Two minds who think alike are not necessarily great. This sentiment was never as true as when MSNBC’s Chris Hayes joined fellow leftist pal Seth Meyers on Monday’s Late Night for a jovial conversation on their shared disdain for President Trump.
Meyer’s did not bother with small talk as the focus on President Trump’s phone call with Ukraine began quite quickly:
Mike Pompeo was on that call, Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed by three different committees, and supposedly Donald Trump asked Australia-the Australian Prime Minister- to help coordinate with AG Barr in investigating the beginnings of the Muller Investigation…That’s a lot.
Hayes then attempted to dazzle America with his vocabulary, comparing the Ukraine story to “kinetic dynamism” (click “expand”):
It's a lot. I mean, really-the last week has been pretty nuts and I think -- you know, you think about politics and crises and moments of sort of kinetic dynamism. And you know, there's this idea that things happen in a linear fashion, like you're painting a room you know, and when you are painting a room you always know where you are and how much left to go, but it's a lot more like a stuck lid jar.
Right? Like, you sort of go at it, you go at it, you go at it and it pops off and, you know, when you look at sort of these moments in history whether it's Watergate, whether it's just reading history of other countries and other times. Like, things take longer to happen than they think they will and then they happen faster than you can imagine.
Ever the diplomatic figure, Hayes lambasted President Trump’s comportment and leadership abilities, suggesting his motives are purely self- involved:
I mean, the whole — from the moment this Congress took over, it felt kind of faded in a way right? And partly that's because of the — primarily it's because of the behavior of this President, the way he conducts himself. The manifest lawlessness with which he stewards the nation's affairs or stewards his own affairs, which he can't distinguish between.
Acting as though Hayes is a world- renowned political expert, Meyers posed the question to him of how the Impeachment Inquiry came to be supported by moderate Democrats:
Obviously I want to talk about Republican reaction to this, but you mentioned Nancy Pelosi and it did seem as though, what has happened in this last week is this sort of newly elected moderate Democrats from sort of swing districts a lot of whom have backgrounds in national security, they seem to be the ones who have been the final step, the sort of tipping point elected officials.
According to Hayes, a presidential phone conversation with a foreign leader is “impeachable conduct” and the reasoning behind that determination is incontrovertible. He also took the opportunity to predict meddling in the 2020 presidential election:
One, the facts are just indefensible so, I think there's actually just a first order subsided belief by a lot of them. Like, this is impeachable conduct and we have to say so, or at least it merits an inquiry. And then the second thing is, the theory of the case was, we're going to beat this guy at the ballot box in 2020. If he's running around the world rigging the election, then you might have a harder time beating him.
Later and in the irony of all ironies, self- appointed foreign policy expert Hayes seemed to openly admit there was no quid pro quo between President Trump and Ukraine; “I mean, that's part of what's so striking about those call notes. There's nothing in the call notes about U.S. Policy towards Ukraine.”
To close out, Meyers worried aloud about the Republicans’ reluctance to endorse Impeachment: "Is this the balancing act we're going to see moving forward is them saying, 'You know, that was obviously not how I would have handled it, but still, let's not be silly.'"
Hayes then proceeded to mischaracterize the basis for Clinton’s impeachment:
…There are people, I think who were, like "yeah, that wasn't great, but you shouldn't impeach him." And you would actually think that category would be bigger. I mean, if you go back and you look at the Clinton Impeachment. There were tons of Democrats- there were not a lot of Democrats running around being like, "It was great that he had sexual relations with his intern." "That was a perfect relationship."
Just goes to show, liberal hosts are most comfortable in the company of each other, after all, there is no chance of a difference in political opinions.
Transcript below:
NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers
10/01/19
1:00:51 a.m. Eastern
SETH MEYERS: I feel like it's almost cliche now that we always open when you are here talking about how much has happened, but today-I mean, again, you have a show not even a little bit more than an hour from now.
CHRIS HAYES: Yep.
SETH MEYERS: And things we found out in just the last couple of hours, Mike Pompeo was on that call, Rudy Guliani has been subpoenaed by three different committees, and supposedly Donald Trump asked Australia-the Australian Prime Minister- to help coordinate with AG Barr in investigating the beginnings of the Muller Investigation.
HAYES: Correct.
MEYERS: That's a lot.
HAYES: It's a lot.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: It's a lot. I mean, really-the last week has been pretty nuts and I think -- you know, you think about politics and crises and moments of sort of kinetic dynamism. And you know, there's this idea that things happen in a linear fashion, like you're painting a room you know, and when you are painting a room you always know where you are and how much left to go, but it's a lot more like a stuck lid jar. Right? Like, you sort of go at it you go at it you go at it and it pops off and, you know, when you look at sort of these moments in history whether it's Watergate, whether it's just reading history of other countries and other times. Like, things take longer to happen than they think they will and then they happen faster than you can imagine.
MEYERS: Right and, now it does seem, like it's happening very quickly. You kind of called this last time you were here. You had a nice analogy to Oedipus that I want to show because it does feel, like what you were saying was going to happen, happened. Let's take a look.
(Clip of past interview)
HAYES: The case is very strong and the politics are very strong and you've got the Democratic leadership, like holding back the reins and the whole thing feels like a Greek play. In act two where it's like -- it's like Oedipus is going to end up with his mom.
(....)
