Former CNN host D.L. Hughley, on Tuesday, issued marching orders to congressional Democrats as he demanded that they do their “job” and impeach Donald Trump.
On his self-titled TV One show the stand-up comic went on to say the word “justice” should be taken “out of the dictionary” if Democrats don’t move to remove Trump:
“The bottom line is this. If he [Donald Trump] doesn’t deserve to be impeached then we should take the word out of the dictionary. We should also take out ‘Justice.’...If you say that he doesn’t deserve to be impeached, if you are having a difference of opinion, then you are in the wrong office. You are a coward. If you are a too cowardly to do your job, move out of the way and let someone else do it.”
Prior to that demand Hughley claimed that “Donald Trump no more deserves the presidency than I deserve to be the GM of the Lakers” and added “If Donald Trump were a governor or a congressman or any other thing other than the president....he would be in jail right now.”
The following is a transcript of Hughley’s rant to close the April 23 edition of TV One’s The D.L. Hughely show:
D.L. HUGHLEY: If you read any number of political papers and political experts they are saying that the Democrats are divided about the impeachment of Donald Trump. Let me be clear. That’s not a question. If you find that Donald Trump has obstructed justice and has demeaned the office of the presidency, it’s not up to you. We didn’t bring you – we didn’t vote you into office so you can do what you wanted to do. We voted you into office so you could do what we wanted you to do. And what we wanted was a check on the President of the United States of America. It is not up to you to decide. If the evidence does say what it already says, that this is a president that either sought to obstruct justice or did it, then it’s not up to you. It’s not up to you to say, ‘Well we can’t win so we’re not gonna have that fight.’ We didn’t bring you to office so you could fight the fights you could win. We brought you into office to have the fights that were right to fight.
Donald Trump no more deserves the presidency than I deserve to be the GM of the Lakers. That’s not true, I probably do. I deserve to be the GM of the Lakers. Donald Trump has obstructed justice. The only reason Donald Trump wasn’t indicted was because he was the President of the United States of America. If Donald Trump were a governor or a congressman or any other thing other than the president, if he was in the vice president, he would be in jail right now. He has obstructed justice. He has consorted with Russia....You can get him on any number of the Emoluments Clause.
Now, the question is – it isn’t a political estimation. How do you let the man that got away with this, go forward? How do you say that Bill Clinton got impeached for doing something on a dress but he doesn’t get impeached for [BLEEP] all over America. This is not up to you....You are not impeaching because you can’t win in the Senate. It’s ironic. The Republicans took a chance on a B.S. charge with Bill Clinton and knew they lost. They still fought and knew they were gonna lose. Still, you can’t compare Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. Bill Clinton was a very popular president on a charge that wasn’t – that was an innocuous charge. This guy right now is at 37 percent. And he’s also violated so many rules it’s not funny.
We’re not asking you what to do. We’re telling you. I will not vote for a coward. If you are so cowardly, you will not fight for what’s right, you don’t deserve to be in the office any more than they do. We didn’t ask you to be a little better than them. We asked you to be a compass, a check.
...
The bottom line is Donald Trump should be impeached not because I want it to be or because they want it to be it’s because he broke the law. He meets the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. No one can even explain it away. It’s not up to you to decide what happens. It’s up to you to do your job and impeach a man that is violating every rule to being – every political norm. You’re not sitting in office going ‘we’re gonna try to stop you and do this and what if they do this?’ The bottom line is this. If he doesn’t deserve to be impeached then we should take the word out of the dictionary. We should also take out “Justice.”
When you tell me that he didn’t do anything because the people that he asked to do didn’t follow through. When you know that he lies to us. When you know nothing that he says is true. We know that he’s duplicitous. We know that he fired people. You know what? We don’t know if there’s collusion in Russia because so many people lied about everything and were willing to go to jail....Why is it that the people who are in jail for lying but he has done nothing wrong.
If you say that he doesn’t deserve to be impeached, if you are having a difference of opinion, then you are in the wrong office. You are a coward. If you are a too cowardly to do your job, move out of the way and let someone else do it. If he’s not impeached, whether you win or lose....that’s not the decision. Is it, did he meet the standard of impeachment or not? If he did, impeach him. If he didn’t, don’t. But don’t sit and tell me that even if you know he did wrong, you are gonna keep him in office. That’s not up to you. We didn’t vote you there, we didn’t put you in office to be cowards. We put you in there to change things. And if you don’t change that, we should change you.
