RNC Official On House Impeachment Vote | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

The Republican party's national spokesperson, Liz Harrington joins The Beat responding to the historic impeachment vote, and what Trump’s defense is after admitting the Ukraine plot. Harrington and former federal prosecutor, John Flannery debate impeachment evidence. Aired on 11/1/19.
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RNC Official On House Impeachment Vote | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

93 comments

    1. @Конрад Лейк The distress signals are already coming from it. Colonel Vindmar did very well. if Bolton testifies he is really going to lower the boom on it all.

    1. @Chris H He withheld military aide dependent upon both the cloud strike investigation and the investigation into the Bidens. Both are investigations into political rivals, while withholding military aid already approved by congress. From the transcript “…he (Biden) stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…” And now multiple people have testified before the house confirming that Trump was demanding that Zelenskyy publicly announce both investigations. Once again a quid pro quo for investigations into political rivals revealed by the white house transcript, admitted by Mulvaney and confirmed by multiple testimonies before the house. That’s still ignoring the fact Trump came out on national TV and asked China to do the same, and asked for Russias aid in 2016

    2. @crzyyak The investigation into the Bidens is part of the larger investigation into the source of the Russiagate hoax, which is what he was asking about. There is no conclusive evidence so far that it was for personal gain. We’ll have to wait and see what else comes out.

  1. The strategy is denial and non answering of questions.
    Deflection.
    Shade.
    Non answers.
    Nothing new.
    And NONE of it will hold up
    In a Court of LAW

    1. @Daekj32 You know I always suspected there were still some intelligent people in the Republican party. I’m relieved to hear you confirm that. Now could you tell us who it is. We need that person right now!

    2. Yet the strategy works, sadly. And the court of law at the highest level, the supreme court, is tipped in their favor, so even the law.

    3. *Ignore* .. talk about *other* dumb things that have *nothing* to do with the answer.. and hope to *frustrate* the person asking the question.

    1. Trumps minions defend him so vehemently cause they’re convinced that Donald is the beginning of a right-wing dynasty. After him follow his kids and the Trumps will reign over the country for decades and longer. The extreme right-wing see Trump as their way to end the american experiment and to establish a right-wing conservative one party fascist plutocracy like Rhodesia or South Africa. It’s their only way to stay in power cause the demographic change is about to sweep them away.

    2. @Chris H See, you immediately wanting to bring up an old administration’s faults while we have immediate problems with the current ones that are happening right now… that’s a problem. How do we ever change things if we’re complaining about what happened 8 years ago? That and the fact that most of this “hypocrisy” you’re referring to isn’t factual information, cause they’re propaganda talking points purposely concocted as a distraction. I’m not denying the existence of a lot of hypocrisy, obviously, but let the historians bring it up at least 16 years later so we can get on with the work of actually fixing today’s problems. If you’re trying to mention hypocrisy in a “lets not do that again” context, then yes… you should. But not in defense of “oh, he’s only screwing up in the exact same way Obama did”, cause that’s just shooting yourself in the foot, don’t you think?

    1. Leone perhaps he meant an, and I do believe they might exist, honest conservative republican, but I think they can’t survive under this political environment. As a matter of fact, pretty much everyone is pressured into voting party over country these days in Congress. It’s sad because when I vote I always have high hopes that this time maybe things will be different, but they don’t even try to hide it anymore.

    2. @Конрад Лейк wow your comment was identical to Toward Treatise that was posted at the exact same time. If you end up wondering why you trolls are not taking seriously, just look back at this video.

    3. @Sabo308 I’m not Toward Treatise. And anyway I dont know how telling someone that I’ll answer their questions is trolling.

    4. @Sabo308 But since Maxwell hasn’t asked anything yet It’s safe to assume he’s the one trolling here.

    1. @tonak1
      I also think that the right to vote is extremely important & I also think that it is equally important for the voting process to be such that everyone can have confidence in the legitimacy of the results, whether this means knowing that there were not any improper votes cast or that there was no chicanery going on with electronic voting machines. So, I have a few questions to ask you…

      1) Why are they unwilling to provide the funding necessary to ensure there are enough polling places for there not to be multi-hour long lines to vote, nor that there are voting machines that are working, secure, & that provide paper printouts that can be audited & re-checked for accuracy?

      2) Why are they so unwilling to automatically enroll people to vote, or actively choose to “opt-out” when they interact with some government agency that has the ability to access their citizenship status easily [i.e. dmv, social services, etc..]?

