Ask A Genius 506 – Bad Faith, or Blood (3)
March 7, 2019
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What will this mean the 2020 election?
Rick Rosner: The Democrats can’t go too fast. They have to either build the evidence with hearings or the hearings have to look somewhat reasonable, or hyper-reasonable, because Fox will paint them as unreasonable regardless.
They have to time it. So, the damage done to Trump is reflected in his performance in the presidential primaries beginning next year. I think the presidential primaries run from late February into June.
The primaries are more than 10 months away. Ideally, the damage done to Trump will be so considerable that the Republicans will attempt to primary him. Usually, an incumbent first-term president runs unopposed for his parties nomination.
But occasionally not, Jimmy Carter was primaried. I think Ford was primaried. I think both of them were sufficiently damaged by the primarying. In Carter’s case, a single term president; in Ford’s case, a partial term president.
So, if Trump looks damaged enough, somebody like Kasich may decide to run against him (the Ohio governor). It is probable that Trump will be found not guilty but culpable for at least being able to be put on trial.
The deal is, when you can’t charge a sitting president, you can impeach him. We talked about how impeachment has two parts. In the House, a majority of the House can vote to impeach the president. That is step one.
Step two is if they vote to impeach him, then he goes on trial in the Senate. The House is controlled by Democrats. So, it is likely, if Trump seems guilty of enough stuff, then the House will vote to impeach him.
But the Senate has a majority of Republicans. So, it is highly unlikely. No president has been voted out of the office by the Senate, where you need a 2/3rds vote. It is likely that Trump is guilty of a bunch of impeachable offenses.
If they want to try to get him impeached, it depends on if it will help or hurt his election chances in the 2020 election. Because if they impeach him for what appears to be insufficient cause for the conservative half of the country, it may help him get re-elected.
That is the whole deal. He is probably guilty of a bunch of stuff. He is probably not re-electable. But the Democrats have to play things strategically to avoid giving Trump and Fox News, and the Republicans political leverage to generate sympathy and electability.
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Authors[1]
Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor-in-Chief, In-Sight Publishing
Footnotes
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Rick Rosner 