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President Trump repeated several inaccurate statements at tonight’s rally in Pennsylvania, including his most-repeated claims about the Veterans Choice Program and the Democrats’ position on immigration reform.
Trump slid in a false claim about Veterans Choice Program. “Look what we did for our vets with choice,” he said.
Trump said under his administration median household income went up $5,000 in less than three years, “and then when when you add energy savings and you add tax savings, you have almost a $10,000 gain in three years.”
When talking about former 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke, Trump claimed that O’Rourke wanted to “get rid of religion — the Bible.”
Trump said “Mexico is now giving us 27,000 soldiers on our border.”
Trump claimed that Democrats “are now the party…of open borders.”
Trump claimed, “we haven’t taken in money from China, ever. And it’s coming in now by the billions.”
President Trump said the impeachment he now faces from the House is “impeachment-lite” and argued he faces “two flimsy, pathetic, ridiculous articles of impeachment.”
Trump mocked the articles of impeachment Democrats unveiled earlier today, arguing “these two things, they’re not even a crime.”
He argued that by not including articles of impeachment on “collusion” or “obstruction of justice,” the Democrats are “admitting” that neither of those occurred.
“They’re impeaching me and there are no crimes. This has to be a first in history,” Trump said.
President Trump made a series of claims at tonight’s rally about energy production in the US.
Here’s what we know:
Trump told his usual semi-comedic story about how, if “windmills” are used for energy as he said Democrats want, people’s televisions will go out if the wind is not presently blowing: “Darling, I want to watch television tonight and there’s no damn wind.”
During the rally, Trump claimed that the US is “now number one in the world” in energy.
Following Trump’s claim about energy production, he said “our air and our water are cleaner now than it’s ever been.”
President Trump, discussing the impeachment inquiry at his rally tonight, said “the whistleblower defrauded our country, because the whistleblower wrote something that was totally untrue.”
Talking about his July 25th call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump said “they didn’t know we had it transcribed. Word for word transcribed. So beautiful.”
President Trump kicked off his rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, by commenting on his accomplishments.
He told the crowd “our polling has been going through the roof.”
Facts First: “Through the roof” is a vague phrase, but there is no sign of Trump’s poll numbers significantly increasing as a result of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry or their investigation into his dealings with Ukraine.
The day he spoke here, he had a 41.7% approval rating and a 53.6% disapproval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate measure. CNN senior writer and analyst Harry Enten wrote about how recent polls don’t show evidence of a pro-Trump backlash.
President Trump claimed tonight at his rally in Pennsylvania that Democrats announced the USMCA deal earlier today “because they’re embarrassed by impeachment” and called it a “silver lining.”
Trump noted that his administration has been “waiting a long time for Nancy Pelosi” to back the trade agreement.
He slammed the impeachment process and claimed that “our poll numbers have gone through the roof because of her stupid impeachment.”
But Trump argued that USMCA was the “silver lining of impeachment.”
“That’s the reason they approved USMCA and that’s OK with me,” Trump said. “They approved it and they’re very happy to have it.”
Responding to reports that some moderate Democrats are proposing a censure of President Trump as a compromise in the impeachment inquiry, a senior administration official dismissed the idea as “unacceptable.”
“Why would you censure the President when he hasn’t done anything wrong?” the official asked.
The official pointed to polling that the White House believes is indicative of support slipping for impeachment.
As for the next steps, the official repeated what press secretary Stephanie Grisham observed earlier in the day and said White House officials were surprised that Democrats only announced two articles of impeachment, saying the President’s legal team had expected more than that. It’s too early to forecast what a trial would look like, the official added, saying the question of Trump’s participation has not been resolved.
The official who spotted Trump before leaving for his rally in Pennsylvania said the President did not seem distracted by the inquiry and was preparing for tonight’s speech.
President Trump asserted that Democrats announced they reached a deal on USMCA today to “muffle down” the House’s introduction of articles of impeachment.
“They approved today, of all days — we’ve been waiting a year and they approved today the USMCA. And I call that the silver lining to impeachment, because without the impeachment, they would have never approved it, in my opinion. The impeachment is the reason they approved it and interestingly one hour after the news conference, they went out and did a news conference on the big trade deal,” he said.
Trump also called the articles of impeachment introduced earlier today introduced “very weak.”
Trump also asserted that the “favor” he mentioned on his call with the Ukrainian president was in relation to doing the US a favor, not him.
For just the fourth time in American history, the President faces articles of impeachment.
Democrats claim President Trump committed two “high crimes and misdemeanors” — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. But did they pull their punches in order to protect center-left members of their caucus in swing districts?
In today’s episode of “The Daily DC: Impeachment Watch” podcast, CNN political director David Chalian unpacks a historic day with CNN reporter and producer Marshall Cohen and CNN legal analyst Shan Wu.
The House Judiciary Committee will begin formal discussions about the articles of impeachment tomorrow night, according to a source familiar. The meetings will be public and on camera.
Here’s how the next couple days are expected to proceed:
Federal Judge Richard Leon didn’t decide what to do with impeachment witness Charles Kupperman’s court case today, after more than an hour of arguments.
The House and the Justice Department have asked the DC District judge to dismiss the case — and the House lawyers promised emphatically that their committees wouldn’t subpoena Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser, as impeachment heads to a Senate trial. The House also wouldn’t hold him in contempt, its lawyers said.
