So Trump promised to abandon the people of China if their leader would work out a trade deal?
How is that not a quid pro quo?
Courtesy of CNN:
Thursday’s comments weren’t the first time Trump has injected Biden into his relationship with China, though he said Thursday he has never pushed Xi to investigate the former vice president. Nor is it the first time he has sought to trade favors with Xi, who this week celebrated the 70th birthday of his communist state with a note of congratulations from Trump.
During a phone call with Xi on June 18, Trump raised Biden’s political prospects as well as those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who by then had started rising in the polls, according to two people familiar with the discussion. In that call, Trump also told Xi he would remain quiet on Hong Kong protests as trade talks progressed.
The White House record of that call was later stored in the highly secured electronic system used to house a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s President and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint that’s led Democrats to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Asked earlier this week about Trump’s call with Xi, the White House did not deny that he raised Biden.
“World leaders need to be able to speak freely in their conversations with the President–that is a key component to effective diplomacy. And that is why such conversations are kept confidential,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. “We are not going to start discussing the contents of every conversation President Trump has with world leaders, other than to say his conversations are always appropriate.”
After this story published, Warren reacted to news of Trump’s call with Xi, writing on Twitter, “Trump can say what he wants about me, but it’s outrageous that any president would sell out the people of Hong Kong behind closed doors. The public must see the transcript of Trump’s call with Xi. And we need a leader who will stand up for our values.”
This actually could be worse than Trump’s attempts to get the leaders of foreign countries to help him dig up dirt on Biden in exchange for political favors.
This is the leader of the free world saying that he will not mention the mistreatment of Chinese protesters if the leader of that country will give a little on trade negotiations.
Oh, and he also asked them to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
In fact he once made that request in front of TV cameras.
At this point the House Democrats could impeach this guy with their eyes closed.
I want all his phone calls made available to Congress, if not the American public. Let’s see what he has been saying to putin etc.
I want the translators’ notes for all of those private tete a tetes with Putin.
LOL, trump keeps yakking he has a duty to fight corruption and guess who he has chosen to lead his impeachment defense, JARED. Maybe the trump should start his corruption inquiry at home.
================
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/trump-is-screwed-internet-erupts-in-laughter-after-jared-kushner-tapped-to-lead-impeachment-fight/
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/theyre-busted-chris-hayes-breaks-down-the-damning-new-evidence-against-trump/
“Now, here’s the thing about Trump, always for everything the president has two big defenses, two defenses. One, he does everything in public so there’s no scandal, right? Like how could it be a scandal? Russia, if you’re listening,”
“That is the defense. He’s just Trump being Trump. What do you want? He literally doesn’t know what’s wrong.”
I’ve said this all along. Trump could pass a lie detector test because he doesn’t recognize he lies. He lies about everything but doesn’t believe he is lying. He also doesn’t recognize any crimes he’s committed from cheating at golf to violating the Constitution and his oath of office. To him he always tells the truth, even when he’s making shit up, and he’s never committed a crime, even as he writes checks to pay for lost lawsuits….which he’s “never lost a case.”
He lives in his own delusional alternate universe. George Conway had a very long op ed in The Atlantic describing exactly how mentally broken this man is. He is a narcissist and a sociopath. A Malignant Narcissist. He can’t be fixed. And the Electoral College did NOT do its job.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/george-conway-trump-unfit-office/599128/
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/white-house-has-positively-concluded-biden-wont-be-the-dnc-nominee-theyve-moved-on-report/
“When you talk to people close to the president, the one thing they have in common right now that they’re saying over and over again is that whatever has happened this last two weeks has pushed Joe Biden out, that he’s not going to be the nominee,” Kumar reported.
“They feel very strongly or positively it’s not going to be Joe Biden. They’ve already moved on,” she said. “They think it’s going to be Elizabeth Warren.”
It already wasn’t going to be Joe Biden before all of this hit the fan.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ukraine-impeachment-neal-katyal-text-messages-1463212?fbclid=IwAR3gmwmlDkXpDB_PVKb-1gxzV60M5QjKYnxDp3mWbGrQKo_inwveMkfc9r0
On Friday morning, Katyal wrote on Twitter that he was waking up to “all of this new evidence.” He claimed it showed impeachment was “constitutionally required” and called it “damning and sad.”
“This is just the first week of the investigation,” Katyal wrote, “Trump’s factual defense has already collapsed.” Katyal, who was once named “Litigator of the Year” by American Lawyer magazine, has argued more cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than any other minority attorney, according to his firm’s website. He recently surpassed the previous record set by Thurgood Marshall.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/maddow-says-history-will-remember-today-for-impeachment-inquiry-shifting-to-include-mike-pence/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/amid-ukraine-furor-irs-whistleblower-alleges-treasury-wrongdoing
“At this point the House Democrats could impeach this guy with their eyes closed. ”
And yet they don’t, why is that?
