quoted poet John Donne’s line that “no man is an island” with the qualifier that it’s actually “[n]o man except, increasingly now, President Donald Trump” as “[t]he acceleration of his own legal exposure is leaving him isolated.”
The MSNBC pundit then touted the latest Time cover that has liberals gushing over the failing magazine (click “expand” to read more):
It would now appear the waters around Trump’s island are rising fast. That sentiment is evident in a new cover of Time magazine, just out, showing the Oval Office submerged — look at it there — reading simply, “In Deep.” As Trump struggles to stay afloat, The New York Times reports today that, “People who have known Mr. Trump for years pointed out the he has never been as cornered — or as isolated — as he is right now, and that he is at the most volatile when he feels backed against the wall.” Well, that volatility was clear in a message that Trump tweeted just after 1 o’clock this morning, writing, in capital letters, “NO COLLUSION - RIGGED WITCH HUNT!”
Speaking later to Peter Baker from The New York Times, Matthews again brought up Trump staying up past midnight and tweeting as “odd for any grown-up,” let alone someone like Trump who, like Matthews, is “in his 70s.”
Baker agreed, comparing Trump to “the memories of Nixon during Watergate talking to the paintings.” But Matthews’s complaints are a little amusing considering how MSNBC frequently turns to Matthews to lead late-night coverage of big news events where he’s reliably provided NewsBusters with plenty of zany comments (see some examples here, here, here, here, and here).
Six minutes later, Matthews went to SiriusXM’s Zerlina Maxwell by continuing the liberal media’s push to make their dreams come true, which is the impeachment and removal of Trump from office, complaining that Republicans refuse to stand up to and take action against the President.
Maxwell replied that, “a few months back,” she would have said that “Democrats should hold off on talking about impeachment because we need to see all of the facts” and still should do it to some extent.
But Maxwell then contradicted that last part by stating that “Tuesday changed things fundamentally in this country” as “[t]he President was implicated directly in a criminal conspiracy, in court, under oath, and that is something that has never happened before in this country” that calls into question whether he’s a legitimate President.
She concluded by asserting that our Framers would be supportive of talk about a Trump impeachment:
[S]o, I think that Democrats can start talking about impeachment. Not saying that we should just remove the President without going through the full two-step process, right? But I think that, if now is when we can’t talk about impeachment, when can we talk about impeachment? The President was implicated in a crime, and I can’t imagine a scenario that is — could be any more ripe for a serious discussion by responsible adults. That’s exactly what the Framers would have wanted.
Give me a break.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on August 23, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
August 23, 2018
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Didn’t the people around Donald Trump pay attention to that old crime show warning? Didn’t they know that if you committed federal crimes, you could be squeezed by federal prosecutors to rat? Didn’t Donald Trump know that if he did business with such people that he, Donald Trump, would end up being the fall guy? Which gets us to the President’s predicament this Thursday evening. The poet John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island.” No man except, increasingly now, President Donald Trump. The acceleration of his own legal exposure is leaving him isolated. His former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, is now convicted of financial crimes. His former fixer/lawyer, Michael Cohen, has pled guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance violations, which he says were directed by the President itself. It would now appear the waters around Trump’s island are rising fast. That sentiment is evident in a new cover of Time magazine, just out, showing the Oval Office submerged — look at it there — reading simply, “In Deep.” As Trump struggles to stay afloat, The New York Times reports today that, “People who have known Mr. Trump for years pointed out the he has never been as cornered — or as isolated — as he is right now, and that he is at the most volatile when he feels backed against the wall.” Well, that volatility was clear in a message that Trump tweeted just after 1 o’clock this morning, writing, in capital letters, “NO COLLUSION - RIGGED WITCH HUNT!” It was also evident in his first television interview since two of his close associates became convicted felons. He attacked the plea deal Cohen reached with federal prosecutors.
(....)
7:03 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: What is your reporting about — he’s up at 1 o’clock in the morning tweeting in capital letters all this stuff. It seems to me odd for any grown-up. I mean, he’s in his 70s, he’s up at 1 o’clock in the morning, out there tweeting in capital letters. To whom? Who’s he talking to, and why at that time of the morning?
PETER BAKER: Yeah, no, it absolutely — it sort of invokes the memories of Nixon during Watergate talking to the paintings. Right? You know, a President sort of caught alone in his house late at night, stewing over the troubles that are besetting, you know, that have beset him, wondering what way out? You know and it’s very evocative, and it does suggest somebody who is stewing and very consumed with the troubles that are, you know, inflicting the people around him and then really kind of the walls closing in on him. It’s — it’s — someday there will be tell-all book that will give us a little bit of a better picture of last night. Last night could be the opening scene of the book. It sounds very, very — you know, dramatic.
(....)
7:07 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: Well, there seems to be, Senator Blumenthal, that that’s an agreed-upon time for a Saturday night massacre. In other words, we’re going to get rid of this prosecution by getting rid of the Attorney General, who will then grab charge of it all and that new person, whether it’s Rudy Giuliani, whoever I foist in there, is going to do what I want. I’ll be free.
(....)
7:09 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: But we’ve got two political parties, and one is not talking. The Republican Party. They’re saying nothing. In fact, Lindsey Graham is basically enabling this President to fire — to fire this AG and get control of the operation. The President said, “I could take control of the prosecution of me.” He said that just this week. What are the Democrats going to do? Should they be talking impeachment now, finally, after all this action of this week?
ZERLINA MAXWELL: If you had asked me that a few months back, Chris, I would have said no. The Democrats should hold off on talking about impeachment because we need to see all of the facts and I still think that we need to see all of the facts, but I think Tuesday changed things fundamentally in this country. The President was implicated directly in a criminal conspiracy, in court, under oath, and that is something that has never happened before in this country in terms of a crime that goes to the eligibility — excuse me, the legitimacy of his election, right? It’s at the core of his election. It’s something that made it more possible for him to be elected by hiding salacious details about alleged affairs and so, I think that Democrats can start talking about impeachment. Not saying that we should just remove the President without going through the full two-step process, right? But I think that, if now is when we can’t talk about impeachment, when can we talk about impeachment? The President was implicated in a crime, and I can’t imagine a scenario that is — could be any more ripe for a serious discussion by responsible adults. That’s exactly what the Framers would have wanted.
MATTHEWS: Tough question, senator. Is committing of a felony grounds for impeachment? In this case, the felony being what he’s accused of doing by his lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen?