      Just for the record as far as people illegally casting votes in elections, if people were genuinely concerned about that, should know that A) We are talking about literally a handful of votes in any given national election cycle which has anywhere from 80 to 120 million votes cast [depending on mid-term or presidential years,] & those votes are cast virtually 50/50 (I can’t remember the exact split in numbers but illegally cast votes do not strongly favor 1 party or the other.] But, if people are still worried about it then a few more questions to consider…

      1) Why don’t they operate a national voter roll so that people cannot register & vote in 2 different precincts & states & local authorities can more effectively cooperate & detect any schemes that may take place?

      2) So, here is a compilation of voter fraud put together by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing/Conservative think tank, that advocates for & supports voter ID laws. https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud#choose-a-state If you go through their database of “1,241 proven instances of voter fraud” like I just spent the last 2 hours doing you will find the following information.

      Of those 1,241 “proven instances of voter fraud” there were only 62 instances of non-citizens who actually cast a vote in an election. 11 of those 62 cases involved people who had stolen the identities of people who were US citizens & who actually had photo id’s so a photo id law & citizenship verification requirements would have done absolutely nothing in these instances. At least 1 or possibly 2 of the 62 involved absentee voting which photo id laws would also not do sh-t about because they stop only in-person voter fraud, but most cases did not include any information on the method they used to vote & I did not feel like wasting any further time trying to track them all down to find out how many would have fit under this category. Oh, & for 1 of the 62 the election in which they illegally voted in was a *School District Election.*

      This database contains entries that have an disposition date all the way back in 1979, & even if we just limit the disposition dates of the non-citizens who actually cast a vote in an election it goes all the way back to 2002. So this means that these cases would involve non-citizens voting in the elections from 2000 & onward (for the record we can also know for a fact it was actually more elections than this because a some of them [i.e. a single digit number of them, but more than 2 & I don’t feel like digging up exactly how many again now,] voted in “multiple” elections spanning decades previously so the actual impact of the voting would be even more spread out than this calculation would imply. So, let’s assume all 62 of those non-citizens [despite it only being 51 who could have potentially been stopped with both photo id laws & citizenship verification laws,] who voted had done so in the elections from 2000 to 2014 [because the data for the official ballots cast in 2016 are not final so we will leave that 136 million number out of the equation,] & in fact let’s say each of them voted in each of the 8 elections.

      That would mean there were 496 illegal votes cast by non-citizens in 8 elections which had a total vote count of 970,819,862 which is 0.000051%. If you took all 62 as having voted in the year with the lowest total votes cast, the 2002 mid-terms, [which still had 80,295,249 votes cast] that would only be 0.000077%. This is after the Republicans have spent 19 years & sh-tloads of manpower & resources searching for voter fraud & this was what they came up with.

      So, it is an objective *fact* that in the effort to prevent what ammounted to *less than 100 votes* cast in elections over the past almost two decades there have been literally tens of thousands, if not over the course of those 8 elections hundreds of thousands, of American citizens who are legally allowed to vote in elections who did not have their votes counted. Can anyone legitimately claim that the number of illegal votes that could have possibly been prevented compared to the number of *legal voters* prevented from voting as a result of “collateral damage” is an acceptable ratio… seriously?

    2. @Dan Givens man don’t go with the black people argument calling the race card cuz black people have had to navigate between Republicans and Democrats since the end of the Civil War! Republican Democrat both on the same bird. of racism right wing Republicans left-wing Democrats and right now in this country’s history it’s the Republicans who are more detrimental to the progress of people of color in this country!

    3. @tonak1, Look up gerrymandering, Southern strategy, voting places closing in minority districts, etc.
      If you want to talk about voter id, you would first need to know the history of how it came to be and the supreme court ruling against voter id laws. The TLDR version is that certain id laws targeted minority groups that didn’t have that type of id. It would then require people to go to their closest government location to get the proper id. It would be extremely effective at suppressing certain types of votes.
      Also eligible voters have never to be proven a problem anywhere in the United States. Even Trump had an investigation done about illegal immigrants voting, and they had nothing to show for it.

    4. @B Chin Gerrymandering is a time honored liberal action and doesn’t involve the presidential election. AS far as voter id’s I’m referring to any form of id that’s available. People can walk up and vote without any proof of identity and can’t buy beer without proof, just saying.

    5. @tonak1, I was mostly talking about voter suppression in general not just the presidential. Gerrymandering was invented by a democratic republican and is used by both parties, however mostly taken advantage of by republicans.
      What do you mean by “any id that is available”. A lot of people (especially poorer areas) don’t even have ID’s like a state or drivers ID, bus pass, student ID, passport, etc. Millions of people wouldn’t be able to vote on this rule that you think makes the system better.