Oh, I think we ALL know why.
Please extrapolate, cause that is not an answer.
Because it won’t pass the Senate. Not yet. It would have to endanger the re-election chances of enough Senators for them to flip. Not enough pressure on Moscow Mitch.
Even if there was a chance of a successful impeachment, Mike Pence would move up to the Oval Office and with plenty of time to campaign for election in 2020. No one wants Mike Pence as president (except the Talibangelicals) and no one wants to give him enough time to mount a successful campaign for 2020.
It would also royally piss off so many of the uneducated Deplorables that they would retaliate by voting Republican and the Democrats might not take back the Senate and might even lose the House. Then our current nightmare continues, only with Pence as president instead of Trump. Same tune, different dance.
The only way this is going to help Democrats is if the inquiry is dragged out and so much corruption and dirt is exposed, the circle of participants continues to widen until the Republican party is so tainted they lose not only in 2020 but for the next decade. That will NOT happen if the House passes articles of Impeachment. The only way to win here is to continue to investigate, expose and drag things out. If by any miracle Trump manages to get re-elected, they can try to impeach him after the election when the new Congress is sworn in and in session. Worse case is nothing has changed. Best case is at least the Democrats have a majority in the House and Senate. Then at least they could veto Pence and try to contain his own version of crazy. Or they can impeach Pence next but it would have to be concurrent with Trump so that neither Pence nor Trump could appoint a new VP. If the Democrats have a majority in both houses and Trump and Pence can both be taken out at the same time, you get President Pelosi or whoever is the Speaker of the House at the time. That is a longshot. But boy, would it make history.
Personally, I’d rather see this play out over the campaign and put Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and a Democrat in the Oval Office. That is really the best way forward. The Republicans will be equally damaged both ways.
Just drag it out and expose more and more corruption. Even some of the Republicans will be so disgusted they’ll just stay home rather than vote if they can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. In which case, the Democrats still win. You don’t have to get their votes, just get them not to vote at all. Isn’t that what all of the Republican voter suppression an election fraud does?
It’s really hard, when you were raised differently, not to root for the complete mental breakdown but I am.
How does Barron get his homework done in such a toxic household?
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/new-eu-ambassador-accused-of-being-nothing-more-than-a-spy-for-the-trump-team-by-ex-ambassador-mcfaul/
This is not just one phone call. This is a series of events.
Ambassador Sondland seems he’s just a Trump guy,” continued McFaul. “He ends up in the European Union ambassadorship. Why on Earth our ambassador to the EU is involved in Ukraine is a giant mystery to me, other than he’s just the political advisor, you know, spy for the Trump team and Taylor, somebody who was appointed — just to be clear about it — appointed after they fired the previous ambassador, he goes out, he’s still there in an interim basis, and he clearly is not part of the Trump team. He looks at this and he says, this is not right and I really think we should applaud what Ambassador Taylor said.”
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/10/05/every-gop-senator-refused-to-respond-when-asked-about-trumps-demand-for-china-to-investigate-biden.html
The difference between the Trump impeachment and the events that caused Richard Nixon to resign is that it is wishful thinking to believe that any Senate Republicans will vote to convict Donald Trump. The Senate Republican strategy under Mitch McConnell will be to bury impeachment and pretend like it doesn’t exist. The evidence doesn’t matter. Dozens of whistleblowers and Trump calls for foreign leaders to interfere in the 2020 election won’t matter. Senate Republicans are going to turtle up and hide in their shells when asked icky questions about their president’s impeachable actions. Some may express “concern.” but no one is going to do anything about ~IT~.
Exactly.
AND Trump will never resign.
Pence and the Cabinet will never invoke the 25th.
Even if Trump finally bursts an aneurysm we’ll still get Pence as president and nothing will change.
McConnell and the Republicans will do nothing.
Pence won’t resign.
Whoever Pence appoints as VP and the cabinet will never invoke the 25th over Pence’s impeachment offenses.
McConnell and the Republicans will do nothing.
The only way to win is to expose so much of their corruption that the Republicans lose big time from the Oval Office on down to dog catcher.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/white-house-aides-bust-trump-for-fawning-call-to-putin-where-he-babbled-on-and-on-report/
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/trump-gives-away-the-game-on-his-last-possible-defense-in-the-ukraine-scandal/
“I don’t care about Biden’s campaign,” Trump said. “But I do care about corruption. His campaign, that’s up to him. Politics, that’s up to them. I don’t care about politics.“
So in the face of all the other evidence that Trump doesn’t care at all about corruption, the president was asked to name a single instance — just one could have sufficed — of his asking for a specific corruption investigation that wasn’t about Biden or a political opponent.
He was stumped.
aka foXed