After Donald Trump implored yet another country—China—on Thursday to interfere in the 2020 elections by investigating the Bidens, Republican lawmakers ran for the bunkers. A White House spokesperson had "no comment" about Trump's remarks. Even Freedom Caucus fav and Trump stooge Rep. Jim Jordan dodged a reporter question, saying he hadn't seen Trump's remarks.
Later that night the tranche of diplomatic texts hit, detailing the blow by blow of how U.S. diplomats were feverishly working to meet the political demands of Trump and his fixer Rudy Giuliani in order to get desperately needed military aid to Ukraine. By Friday, a Republican senator who had been told about Trump's extortion of Ukraine by the diplomats working to free up funds decided he better fess up to his knowledge of Trump's dirty scheme before someone else outed him.
It turns out that Trump's seat-of-his-pants 'strategy' to combat impeachment isn't going so well. One day he denies committing the crime, the next day he revels in recommitting the very crime he denied the day before, and the next day he spends 25 minutes yelling about the imaginary crimes others have committed in his head. The only thing that's consistent is the incompetency of Trump's inconsistencies. And as support for impeachment has steadily ticked up during two solid weeks of polling, GOP lawmakers—especially in the Senate—are faced with the grim reality of making political bets on a raging fire that could shift directions at any given moment.
Some, like Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, are sticking with the same playbook they have clung to for the better part of three years—back Trump at all costs, even if it means selling out your country. One could argue that electorally Cornyn doesn't have much a choice, given that Trump won Texas by 9 points in 2016 and still has a positive approval rating there, 49%-47%, according to state poling from Politico/Morning Consult. But Tillis, whose state went for Trump by a little over 3 points, is going in hard with a much bigger wager even though Trump is now several points underwater there (47% approve, 50% disapprove).
"It's a disgrace that Democrats are using all their time and resources pursuing impeachment and trying to destroy President Trump politically," his office said in statement, adding that Democrats and the media were using "anything and everything to justify impeaching" Trump.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, however, is really feeling the pinch as Trump's trade war decimates farm country. Although Trump won Iowa by nearly 10 points in 2016, he's now 13 points underwater there, 42%-55%. So when Ernst was asked directly how Trump asking China to investigate the Bidens was "helping anybody," she had no good options.
“Where is the line? When are you guys going to say, ‘Enough’ and say ‘You know what, I’m not backing any of this’?” asked Manning resident Amy Haskins, reminding Ernst that she didn't pledge an oath to the president.
"The president is going to say what the president is going to do," Ernst responded, adding, "I can't speak for him."
Haskins pressed further, noting that she was only asking Ernst to speak for herself and positing, "But it's okay for our President to extort other countries?"
"We can't determine that yet," Ernst offered, saying that the information would be sifted through by the Senate Intelligence Committee and ending with, "Okay, we're going to move on to another question." But Ernst had no good answer to any of those questions, and she knew it. It was written all over her face.
Meanwhile, many swing-district Democratic members of the House met with either support or indifference over their newfound embrace of an impeachment inquiry. That was true this week for both New York Rep. Max Rose and Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild. At Wild's town hall, constituents were much more focused on issues like health care and education. Impeachment was only broached a handful of times and Wild was mostly supported in those moments.
Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria, one of several former veterans and law enforcement officers who announced their impeachment support in an op-ed last week, met with more mixed results.
As Republicans staged a protest outside her town hall in Virginia Beach, Luria answered "about 15 questions and comments on impeachment, which broke evenly between fans and detractors," according to the Washington Post. But Luria received a standing ovation from much of the audience as she told them she wasn't concerned about the criticism of her stance because, "I did the right thing."
But the contrast between Luria and Ernst, who is also a veteran, was stark. While Ernst grimaced and offered excuses for her flimsy posture, Luria was resolute. “I didn’t spend 20 years defending our country in uniform to watch something like this happen and to watch our Constitution be trampled on," Luria said to applause.
Anyone who tells you they know how Trump's impeachment is going to end up playing for either party is wrong. This is truly unprecedented territory. But to date, Democrats are proving to be in a far stronger position on holding Trump accountable than Republicans are on defending him. In addition, Trump complicates that defense even as the situation grows more dynamic by the day. On Friday night, the New York Times reported a second whistleblower with "more direct information" on Trump's pressure campaign is mulling filing their own complaint. As more people start to weigh their place in history, Democrats appear to be headed toward having an ironclad case for impeachment. That won't make life any easier for the Joni Ernst's of 2020 who will be forced to explain why they are betraying their oaths of office in support of a man selling out the country for personal gain.