Brian Williams announced himself to be the latest member of the Adam Schiff Fan Club on MSNBC's coverage of day three of the impeachment trial, but he did offer the House Democratic managers some advice: show more emotion.
Williams was worried that Schiff, while "awfully impressive," was too boring, "people are searching for a way to say, “yeah, but,” and I have heard this morning -- Nicolle’s right-- people are saying, long on facts, short on emotion. Where is the emotion? Where is the appeal? Not just to the 100 [Senators], but to the further television audience."
He must of missed Schiff's hyperbolic diatribes where he pre-emptively tried to discredit the outcome of the upcoming election should President Trump win or when he declared that Trump's actions on Ukrainian aid raised the possibility of a Russian invasion of the United States.
He then tossed the conversation over to Morgan State University Professor Jason Johnson who began with the assumption that most people care about the current proceedings, "Every time they checked in the news, they're like, 'Oh, Schiff is saying something important' or 'Oh, this is meaningful.'”
Johnson said it was a good thing Democrats spent all day repeating themselves because it makes people hear "what you want them to hear" and that gets "people riled up enough to call their senators to make them pay attention." In rallying the public to their side, Johnson alleged that has "been pretty successful so far."
There's no evidence that they have been successful, because most American don't adore Schiff. Outlier polls that the media love to cite notwithstanding, support for removing Trump from office stands at roughly 48 percent, largely unchanged since October.
Here is a transcript for the January 23 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Impeachment Coverage
12:04 PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Jason, I do get the sense that because Mr. Schiff was awfully impressive—
JASON JOHNSON: Right
WILLIAMS:-- people are searching for a way to say, “yeah, but,” and I have heard this morning—Nicole’s right-- people are saying, long on facts, short on emotion. Where is the emotion? Where is the appeal? Not just to the 100, but to the further television audience.
JOHNSON: Well, I found people were sort of doing a drive-by. They were checking on Twitter, they were checking on TV afterwards. It's sort of like that nice restaurant downtown, you’ve never quite gone there, but you’re like “okay it's still full. Okay, It’s still full. It’s still full.” That’s what people did during the day. Every time they checked in the news, they're like, “Oh, Schiff is saying something important” or “Oh, this is meaningful.” I think the Democrats have figured out even if you sound repetitive, if you're making a good point all day, when people check in, they're hearing what you want them to hear.Now, you can't make the Constitution interesting. I’m a college professor, I know this. You can't make it any more exciting than you want to. They can’t turn it into Schoolhouse Rock and do pantomimes and plays, but if they continue to hammer down the point, this guy is corrupt, dangerous and he's trying to cheat, that's all the American public needs to hear. And I think most people feel the way they're going to feel. The challenge that the Democrats are sort of pushing for now, and they’ve been successful, is getting people riled up enough to call their senators to make them pay attention and that's been pretty successful so far.