MEYERS: And now it seems like it's happening.
HAYES: Yes, yes. I mean, the whole -- from the moment this Congress took over, it felt kind of faded in a way right? And partly that's because of the -- primarily it's because of the behavior of this President, the way he conducts himself. The manifest lawlessness with which he stewards the nation's affairs or stewards his own affairs, which he can't distinguish between. And the fact that the Congress was elected to sort of provide some kind oversight. And those two things seemed on collision course from the first day. And it was a collision that I think Nancy Pelosi desperately wanted to avoid.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES; But at a certain point it became unavoidable in the last seven days.
MEYERS: Obviously I want to talk about Republican reaction to this, but you mentioned Nancy Pelosi and it did seem as though, what has happened in this last week is this sort of newly elected moderate Democrats from sort of swing districts a lot of whom have backgrounds in national security, they seem to be the ones who have been the final step, the sort of tipping point elected officials.
HAYES: Yeah, and I think that, you know, there's about 40 or so that came out in a big chunk after the call notes were released. And I think that has -- there's a few things are going on there. One, the facts are just indefensible so, I think there's actually just a first order subsided belief by a lot of them. Like, this is Impeachable conduct and we have to say so, or at least it merits an inquiry. And then the second thing is, the theory of the case was, we're going to beat this guy at the ballot box in 2020. If he's running around the world rigging the election, then you might have a harder time beating him.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: Right, like it is not a retrospective investigation to what happened in 2016. It's some kind of deterrent effect on what he might get up to in 2020 and I think that just the clarity of that in that moment, when people say to themselves, "well, what exactly is he doing on these phone calls? What does he say to Mohammed bin Salman when he calls him up? What does he say to Vladimir Putin? What does he say to other folks about how they can help him win 2020?" That got people really to understand that the stakes were very, very clear and present and firm.
MEYERS: And I think -- and one thing we can all take away is, he's never had a phone call in his life where it hasn't been about what can you do for me.
HAYES: Exactly.
MEYERS: He's never picked up the phone and said -- started with, "How are you?"
HAYES: Right, yes. Or about U.S. policy.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: I mean, that's part of what's so striking about those call notes. There's nothing in the call notes about U.S. Policy towards Ukraine.
MEYERS: Right.
HAYES: The Ukrainian side has all sorts of policy objections. We need more money and we need more javelins. Please send us those arms. We're psyched to buy some more oil from you.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES; Donald Trump's, like "yeah, yeah, yeah here's what I need from you."
MEYERS: Right, yeah.
HAYES: As Donald Trump. And that's, to me, the kind of fundamental sin here; is that the man who is tasked with representing all of us as a public representative of the American body politic, cannot constitutionally conceive himself other than self interest.
MEYERS: The other thing that's amazing on the timeline, and correct me if I'm wrong, was it seems like this call that we're now getting the transcript of was just a couple days, or a day after the Mueller investigation. One day.
HAYES: No, it was the day after Mueller's testimony.
MEYERS: Muller's testimony. So, it was that thing of, it is the call of the man who thinks he's in the clear, who just trips over himself immediately. It's, like in "Goodfellas" when they're, like "Don't spend the money." Right, "don't buy a car the next day."
HAYES: Cut to-
MEYERS: Yeah, right exactly.
HAYES: No, and it's really funny, because when the report first surfaced about the timing, people noticed they said, "oh, that's interesting. Mueller testifies on, I think the 24th and on the call is on the 25th I wonder if those --" and on the call itself Trump says, "I don't know if you saw Mueller yesterday. "But he was really bad, so, uh a collusion? What do you think?"
MEYERS: Yeah. You did a podcast. You were down in Texas you did a podcast with Senator Ted Cruz.
HAYES: I did.
MEYERS: And he has said, I believe he said on the podcast, he did not think that the President should have gone down that path with Biden and asking the Ukrainian President about that but also that he is not for Impeachment. How are we going to just-- is this the balancing act we're going to see moving forward is them saying, "you know, that was obviously not how I would have handled it, but still, let's not be silly."
HAYES: Well, even that seems like a concession honestly. Because, I mean, you've seen -- there's sort of three categories. There's people who are just pretending not to see any of this and notice it and there are great rundowns of all GOP senators who haven't read the whistleblower complaint, which is four pages.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: So, there's a little bit of, like ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know what happened." There's then the people who, like are -- died in the wool with the President, it was a perfect phone call.
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: I mean, you like -- "that was a perfect phone call I love it. It was great perfect." Then, there are people, I think who were, like "yeah, that wasn't great, but you shouldn't impeach him." And you would actually think that category would be bigger. I mean, if you go back and you look at the Clinton Impeachment. There were tons of Democrats- there were not a lot of Democrats running around being like, "It was great that he had sexual relations with his intern." "That was a perfect relationship."
MEYERS: Yeah.
HAYES: "And I'm glad he did it."
MEYERS: Yeah, perfect.
HAYES: No one's saying that. Like, no one is saying that. No one is saying that.
MEYERS: When two people love each other-
HAYES: Yes, exactly. No, what people said was, "Yeah, that was not good. We all agree that was not good, but it's not Impeachable."
MEYERS: Also the -- the other crazy thing is, never before in my life have I heard someone about any phone call say, "Perfect." I've never been like, "Nailed it." That pizza is going to be here exactly the way I asked for it.
