Last updated on March 26th, 2019 at 10:30 am
Rachel Maddow showed why Trump is setting himself up for failure by refusing to comply and turn over anything to Democratic investigators.
Maddow said:
In 1973 president Nixon tried to make history when he decided he tried not to hand over the congress anything that he did not want them to see that pertained to Watergate, specifically the white house tapes that they had learned of the existence of. That forced a subpoena on the white house for those tapes. Nixon defied the subpoena. That ended up in court. The special prosecutor’s demand for those materials, those tapes ended up going all the way to the U.S. Supreme court. And this is really famous. I mean, let’s say you only know three things about Richard what are the three things you know? You know like Nixon had to resign the presidency, had a dog named Checkers, Supreme Court made him hand over the tapes, right? Even if you only know three things about Richard Nixon, even if you know nothing else about Richard Nixon, you know that unanimously in U.S. v. Nixon, the president was not allowed to say no, no, you can’t visit. I say you can’t.
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But that no, no, you can’t have it policy today was rolled out by the trump administration. They plan to give no documents, no materials to make no witnesses available. And, again, we’ll see how that works out. Honestly, in the courts, we know how it will work out. This has been tested before. This has been tried before. It doesn’t work out well for a president who tries this. But in the meantime, while we are starting down the path to get there, in the meantime, if that is where this is heading, the speed at which this is all going to unfold and how everybody looks in the history books when it’s all over will depend in large part on whether Republicans in Congress, members of the president’s only party in Congress can summon the energy to care about a president who is trying to not only do this to Democrats but trying to do this to them as well.
Video:
#maddow shows how Trump is heading for an epic crash and burn in his latest showdown with Congress. https://t.co/grj0bGFgbf pic.twitter.com/WYfprJ3MSt
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 21, 2019
Trump’s Just Say No Strategy Will Blow Up In His Face
There is zero long-term planning in this administration. The Trump administration is fighting the document requests because Trump is stalling for time. Trump is trying to use his presidential power to obstruct investigations with delay tactics until after the 2020 election. Trump is hoping that he wins reelection, Republicans win back the House, and all of these investigations go away in January 2021.
Presidents who have their backs against the wall and are fighting for the survival of their administration think about survival in terms of days and weeks, not years. Trump is hoping that if he stalls long enough, the House Democrats will go away, but we already know how this chapter of the story ends.
Trump is going to get subpoenaed and he is going to lose.
What should have been normal government oversight will be turned into a spotlight-stealing showdown, as the nation will watch Trump spectacularly crash and burn.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
