McConnell brags to Hannity about how he’s going to work with Trump to derail Senate impeachment trial
It should be clear to everyone at this point that the Republican Party, one of the two pillars of our political establishment, is not only hostile to our democracy and the rules that govern it but is also actively working to subvert it. Last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sat down with Fox News’s Sean Hannity to discuss the inevitable impeachment trial in the Senate and bragged about how he was planning to rig it.
The Democratically-controlled House is all but certain to impeach Trump over his crooked scheme to undermine the 2020 election by pushing Ukraine to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his subsequent efforts to obstruct the inquiry into his behavior. Once that happens, Trump will be put on impeachment trial in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the rot at the heart of the GOP should be able to predict how that will go: Republicans will circle the wagons around Trump, ignore his flagrant abuses of power, and once again put party over country. The fact that McConnell has already admitted as much shows that Republicans no longer see a reason to even pretend like our democratic institutions matter.
The Senate Majority Leader told Hannity, one of Trump’s most fervent and dishonest mouthpieces, that he will remain lockstep with the president for the duration of impeachment.
“…and everything I do during this I’m coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this,” McConnell said, essentially admitting that the Executive Branch calls all the shots when it comes to Congressional Republicans.
“I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers,” McConnell said at another point in the conversation. He gave the entire game away by also admitting “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”
While his remarks aren’t exactly surprising, there is no excuse for them. McConnell is sending a message that a Republican president can do whatever they want so long as the GOP controls the Senate. It proves that McConnell and his Senate minions are content to enable Trump as he trashes our Republic and moves us towards an authoritarian state so long as he continues to rubberstamp their plutocratic giveaways to their rich donors and pack the judiciary with reactionary fanatics.
Removing Trump from office at the ballot box will not be enough to fix our democracy. McConnell and everyone like him must be voted out as well before they can inflict any more lasting damaging on this country. They have no respect for its citizenry or its laws and even if Trump is removed from the Oval Office it will only be a matter of time before they rally behind someone just as odious.
Mitch McConnell: Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this pic.twitter.com/baFaTKWvUl
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) December 13, 2019