Why this matters: The case — where Kupperman went to court after he received a House subpoena in late October and was told by the White House not to testify — has effectively put a pause on the fight between the House and the White House over impeachment witnesses. Several did not testify under the President’s direction, and the House announced today it would introduce an article of impeachment against Trump for obstructing Congress. Kupperman, at times, has been considered a stand-in for John Bolton, another top witness the House had wanted to speak about the President and who hasn’t testified.
The House admitted in court Tuesday it’s basically powerless to force administration officials to testify at this time.
“We like to keep up appearances we have a jail in the basement,” US House attorney Todd Tatelman told the judge, conceding that the House wouldn’t arrest a person on his or her own for defying a congressional subpoena. The House would “absolutely will not be doing this here in this instance.”
Democratic sources say that House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler privately advocated for obstruction of justice as an article of impeachment, which would have included evidence from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
As CNN reported this afternoon, there were multiple individuals, including committee chairs and members of Democratic leadership, who also agreed with a separate article of impeachment.
Ultimately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed the two articles that were unveiled today — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Multiple Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee say that the conversation they had privately with Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University law professor, during a Saturday prep session, helped convince them that narrowly crafted articles focused on Ukraine was the best path forward.
Tribe praised the articles in a tweet today — while highlighting the language that referred back to President Trump’s conduct Mueller documented.
Separately, Nadler wrote a letter to House Democrats this afternoon.
In it, he said:
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said it is “way too early” to make an assessment on President Trump’s impeachment, but added that he is “keeping an open mind.”
Asked if he’s open to voting to convict Trump, he said, “I’m keeping an open mind until that process is completed.”
Separately, Senate Majority Whip John Thune was asked if he expected any GOP votes to convict Trump: “You have to go through the process, but I would not expect that to be the case.”
Also, one moderate Democrat— Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — refused to take any questions about her views on the articles of impeachment. An aide repeatedly interjected and instructed reporters to call her press office.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said some GOP members are forming their own “conspiracy caucus,” where they are “pushing known Putin propaganda that Ukraine interfered in our elections.”
Schumer added that none of these conspiracy theories “address the facts in the articles of impeachment.”
Schumer was also asked when he’ll have discussions with McConnell on the Senate trial. He replied, “As soon as he’s ready.”
Asked if he has received an invitation from McConnell yet, Schumer said “not yet, no.”
Schumer wouldn’t get into specifics about what the ideal Senate trial would look like, in response to a reporter question. He only said, “it should be fair, it should be bipartisan, and it should let the facts come out.”
He added: “It is not lost on members of the United States Senate that the White House has made a choice to block witnesses from testifying under oath and has refused to provide documents that might disprove the evidence against the President.”
Some House Democrats from districts that President Trump won in 2016 met Monday to discuss ways to possibly avoid a full on impeachment trial. They suggested an official censure of the President instead.
They argue that the outcome of an impeachment trial in the GOP Senate will inevitably lead to an acquittal, and say they hope a censure option could broaden the chance of building bipartisan support.
But the members recognized that censuring the President was unlikely to succeed, according to two sources with knowledge of the meeting.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate trial will start “right around the time the bowl games end,” at a news briefing following Senate lunches today.
An aide said McConnell is talking about starting the trial after the New Year’s bowls, which are a series of six college football matches.
CNN’s Lauren Fox asked if he will be meeting soon, or even next week, with Minority Leader Schumer to discuss Senate trial procedure, McConnell replied: “Yeah, we’ll be talking about the way to go forward and see if we can reach an agreement.”
But he added they have not spoken about it yet.
Asked if the Senate will take live witnesses or use taped depositions, McConnell said, “We’ll make that decision after we’ve heard the opening argument.”
The House Democrats’ announcement this morning of articles of impeachment against President Trump highlighted how time is of the essence when Congress wants to check the power of the presidency. But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s remarks also noted the judicial branch’s power and timing — and how the federal courts, in this situation, may be taking too long.
What Schiff said:
In many ways, Schiff’s right. (He’s certainly correct about the timeline in former White House counsel Don McGahn’s case, which is still unresolved.) Federal courts have spent months weighing disputes between the House and Trump or his White House, especially when they relate to possible impeachment. And none of the cases have been definitively decided yet.
Here are some more examples:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said they won’t hold an impeachment trial or take up the USMCA trade bill until they come back from recess scheduled to begin at the end of next week.
House Democrats engaged in a vigorous debate behind-the-scenes about whether to charge President Trump with obstruction of justice as part of an article of impeachment, but ultimately decided that doing so would become a more difficult message to sell and could cost votes on the floor, according to multiple Democratic sources involved in the discussions.
At a closed-door meeting Monday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team debated about adding an article of impeachment on obstruction of justice related to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, but it was recognized in the room that they would lose some Democratic votes. The idea was broached of even seeing that article of impeachment voted down, but there was little support for going that route, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
Several Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee pushed hard to include the language, arguing that not charging Trump with obstruction of justice would excuse Trump’s allegedly illegal behavior.
But a source familiar with the matter said that Democrats didn’t want to jeopardize the overall impeachment effort, and House Judiciary Committee Democrats ultimately got behind the decision to allude to the Mueller allegations in the articles as part of a reference to a pattern of Trump’s behavior.
