Fresh off his time in the spin room following Wednesday’s 2020 Democratic presidential debate, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews partnered with a team of liberal sycophants on Thursday to wax poetic that, in this impeachment inquiry, Democrats haven’t been partisan in presenting evidence in arguing for the impeachment (and removal) of President Trump.
“How would you describe the way these witnesses have been brought forth on the national stage, one at a time, sometimes two at a time in terms of building — putting together the building blocks, I should say of the case for the President's malfeasance and impeachable behavior,” asked Matthews in a softball to legal analyst Mimi Rocah.
Rocah replied that “this has been a phenomenal case” and that, if this were a real trial, a jury “would come back in a heartbeat with a guilty verdict” based on the evidence and “inescapable conclusion” because, unlike Republicans, they would be able to “take politics out of it and look at it as a rational person.”
“[T]he facts and evidence here really are overwhelming if people are willing to look at it in a rational objective way,” she added.
Los Angeles Times reporter Eli Stokols concurred, gushing that Dr. Fiona Hill “was the capstone” Democrats needed to conclude “two weeks of testimony, 12 witnesses, and everything points in the same direction.”
Of course, things would be fine and dandy if Americans were universally doing what House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) wanted since he had to air his “frustration at the end of it.”
Stokols deemed this “understandable because he had heard the Republicans on that committee ignore the testimony for the most part, not question the substance of it, and just act as if the whole thing is a joke.”
“[T]hey were just living in different worlds. I think Mimi is right, if you could not check your reason at the door as you go in and analyze this, yeah, maybe you would get an unbiased jury, but it's politics,” Stokols continued.
Matthews added more nonsense, swooning over the liberal newspapers setting the tone in not only “get[ting] their point across,” but being “wonderful” at “lay[ing] it all out” why Trump should be impeached, while Republicans were uttering “gobbledygook to just kill some of their five minutes.”
Former Obama official Katrina Mulligan only bolstered the groupthink, boasting that “one of the amazing contrasts was actually Dr. Hill's clarity when contrasted with how unclear and unsure of their story they were and I think one of the reasons you saw that is because remember Dr. Hill comes from the intelligence community.”
Moments later, Matthews offered both a joke and a serious wish that Hill would sign with MSNBC for a lucrative contributing gig: “I think [Fiona Hill will] be sitting around this table pretty soon. Just a guess. Anyway, if we're lucky at this network.”
So, in other words, very similar to the arrangement CNN and MSNBC have with former Obama officials: Be loyal liberals, possibly act as sources for journalists, and then cash in.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on November 21, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
November 21, 2019
7:05 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: I've been watching it. I'm not a lawyer. I've only watched courtroom dramas, they're some of the best movies I know. That’s all I know. How would you describe the way these witnesses have been brought forth on the national stage, one at a time, sometimes two at a time in terms of building — putting together the building blocks, I should say of the case for the President's malfeasance and impeachable behavior?
MIMI ROCAH: I mean, this has been a phenomenal case, Chris. Really. I think that if this were something we were asking a jury to decide guilty or not, which we're not doing yet obviously, they would come back in a heartbeat with a guilty verdict because if you look at all of the evidence, all of the testimony of the witnesses and the phone call with the President himself in his own words saying I need a favor, though, if you put all of it together and you take politics out of it and look at it as a rational person, which is something prosecutors ask jurors all the time. They say you don't check your — you know, your — your rational thought at the door when you come in here. All of that really leaves this inescapable conclusion that Trump was holding up first the meeting and then the aid for this announcement of an investigation and he delegated it to Rudy Giuliani, his, you know, under-boss in all of this to get the dirty work done so he could have some plausible deniability, but I think that just makes it more obvious when he goes around saying no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo. It's like saying, “I didn't rob the bank” as he's taking the money out of the bank. You know, it doesn't make it true and the facts and evidence here really are overwhelming if people are willing to look at it in a rational objective way.
MATTHEWS: Eli, the way I like it is there's revelations as they come to each person what's going on. First of all, Mr. — Ambassador Taylor realizing there's two channels. There's the legitimate or official channel and then this Rudy Giuliani effort to try to ring the dirt out of this country to help the President in his next election. Sondland coming saying basically it's not just the other channel but it’s the channel that includes the president, the chief of staff and the President. It includes the secretary of state and the entire State Department. The whole second channel, which is supposed to be the unofficial part of the government, is really the government. And then to find out most recently, the testimony more recently today from Dr. Hill where she realizes that it's the President behind the whole thing.
