Trump Ukraine whistleblower scandal

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Trump is a long way from being convicted of impeachment,no president has ever been convicted of impeachment

Andrew Johnson came close, though. He was acquitted by one vote.

For that, you would need to hold the impeachment trial.

Transcript can be read here:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics ... index.html

Like much of Trump's doings it will probably read like a Rorschach test. I'll give my own take once I've had time to read the whole thing.

Krystal Ball is awesome. She brings up, very well, Joe and Hunter Biden's corruption being revealed by Ukraine and that for this to be the thing to impeach over is a bit of a screw-up for Democrats:



We should investigate Joe Biden as well.

I read the transcript and I don't recall there being anything about Biden or Hunter Biden or presuring a prosecuter to investigate either one.
I recall some talk of a female prosecuter and some talk of Trump asking for a favor but no direct refference to presuring a prosecuter to look into Hunter Biden.

Unless I missed something there was no real direct evidence in the transcript against Trump

Are we reading the same thing? It says it right here:

your right I missed that,I'm glad you pointed that out.I will admit I was multitasking at the time I initially read it and may have misread it.

Trump also discussed a DNC server with the Ukraine leader, and asked him for a political favor:

The reference to Crowdstrike makes it clear that "the server" here is a reference to the DNC server, as they're the people who investigated the DNC cyber attacks and linked them to Russia, per Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStri ... stigations

Here Trump is referring to a conspiracy theory that one of the DNC servers was taken and hidden in Ukraine:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/crowdstri ... conspiracy

Krystal Ball voiced what I have been in part thinking. I expect Krystal Ball's scenario as more likely to play out than Cenk Uygur's. However I still am far from convinced Trump will be reelected despite how hard the Dems "try" just because he will or can not expand his base. Putting on my tin foil hat I would not be surprised if Trump wants to be impeached and did this to take out the person he believes to be his toughest opponent fully expecting not to be convicted. This happened the day after Muller's "exoneration", Muller was even mentioned in the conversation, that is not an accident.

Nate Silver's take: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/im ... different/

Some things he writes about that I agree with:

On why impeachment is unpopular while approval of Trump is low:

On why public opinion matters:



On the importance on sticking to Ukraine:

Antrax,

Good point. Plus, it would look like Democrats are just slinging mud at the wall to see what sticks.

Still, per the Young Turks, they should not "preemptively" narrow the scope of the impeachment inquiry:



Ana Kasparian says we should not be "leading from fear", and the Republicans for sure would not preemptively narrow the scope of their investigations. Democrats should stop worrying about Republicans, and excite their own base.

EDIT: And Cenk Uygur said something that I think really gets to the heart of the matter: "And then there's the corporate Democrats, who are like, Oh, I don't know. What will Trump voters think? But guys, look, this one is so over the top, like, it really got me to question, like, do they not wanna dig because folks are gonna find out things about Democrats?" Bam!

Since it does not look likely that the Senate will convict Trump, finding things about Democrats increases the chance of him being reelected. In that scenario the progressives made a statement whoopdee do, America would have elected Trump not once but twice. That can’t be written off as a horrible error of judgement. The hard core MAGA’s including the MAGA in chief will feel so vindicated, so much a sense of schadenfreude that the amount and intensity of their bullying and norm breaking and more will ramp up a lot.

The priority ought to be not only the election but having something to put together afterwards. Everything needs to be thought of in that context. The election really can’t be close. There will always be hardcore MAGA’s Trump probably included that won’t accept the results and will act out no matter what. But there are a lot of others probably most other MAGA’s that will slink quietly away in the face of a decisive loss. A close loss will be widely pinned on a conspiracy and Trump’s post election ravings will still dominate political discussion, not as much after a decisive loss. If Trump has to be physically carried out obviously that would make things very difficult and dangerous.

Cenk is wrong the anti Trump people fearful of impeachment are fearful of angering hardcore Trump voters, they are fearful of alienating the Trump 2016, congressional democrat 2018 voter. Why would Cerk argue against focusing on policy, while AOC is getting all of the publicity the blue wave was created by candidates ignoring the Trump outrage of the moment and focusing on policy specifically healthcare.

The timing of this is ironic. Until now Biden was the Trump of this season committing gaffe after gaffe and never losing his large lead. There is now significant signs of change, Warren has persisted(pun intended) and has gained significantly if not drawn even with Biden.

So again, you want us to act based on fear. You want us to sweep everything under the rug, and pretend everything with the Democrats is just hunky dory. Boy, where can this go wrong?

And what makes you think that the Democratic victory in 2018 was because of remorseful Trump voters? And what makes you think they'd be turned off by impeachment? I believe in 2018, there were a lot of new, younger voters, making it the midterm with the highest turnout in decades.

Turnout is still abysmally low in America compared to other developed countries. How about, we work on fighting voter suppression, and how about we actually excite younger voters? How about we talk about how younger voters may actually be able to retire, about how we will take care of climate change, leaving a better future for them and their children?

Why instead do we have to keep playing the same old sad and cynical political games?

The base is pro impeachment no doubt, and at this point of probable no return the expectations are so high if they do not impeach it might be worse then if they do. And since Trump can’t or won’t expand his base the Democrats will probably win and win big no matter what they do. The Trump 2016 voter, congressional democrat 2018 voter might be a small group but they could decide or more likely turn a landslide into a close election.

I am willing to play almost any game that will result in a clear rejection of Trump and Trumpism and deal with the rest later. Right now their best play since they are on this path is impeach him fast and try and get the conversation back to economics and to a lesser extent thier candidates ASAP. Peoples opinion of Trump are baked in and a significant majority don’t like him. Economics worked for them in 2018 in a “good” economy in a big way so what I am advocating is do not fix what worked.

As far as fear if everybody that did not like Trump had more of it we would not be where we are.