Trump dares foes: Bring on the case
US Democrats charge President with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress
WASHINGTON—UNLIKE his fellow Republican president Richard Nixon who resigned before being impeached by Congress, US President Donald Trump remained feisty on Tuesday as he challenged Democrats to bring on his inevitable impeachment.
“If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate,” Trump said in a series of posts on Twitter.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives announced on Tuesday that the chamber would soon vote on two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The charges accuse Trump of abusing power in asking Ukraine to probe Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings where Hunter Biden, the son of former US Vice President Joe Biden, worked as a director.
Divided polity
The Republicans accuse Biden of abusing his office and using US military aid to force Kiev to fire a prosecutor who had announced a corruption investigation of Burisma.
But after two House hearings that did not resolve partisan debate, Trump now wants a full trial with witnesses on the Senate floor.
In a tweet on Dec. 5, he wrote: “We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify.”
He was referring to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, leading Biden, his son Hunter and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all Democrats.
“We need both a full trial and the opportunity to call witnesses,” White House legislative liaison Eric Ueland said after meeting with Republican senators last week.
Even after the Democrats’ almost three-year pursuit of Trump, American society remains divided on the controversial leader.
US media opposed to Trump tried to depict the latest national numbers on polling analysis website Fivethirtyeight as bad for Trump.
Sampling issues
Fivethirtyeight, founded by Democrat statistician Nate Silver and owned by the ABC network, said that Trump is “losing to nearly every one of the multitude of Democrats scrambling to take him on.”
But the Fivethirtyeight polls were taken on a nationwide basis when US presidential elections are won state by state.
On the other hand, Republican pollster Firehouse Strategies said a new survey showed Trump ahead of all Democrat challengers in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, swing states with voters divided between Democrats and Republicans.
‘It’s the economy, stupid’
Trump, on the other hand, is leading an economy that is performing exceedingly well.
A Quinnipiac poll on Tuesday found that 57 percent of voters say that they are better off financially today than they were in 2016, while just 22 percent say they are worse off.
The latest jobs report puts unemployment at 3.5 percent, its lowest since National Aeronautics and Space Administration landed a man on the Moon 50 years ago.
Just as in 2016, the 2020 election is expected to go down to the wire in handful of swing states as Trump and his eventual challenger try to claw their way to the magic number of 270 electoral college votes.
The famous maxim from former president Bill Clinton’s victorious 1992 campaign— “it’s the economy, stupid”— could yet help Trump win the day.