    1. Great another Democrat obsessed with impeachment. You dummycrats need to stop listening to nervous Nancy Pelosi and commie Adam S

  2. Out of all the mountains that republicans could have chosen to fight and die on, they chose to fight and die on Bull💩 Mountain.

    1. Spyderred I think what you mention is the policy of the left at large. Power of government. I look forward to your rude and dismissive response.

  3. She’s not very good at this. Plus, her overly aggressive, assertive style that kills any effective discussion will ensure she’s not invited back and then the RNC loses a place at the table

    1. @Chris H When you represent a crooked, lying, threatening, constitution-ignoring , illiterate ‘President’ EVERY QUESTION has traps, because they are trying to deny what he did. And he breaks the law all the time! These were not loaded questions, they were legitimate questions that every thinking person wants answered honestly. She was pathetic. Every answer she gave was a “…but what about…” one, bringing up dis-proven conspiracies and straight-out lies, and then trying to talk down any opposing view. She is an amateur!!

    1. @Gary Campbell And open the door for future corruption and getting away with it thanks to his precedence and GOP shortsidedness . Period

    2. Each Senator will vote to acquit your president if, and only if, they feel they wont be voted out by their constituents next year in favour of a Democrat candidate. They will vote to remove your president if, and only if, they feel they wont be primaried by another Republican.

      So, public opinion will sway this vote, not just Republican voter opinion but also the opinions of Democrat and independent voters. The facts that will be presented in the Senate trial will matter only so much as how they are received by your fellow Americans, and so Fox will do it’s best obfuscate those facts as best they can.

      Greetings from the UK, the Trump Show is the best show on TV right now, it’s way better than Brexit. Also, Americans, be aware, the world is watching you.

    1. @Chris H one straight question at least. What is your opinion? Is it right or wrong? Not please compare apples and oranges. A loaded question? How does one define the weight of a question? Maybe answer the questions and give your evidence to support your answers rather than deflecting and asking about unrelated topics

    2. @Ivan Tang _”Are the Republicans still asking for foreign help to get Trump reelected?”_

      It seems Melber was referring to the call with Zelensky, in which case I think his question contains false — or at least disputed — information. So a yes or no will not suffice.

    3. @Chris H the answer should have been, “we have never and will never do that, blah blah blah. Just answer straight up.

    4. @vsedai She opted to point out the obvious hypocrisy contained in his question. If someone asks a loaded question they should expect such an answer.

  4. While I respect the fact that she agreed to come on, I absolutely loathe her. You cannot have a debate by dodging questions and making unsubstantiated claims, and although there wasn’t much doubt to begin with, she’s given away the entirety GoP strategy going forward: don’t address the substance, don’t bother to debate the merits or lack thereof of Trump’s actions, just point elsewhere, call it a “witch hunt” and cry about how unfair everything is.
    Oh, and lie. Lie lie lie. The economy isn’t “great” and in fact we all know that it would be a lot better without Trump’s insane trade war costing thousands of jobs, and their ridiculous tax cut that was supposed to drive up investment but has actually been shown going down.
    The Justice Department has already said they didn’t know aid was being held up for one of their investigations, and if corruption is indeed so important to Trump, then why can’t he name a single cast that isn’t Biden and the server conspiracy theory? Why is it that only Burisma and Biden are mentioned, and why did he want President Zelenskyy “in a box” by announcing those investigations publicly?
    And if they’re actually interested in a fair process, if they actually think this is a witch hunt and the facts are on their side, why did NONE OF THEM vote for public depositions and transcripts? Why did every single Republican vote no to the “due process” they’ve been crying about?
    I’m so sick of their lies.

    1. I don’t want to watch eve 2 seconds of that again, but what was that, 4 or 5 bogus sentences of nothing until Obama came out of this rethuglikkkan harpy? How pathetic.

    2. @Chris H She could have said it was a loaded question and asked Ari to re-phrase it? but NO! you think it’s OK for her to talk about pink unicorns, flying pigs and the leprechauns that live at the bottom of the white house rather than address the issue on the table.

    1. @alaffia rose Yes because Conway has perfected the art of BS and this spokesperson has no clue what she’s doing.

  5. So the Republican’s talking point is, “Blah, blah, blah. Lie, lie, lie.” The guidance is “don’t answer questions directly”.

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