On the heels of a historic impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump's White House put out a statement that, once again, failed to emphasize any coherent strategy for weathering the proceeding other than focusing on Trump's victimhood. "Instead of focusing on pressing issues that impact real families," the statement said, "Democrats are choosing every day to waste time on a sham impeachment—a blatantly partisan attempt to destroy the President."
Notably, the statement neither defended the substance of Trump's actions (as Trump himself has been imploring his own party to do) nor made a serious effort to train White House resources on any actual policy goals.
Other than claiming at the outset that Trump has "done nothing wrong," the statement amounted to a full-throated attack on the process Democrats laid out in the impeachment resolution. That resolution, by the way, gives the minority party at least as many if not more rights than past impeachment rules have. Yet the White House claimed the resolution had "done nothing more than enshrine unacceptable violations of due process into House rules.”
The statement also made a swipe at Democrats' failure to focus on the kitchen-table issues of the American people such as reducing gun violence, passing the trade policy, lowering medical care costs, and immigration issues. Democrats have indeed addressed many of those issues and even passed bills on them that went to the GOP-led Senate to die at the feet of self-proclaimed grim reaper Mitch McConnell. But all that aside, when was the last time you recall the White House making a serious effort to roll out a policy proposal, rally around it, garner bipartisan support for it, etc? Those efforts basically stopped flowing at the beginning of 2018, when Republicans still held the House majority but couldn't manage to think of anything to do after passing their tax giveaway to America's wealthiest families and corporations.
Bottom line: don't expect anything new under the sun from this White House. No serious defense of Trump's actions will emerge. No serious policy proposals will be advanced. And Trump's victimhood will still be taking center stage forevermore.
Read the statement below.