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**JANUARY 13, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

Impeachment: Second Time Around

One of the weirder sentiments expressed by Donald Trump's Republican
defenders during today's debate on the impeachment resolution was that
the Democrats had the chutzpah to impeach Trump twice. It wasn't
enough to have impeached him for conditioning aid to a foreign country
on that country's willingness to defame Joe Biden (then his likely
Democratic opponent), but now, the Democrats were coming for him

**twice**! Imagine that!

It's an interesting argument, which, if followed to its logical
conclusion, would mean that no career criminal could ever be charged for
any but his or her first offense. But this was hardly the most
ridiculous argument that Trump's distinguished lady and gentlemen
goons made on the floor of Congress today.

The most nauseating, and commonly voiced, was that the nation needed
unity and that Democrats were thus unsettling the cosmic calm. That was
largely the substance of Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy's
presentation. This was the same Kevin McCarthy who voted to overturn the
popular and electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania last week; the
same Kevin McCarthy who himself had insisted that Trump had won the
election when he plainly and decisively had lost it; the same Kevin
McCarthy who thereby helped create the political space for his
Republican colleagues to persist in spouting such falsehoods to the
point that they also incited the mob that attacked the Capitol last
week. Trump, of course, was not alone in his incitement; he was joined
by hundreds of Republican elected officials at all levels of government,
and a critical mass of Rupert Murdoch's broadcasting thugs and their
voluble, seditious ilk.

Republicans also objected to the speed of the proceedings, to the
absence of witnesses called before committees, as if the telecast of
Trump's speech last Wednesday to his followers charging them to go to
the Capitol didn't exist. But Republicans may be thankful that no
witnesses were called, for if they had been, McCarthy would have been
called by the prosecution. It's been reported that he and Trump
engaged in a screaming phone call as the mob coursed through the
Capitol; McCarthy begging Trump to tell them to stop; Trump refusing to
do so. It would have been interesting to hear McCarthy's testimony
about that call. One of the House Republicans who voted for impeachment
today cited Trump's refusal to call off his mob as the decisive factor
in his vote. If anything, Trump's declining to tell his supporters to
stop attacking Congress is even more of a prima facie violation of his
oath than his incitement to attack in the first place.

The one aspect of the past 24 hours' events that lends itself to
delicious speculation is the conduct of Mitch McConnell, who has been
hinting that he might well vote to convict Trump when the Senate takes
up impeachment. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that McConnell holds
Trump responsible for the Republican defeats in Georgia's senatorial
elections and thus for the Republicans' loss of the Senate majority
and his own demotion to minority leader. It's also reasonable to
suspect that McConnell believes Trump will continue to drag the
Republicans down in 2022, 2024, and who knows how long after that if he
continues to loom over the party, much less if he's its presidential
nominee in 2024. Should Trump be convicted by the Senate, of course, he
can't be that nominee-a consummation, McConnell must hope, devoutly
to be wished.

Republicans, as my colleague Bob Kuttner has written
, will
doubtless reunite in opposition to anything President Biden proposes,
but the rip that has now opened in the party won't be easy to mend,
particularly if Trumpites mount primary challenges to Republicans
who've jumped off the Trump ship, and if the Republicans who stuck
with Trump lose re-election in competitive states and districts. Which
would be wonderful; this is a party that deserves to tear itself to
pieces.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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How Biden Can Move On From the Obama Era

The American Economic Liberties Project's 'Courage to Learn'
report explains Obama's failures on competition policy, and a path
forward for the new president. BY DAVID DAYEN

Cops and Fascists? Cops Against Fascists? Which Is It?

The Capitol takeover may signal a rift between the far right and groups
of cops, but these affinities aren't going away. BY JOHN KNEFEL

Biden Must Close the Revolving Door Between BigLaw and Government

Representing corporate clients against the public interest isn't the
ideal training ground for Biden administration officials. BY MIRANDA
LITWAK & MOLLY COLEMAN

Unsanitized: The Great Race of Vaccination Versus Mutation

Also, the homeless need the vaccine. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report
for January 13, 2021. BY DAVID DAYEN

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