Not long after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) began tallying the House vote for the first Article of Impeachment against President Trump Wednesday night, NBC political director Chuck Todd began to complain about how the latest NBC News poll on impeachment showed an unpersuaded public. To that, he huffed about the “factual debate” and how he found it “bizarre” that the President was getting cheered at a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Immediately after being introduced by NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, Todd declared that President Trump was successful in creating a “polarized picture of America”:
Look, politically it's the only way to survive this process. Which is rally the party to your side, polarize the process. And look, this has been a successful strategy for this President, to survive the impeachment process, politically. Meaning not get ousted from office, try to make it so that it's impossible for a Republican to criticize him in public.
So, on that score, succeeded in creating this, but all he's done is fought this to a draw. This is polarized picture of America.
“I mean, the Democratic Party almost is united in believing he needs to go, and the Republican Party is almost united in believing this is a witch hunt,” he continued, getting to their poll findings. “And you do have a small slice, but it exists, and we have it in our polling actually out tonight, Lester. In the middle, independents literally are split down the middle on this question.”
Arms flailing, Todd decried: “This is the world that we have, you know, there's a factual debate, and then there's the political reality.” Stumbling to find the words at first, he opined about how “it's bizarre to think that he's getting cheers on Battle Creek, Michigan on the same night he's literally getting impeached on the floor of the House. It's bizarre, but historians will make more sense of it than we can right now.”
Holt then turned to chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, who couldn’t make heads or tails of their poll findings either (click “expand”):
ANDREA MITCHELL: We don't know. Because, to be totally honest, one would have thought that over all of these weeks and the testimony, and the arguments on the other side that something would have shifted. But the poll numbers that we have tonight that came out is just this evening, are exactly identical to the same polling we had in October, within the margin of error.
At this point, this is going to play out across America throughout this election, the campaign. As we now proceed automatically, you look at this vote tally, we are now going to proceed to a Senate trial. At least based on this one article, if not, obviously both.
Several minutes later, Todd was back again, this time to bemoan about how nothing was going to change after the impeachment vote:
It feels like we're unfortunately looking awfully familiar. As we began this day-- It is bizarre to me that this heavy momentous thing that's happening in our country, a part of the Constitution that's rarely used, it’s being used, and there's this sort of -- well, it's just another day, or it's just another battle in the political war, or it's -- and I mean, you know, the President is holding a rally right now. He's been impeached!
In between those moments, Holt and Mitchell gushed about how Speaker Pelosi shutdown her caucus when they began to cheer after impeaching Trump on the first Article. “That was classic Pelosi. She was the leader, the schoolmarm basically saying, do not cheer. The politics of that, of them cheering an impeachment. She has said all along this is solemn, this is prayerful. She did not want any kind of victory celebration on the floor of the House,” she boasted.
But the fact of the matter was, Democrats did cheer, which disproved Pelosi’s and the media’s narrative that impeachment was about something serious and not political.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
NBC News Impeachment Vote
December 18, 2019
8:14:49 p.m. Eastern(…)
LESTER HOLT: Let me bring in Chuck Todd right now. Chuck, you saw that same juxtaposition of imagery there. That tells us a lot how he's going to run with this, I would say.
CHUCK TODD: Well, it's been his – Look, politically it's the only way to survive this process. Which is rally the party to your side, polarize the process. And look, this has been a successful strategy for this President, to survive the impeachment process, politically. Meaning not get ousted from office, try to make it so that it's impossible for a Republican to criticize him in public.
So, on that score, succeeded in creating this, but all he's done is fought this to a draw. This is polarized picture of America. I mean, the Democratic Party almost is united in believing he needs to go, and the Republican Party is almost united in believing this is a witch hunt. And you do have a small slice, but it exists, and we have it in our polling actually out tonight, Lester. In the middle, independents literally are split down the middle on this question.
So, that's where we are. This is the world that we have, you know, there's a factual debate, and then there's the political reality, and as this is it -- I mean, it's bizarre to think that he's getting cheers on Battle Creek, Michigan on the same night he's literally getting impeached on the floor of the House. It's bizarre, but historians will make more sense of it than we can right now.
HOLT: All right, Andrea Mitchell, Chuck mentioning that polling. The polling continuing to show nothing has really fundamentally changed. So, will actual impeachment change anything?
ANDREA MITCHELL: We don't know. Because, to be totally honest, one would have thought that over all of these weeks and the testimony, and the arguments on the other side that something would have shifted. But the poll numbers that we have tonight that came out is just this evening, are exactly identical to the same polling we had in October, within the margin of error.
At this point, this is going to play out across America throughout this election, the campaign. As we now proceed automatically, you look at this vote tally, we are now going to proceed to a Senate trial. At least based on this one article, if not, obviously both.
(…)
8:35:57 p.m. Eastern
HOLT: Andrea, you saw the look too.
MITCHELL: That look.
HOLT: The minute that it passed, there was beginning of applause and Speaker Pelosi gave that look: Don’t even think about it.
MITCHELL: Don’t even think about cheering. That was classic Pelosi. She was the leader, the schoolmarm basically saying, do not cheer. The politics of that, of them cheering an impeachment. She has said all along this is solemn, this is prayerful. She did not want any kind of victory celebration on the floor of the House.
(…)
8:39:03 p.m. Eastern
HOLT: Let ate bring back Chuck Todd into the conversation. Chuck, we knew this was going to happen, but to hear the words “the President has been impeached,” does the world – suddenly we wake up to a different tomorrow, or is it going to look awfully familiar?
TODD: It feels like we're unfortunately looking awfully familiar. As we began this day-- It is bizarre to me that this heavy momentous thing that's happening in our country, a part of the Constitution that's rarely used, it’s being used, and there's this sort of -- well, it's just another day, or it's just another battle in the political war, or it's -- and I mean, you know, the President is holding a rally right now. He's been impeached!
You know, Bill Clinton attempted to apologize to Congress before. Donald Trump said he holds himself -- doesn't believe he has contributed to this at all, zero.
(…)