ELI STOKOLS: Right. I mean, and that was the capstone for the Democrats. Over two weeks, they put her last and she really tied it all together. It's remarkable to hear from all these officials. Their epiphanies came at different times but came eventually. Sometimes it came after their first sworn deposition, and they had to give a second one because they didn’t have all the facts. Other peoples testimony helped them recover certain memories. Maybe they were trying to protect themselves or protect the President. Hill today said it's just not credible that Sondland and others could have not put it together that when the President and others around him were saying Burisma, they meant an investigation of Joe Biden, but ultimately you have two weeks of testimony, 12 witnesses, and everything points in the same direction. And yet if you watch that hearing and listen to Adam Schiff at the end of it, the frustration he was expressing, it's understandable because he had heard the Republicans on that committee ignore the testimony for the most part, not question the substance of it, and just act
MATTHEWS: Yes.
STOKOLS: — as if the whole thing is a joke. The idea of withholding a meeting, one of the Republicans today said I think it was Representative Turner said if you're going to impeach over him not taking a meeting, go ahead, as if it would be some huge boon to the Republicans and so they were just living in different worlds. I think Mimi is right, if you could not check your reason at the door as you go in and analyze this, yeah, maybe you would get an unbiased jury, but it's politics. Everybody in the country seem Tuesday have a point of view, and certainly, you know, the Republicans and Democrats are just in completely different worlds.
MATTHEWS: Maybe this is circular, but every time I pick up one of the major papers now in the morning, the day after one of these testimonies they completely get their point across. It's all there in print. The print people have been wonderful in terms of this examination, but they're also wonderful at recording what we're learning, the big papers. People like Peter Baker and analyzing those main bars, those analytical bars on the front page of the paper, lay it all out. At the outset Dr. Hill delivered an indictment of Trump's defenders, who continue to sell the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election here. And here’s Dr. Hill today.
[HILL CLIP]
MATTHEWS: Well, that's the same conspiracy theory the one about Ukraine screwing with our elections in 2016 about the DNC server, of course, that President Trump asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate the crazy fiction. He's asking another president to do some crazy work for him in that July 25th call. Well, that fictional narrative was pushed by Rudy Giuliani, and Trump tried to legitimize it despite being told it's untrue.
(....)
MATTHEWS: I thought they did some of this gobbledy gook to just kill some of their five minutes.
KATRINA MULLIGAN: I mean, one of the — one of the amazing contrasts was actually Dr. Hill's clarity when contrasted with how unclear and unsure of their story they were.
MICHAEL STEELE: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
MULLIGAN: And I think one of the reasons you saw that is because remember Dr. Hill comes from the intelligence community. She was in the National Intelligence Council. She is trained not only to think about but quantify how certain she is about the narrative that she's putting forward, the information and her analytic judgments, and I think you saw that and America saw that today and as a consequence, I think, you know, her confidence really broke through.
MATTHEWS: I think she’ll be sitting around this table pretty soon. Just a guess. Anyway, if we're lucky at this network. Anyway, Dr. Hill explained in vivid detail how she intervened with Ambassador Sondland in a discussion with Ukrainian in the so-called ward room, I don’t know where that is in the White House, somewhere in the West Wing just after that July 10th meeting.
[HILL CLIP]
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Mimi on this question. This is a law question. Would you, if you were a judge on a bench trial, would you believe Sondland when he said I didn't know Burisma were the Bidens after all those months? Would you believe him?
ROCAH: Absolutely not. I mean, first of all, and I think the point Ms. Hill was trying to make today was it belies common sense. I know I keep using that word, and I know it's not the world we're in, but she was trying to drive that home today, too. You know, first of all you have Rudy Giuliani out there publicly saying that he's going after Biden. I mean, there was this whole dust up and in fact, he called off his first trip to Ukraine because there was such an outcry about it because he said exactly what he was doing, that he was going to investigate the Bidens for his client, Trump and, you know, you have to suspend belief and say, well, of all the companies in all the world, you know, Donald Trump was concerned with Burisma for no reason —
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
ROCAH: — having to do with the fact Joe Biden — it makes absolutely no sense and she — what you saw today was two people saying no one had to tell me explicitly although again Giuliani was explicit about it because I was putting, this was the two plus two is four together, what the Republicans keep trying to come back to is well nobody said explicitly that's what it was. Just like nobody said it's a quid pro quo at the time and, you know, that's not how criminals crime. They don't say it explicitly as they're doing it for a reason.
MATTHEWS: That's not how politicians talk, by the way.
STEELE: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: In my experience as Michael will tell you, It's grunts. It’s groans. It’s come on. You know what I want.
STEELE: Yeah. Exactly.
MATTHEWS: Nobody sits there and writes these contracts.
STEELE: Don’t make me explain it to you.
MATTHEWS: It's not how you do it. You know, if you can grunt it, don't say it. If you can say it, don't write it. The old rules all apply.
