True test for Trump will come at polls
Voters will get their say in 2020 elections
Robert Mueller’s testimony yesterday sent the clearest signal yet that impeachment may be slipping out of reach for Democrats and that the ultimate verdict on President Donald Trump will be rendered by voters in the 2020 election.
Democrats had hoped the former special counsel’s appearance would be a turning point. But in this era of stark political polarisation, galvanising the public is a difficult task even if Mueller wanted to produce a viral moment, which he never seemed inclined to do. Mueller’s reluctance to engage, and his one-word answers, deprived the country of a wherewere-you-when moment.
Trump derided Mueller’s appearance — “disaster”, he tweeted — and started fundraising off it. The President’s re-election campaign set a US$2 million ($3m) goal over 24 hours, it said, to counter those trying to “TRICK the American People into believing their LIES”.
Allies of the White House quickly joined in. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called Mueller’s appearance “sad”, while Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence panel, said the hearing was the “last gasp“of
the investigation. “It’s time for the curtain to close on the Russia hoax,” Nunes said.
Much was riding on Mueller’s appearance, coming months after the release of his report in April. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is weighing liberal calls for impeachment against her own instincts for a more measured approach. More than 85 House Democrats have called for the House to begin impeachment proceedings, and more lawmakers are expected to add their names after Mueller’s testimony.
Yet even though Democrats hold the House majority, they’re far from the 218 votes that would be needed to approve articles of impeachment. With Republicans controlling the Senate, many Democrats warn moving forward is a political dead-end.
Still, Mueller’s appearance was far from a political loss for either party. Ahead of the 2020 election, both are trying to reach the slice of Americans who have not hardened to partisan positions. Perhaps Mueller’s testimony, with his button-down lawyer’s approach, reached some of them. As a report yesterday announced the speed and extent of current global warming exceeds any similar event in the past 2000 years, Europe baked under record-breaking heat.
The study, which crunched data covering two millennia from almost 700 sources ranging from tree rings and coral to sediments and ice cores, found that previous major climate events were confined to certain areas, and not global phenomena, said one of its co-authors, Columbia University climate scientist Nathan Steiger.
“The main takeaway is that climate variability in the contemporary period is very different than what’s happened in the past 2000 years,” he said of the study, published in the journal Nature.
Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London, said the paper should “finally stop climate-change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural . . . cycle”. A parallel study published in Nature Geoscience found that preindustrial fluctuations in temperature were primarily driven by volcanic activity.
The report was published as a highpressure system drew scorching air from the Sahara desert for the second time in a month and sent temperatures soaring in Europe, breaking heat records for Belgium and the Netherlands, with Germany and France likely to follow suit.
In the Netherlands, the temperature reached 39.1C, breaking the previous record of 38.6C set in August 1944. And in Belgium, the mercury struck 38.9C, beating the high of 36.6C from June 1947 in records dating back to 1833.
In Paris, the chief architect of historical monuments warned that the intense heat risked bringing down Notre-Dame, which was ravaged by a fire in April.
One Eurostar train broke down in Belgium due to a power failure, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded in 40C heat with no air conditioning.
In Spain, a wildfire in the northern province of Zaragoza was almost under control, but there was a risk of further outbreaks, especially in eastern parts where the temperature was set to rise as high as 41C.
In Portugal, the largest fire this year was put out by 1000 firefighters on Tuesday, but the country remained on high alert. — Agencies