McSally says some Democrats will vote to acquit president

Sen. Martha McSally said she expects some Democrats to vote to acquit President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial and doubled down on her belief that even if Trump did everything Democrats allege, he shouldn’t be removed from office.

“If you think about this, this is about taking the president out of office, decapitating the government, and then taking him off the ballot,” McSally, RAriz., said in a Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends. “So that the voters don’t get to decide who their president is. So that’s a very high bar. I would expect Republicans to vote to acquit and I would expect some Democrats to, as well.”

McSally revealed where she stood on the trial last week, saying she had heard enough and that she was ready to vote to acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The final act of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial is set for Wednesday.

On Fox News Channel, McSally slammed Iowa Democrats for their failure to report the results of the Iowa caucuses Monday night. Officials with the Iowa Democratic Party said underlying data collected on an app used to report caucus results “was sound” but the system was only reporting out partial data.

Party officials said precinct chairs reported the data accurately, but that it would take time to finalize results. The failures threw the first-in-the-country presidential contest into chaos as the candidates moved on to New Hampshire. Results from Iowa are expected to be released at 3 p.m. Arizona time.

Asked what Democrats’ performance says about the party in Iowa, McSally said, “I think it’s disgusting.

“Look, they can count ballots faster in Afghanistan and Somalia than the

Democrats can figure this out in Iowa. I think it shakes the confidence as to what’s actually happening there ... You want to run the country and you can’t even figure out how to tabulate your votes?”

McSally also defended her namecalling of a CNN reporter, who asked her last month if she supported hearing from additional witnesses.

In response to the question — which reporters on Capitol Hill and in Arizona were seeking the answer to — McSally responded: “You’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you. You’re a liberal hack.”

She posted her team’s own recording of the encounter on social media and used it to help raise money for her election.

“It rallied the base,” McSally said. “People, I think, appreciate when we call the media the ‘liberal media,’ especially CNN, what they are.”

McSally lost her 2018 race for Arizona’s other Senate seat to Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. She said Tuesday that her race this year will determine whether Republicans keep the Senate, a refrain she has used since 2018.

McSally faces a primary challenge from the right in Daniel McCarthy.

The winner of the Aug. 4 primary election is expected to face Democrat Mary Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, in the November general election.

“In Arizona, I’m the firewall to make sure we keep the Senate majority,” McSally said.

“If you think about this, this is about taking the president out of office, decapitating the government, and then taking him off the ballot.”