With impeachment frenzy moving from the House Intelligence Committee to the Judiciary Committee, the media have a whole new list of Republicans they can slam in ways that they would never attack a Democrat. On Monday's edition of Inside Politics Ranking Member Doug Collins was the latest Republican to find himself under attack, this time from Dana Bash who trashed him as "rabid."
After host John King played a clip of Collins on Fox & Friends rejecting an idea put out by former Democratic Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh that says instead of impeaching President Trump, Congress should merely censure him, King used Collins to reject the idea that both parties are in the midst of a "political dilemma."
King stated the Collins rejection of censure, because he believes that Trump did nothing wrong means that it is the, "Republican Party’s position that it is okay to hold up military aid to a country under a hot war attack from Russia, to let your personal attorney who has no standing in the government to do private business in Ukraine while trying to make money."
Bash jumped in to say that "the point that you’ve made several times which is important to bring back around in this context which is Doug Collins is a rabid House Republican." If Collins is "rabid" for not supporting impeachment as a Republican, does that make any Democrat who does also "rabid," for not taking Bayh's "off ramp" because that is not how CNN has portrayed them?
Bash added that still, censure may not be dead and took another one-sided shot at Republicans in the process, "There are people of his ilk in the Senate, but there are also different kinds of Republicans in the Senate, some of whom have said very publicly the 'yeah, but.' 'Yes, what he did was troubling, but it's not impeachable.'”
Here is a transcript for the December 2 show:
CNN
Inside Politics
12:16 PM ET
JOHN KING: That right there is a fascinating glimpse of both parties in the political dilemma. Democrats might need to talk privately about do we need an offramp? Should we do censure, should we do something—you don't talk about it publicly heading into a critical week for your party. The flip side of that is Congressmen Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee-- president did nothing wrong by a ranking member on his committee. So it is the Republican Party’s position that it is okay to hold up military aid to a country under a hot war attack from Russia, to let your personal attorney who has no standing in the government to do private business in Ukraine while trying to make money.
DANA BASH: But, it’s the point that you’ve made several times which is important to bring back around in this context which is Doug Collins is a rabid House Republican.KING: Right
BASH: There are people of his ilk in the Senate, but there are also different kinds of Republicans in the Senate, some of whom have said very publicly the “yeah, but.” “Yes, what he did was troubling, but it's not impeachable.” So there could be more fertile ground for censure in the Senate, which is probably why the former Senator Evan Bayh--
KING: Cautious Indiana moderate.
BASH: Cautious Indiana moderate which there aren’t lot of them left, there are some, threw that out there just to trial balloon it. I can't imagine he did it at the behest of the Democratic leader, but it is a different place, and we can't get there before we see what happens in the House, but it's an important thing to remember about the tone and tenor of the Republicans.
