Coming as absolutely no surprise whatsoever. President Donald Trump has been acquitted,
found not guilty in his impeachment trial in the United States Senate on both counts.
Article one was abusive power. Article two was obstruction of Congress on that first
article. 52 votes for not guilty. 48 votes for guilty. It was a party line vote except
for Utah Republican Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney cross party
lines and voted guilty on article one. He made a speech in advance of the vote saying
he planned to do so and explaining why on article two, obstruction of Congress, a straight
party line vote. 53 Republicans voting not guilty. 45 Democrats and two independents,
Bernie Sanders and Angus King voting guilty party line vote. The outcome never in doubt.
We knew that Republicans had prejudged. We heard from Mitch McConnell that he was going
to be in total coordination with the white house on the impeachment trial. Uh, and Republicans
made it a foregone conclusion that this was ultimately going to be the outcome.
We knew this going in a bogus trial. No witnesses. Imagine a trial in which you complain that
you don't have firsthand witnesses, which Republicans did many times despite having
them, uh, in the form of Alexander Veneman and others. And when John Bolton went public,
uh, or his manuscript was leaked or he made it get leaked, whatever, uh, we found out
that he was a firsthand witness who could come forward and testify and say, Donald Trump
told me to withhold the aid from Ukraine until such time that they publicly smear Joe Biden.
They didn't have firsthand witnesses. They wanted them. One becomes available and they
vote and say, we don't want witnesses. We don't need witnesses. The house could have
called witnesses if they had wanted to. A completely bogus trial. Almost just a formality
was the trial despite 64 hours of proceedings, plus debate about whether to call witnesses
plus statements yesterday from dozens of senators before ultimately voting to acquit Donald
Trump.
So Donald Trump, the third president to be impeached by the house. All three of those
presidents ultimately acquitted in the Senate in the 18 hundreds. It was Andrew Johnson
in the 19 hundreds it was bill Clinton. And now in 2020 it is Donald Trump. So now the
questions become, was this it? What's next and what does this do for Donald Trump in
terms of approval in terms of November of 2020s election. We are going to talk about
all of those things. Donald Trump yesterday, some Trumpists gleefully pointing out that
Trump is now polling higher than ever in the Gallup presidential approval poll at 49% we
talked about this on the bonus show. Unfortunately, that lacks some context which we will get
to, including the fact that that was from before Trump's acquittal. Now, of course,
we knew that once Trump was acquitted, what we are calling exoneration delusion would
immediately take hold as soon as the acquittal took place and it deed in did it.
Did Donald Trump immediately tweeting quote, I will be making a public statement tomorrow
at 12:00 PM from the white house to discuss our country's victory on the impeachment hoax.
You may already, by the time you watch or listen to today's show, know what it was that
Donald Trump said, uh, during that presentation. If you were surprised by the acquittal, then
you've simply not been paying attention. And I know that there are lots of people who are
just busy with their lives and they don't pay attention and that's okay. And in fact
I'm sort of envious of you, uh, to a great degree. During a number of our recent live
streams, I would get super chats from people saying, Hey David, how likely do you think
Trump gets convicted in the Senate? The answer was of course zero. So, or you know, 0.1,
I don't know, we knew all along that it wasn't going to happen.
So, uh, some of the audience when I would point this out were mad at me and they would
say, David, you know, you are being a defeatist, why are you calling it a foregone conclusion?
We need to fight. But as I've said before, I tell you things as they are not as I would
like them to be and there is no question that it was a sham trial. I told you that from
the beginning. But at the same time, we have to recognize that there is no question that
the last seven days, 72 hours have been really, really bad for Democrats. Just bad timing
combined with fiascos Monday night, embarrassing outcome in the first 2020 democratic primary,
which is the Iowa caucus. The app used to communicate results imploded. We, as of this
recording, still don't have final results from Iowa. Tuesday night, Donald Trump does
a total reality show, state of the union address, but Trumpists absolutely love it.
They see Trump's idiocy, his presidential, the stock market has several very good days
in a row and of course we know, you know, uh, what, what, what, what does that mean
for a rural Trumpist in Mississippi who has no shares of stock? Well, it doesn't matter
if it means that their support for Donald Trump is re-invigorated then Tuesday, yes,
Donald Trump's best approval rating ever in the Gallup presidential approval poll, despite
his overall numbers not moving that much. And then yesterday, Donald Trump acquitted
on both counts and impeachment. We've talked before about was this Donald Trump's worst
week ever for his presidency this week was a very good week for Donald Trump individually.
None of the things I just mentioned are actually exonerations or accomplishments by Donald
Trump in any real sense. The Iowa situation has nothing to do with Trump. Trump's state
of the union was terrible in practice. Trump's acquittal was not an exoneration. In reality.
It was a political majority having its way as we knew they would from the beginning,
but it doesn't look good for Democrats and we need to recognize this if we want to keep
fighting this the right way and from a how does it feel perspective, which is often all
that matters.
It is very good for Donald Trump, so now it's time to win. In November, there is the question
was impeachment worth it and we pulled our YouTube audience. We got 35,000 people voting
in our poll. Was impeaching Donald Trump worthwhile even though he's getting acquitted? 68% of
you said yes. It was the Democrats constitutional duty to impeach. 2% said yes because it was
politically beneficial for Democrats. Very few people believing that this was politically
beneficial for Democrats or that it will be 16% of you said it was not worth it to impeach
because it ended up benefiting Donald Trump politically and then 8% said it was not worthwhile
because it distracted from more important issues. That's a completely unscientific poll
merely of the YouTube audience that chose to participate 35,000 votes. So we knew there'd
be no other path forward and now there is no other path forward.
Yes, we're hearing the house of representatives is planning to subpoena former Trump national
security advisor, John Bolton. Anyway, to maybe get them on the record saying under
oath, Trump came to me and said withhold the Ukraine aid if an until Ukraine smears Joe
Biden publicly Trumpist won't care. Yes. The house of representatives is looking at subpoenaing
left Parness who has all sorts of audio, visual and written recordings, uh, written records
of the things that Donald Trump was involved in and so on and so forth. Trumpists are not
going to care. So understand that the 2020 election, as I've been saying at least since
April of 2017 is both the only way, but also the 2020 election is in serious jeopardy.
And we're going to dig into this more later today. Donald Trump now has nine months to
attempt and prepare almost any amount of election meddling interference and rigging that he
wants.
He has gotten off without any consequences for everything so far. Okay. Some of his associates
were arrested and found guilty and are going to spend some time in prison. He doesn't seem
to care, and it may not impact his November of 2020 reelection whatsoever. He is emboldened,
his followers are emboldened. So now not only do we have to win in November, we have to
win by so much that the meddling can't hand the election to Trump, that the foul play
can't hand the election to Trump. And I'll, I'll get into more detail about that later
because I don't believe Donald Trump will go peacefully if he is defeated in November.
These are potentially very dark days for our democracy coming up and thinking, you know,
thinking, uh, ahead of us. Um, these next four years could be much darker than the first
four years. This is the reality of the U S in 2020 the world is laughing.
People who care in the United States are not laughing, but this week, by any measure, it
is a win for Donald Trump in the immediate, with the only possibility lurking nine months
away. Being that this is so inspiring to so many anti Trump voters that they all get out
in November and the tables turn, but it's going to require work and we've got to do
the work and we're going to talk about that in much more detail coming up a little bit
later today.
