The backlash over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to move forward with President Donald Trump’s impeachment is already beginning to materialize.
The Democrats’ latest attempt to discredit the 2016 election has fired up Trump’s base, and his 2020 campaign didn’t squander the opportunity to fill its war chest. The president’s re-election campaign says it has already raised $13 million in the days since Pelosi announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry, according to The Hill.
Another win for Trump
After months of holding back from restive members of her caucus, Pelosi announced Tuesday that the Democrats would move to impeach Trump — not for Russia collusion or “obstruction,” but for asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, after a “whistleblower” accused Trump of soliciting foreign election help. The news brought immediate speculation from Trump and many Republicans that Pelosi had, for unclear reasons, handed Trump his re-election in a gift-wrapped box.
“They all say that’s a positive for me, for the election,” Trump told reporters in New York on Tuesday, according to Reuters. “But the good news is, the voters get it. This is why they say it’s good for the election. But you know what? It’s bad for the country.”
Within moments of Pelosi’s announcement, Team Trump responded with a video montage highlighting the Democrats’ obsession with impeachment, and the campaign blasted out texts, e-mails, and Facebook ads asking donors to contribute to Trump’s “Impeachment Defense Task Force.” The video was ready for weeks “in case the Democrats were that dumb” to impeach Trump, communications director Tim Murtaugh told ABC News.
But impeachment seems to be paying dividends for Team Trump so far. Within 24 hours, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) raised $5 million across all 50 states, and over the next two days, the president’s son, Eric, reported that the campaign had raised another $8.5 million “in small-dollar donations.”
A BIG thank you to @SpeakerPelosi and the Democrats – in the last 48 hours we have raised $8.5 million dollars in small dollar donations. People are sick of your nonsense but please keep it up — you are handing @realDonaldTrump the win in 2020! 🤛👍🇺🇸
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 26, 2019
Republicans balk at Russia collusion 2.0
Pelosi announced the move toward impeachment before seeing either the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine or the whistleblower complaint, and it’s clear Trump’s base is balking at what appears to be another attempt by Democrats to discredit the 2016 election. Indeed, the “whistleblower” scandal is already starting to feel like a repeat of the Russia collusion fantasy, from the shaky allegations based on secondhand information to the political bias of the whistleblower.
For his part, President Trump released Wednesday the transcript of the phone call, in which he asked the president of Ukraine to take a second look at possible “pay-to-play” corruption involving the Bidens. Trump did not mention military aid or any quid pro quo on the call, as Democrats had alleged.
Moreover, like the infamous Russia dossier, the whistleblower complaint, which was released Thursday, is a sloppy amalgamation of hearsay and public media reports, as Sean Davis of The Federalist explains. The alleged whistleblower admits in his complaint that he had no firsthand knowledge of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine, and much else is derived from news articles.
Just like the Russia scandal, the Ukraine controversy appears to be the product of a conspiracy between the media, the Democrats, and anti-Trump players in the intelligence bureaucracy. But Republican voters can see right through the Democrats’ duplicity.
It seems Pelosi has dealt her party a fatal wound.
No comments: