On Thursday’s “Morning Joe,” an exasperated Joe Scarborough said President Donald Trump “should do something that he’s never done before and read the Constitution of the United States.”
The MSNBC host was reviewing Trump’s attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which have been consistent for weeks but continued right into Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself, when the president questioned the authority of Pelosi and the House of Representatives in wake of the House voting to impeach him last week.
“He might actually understand how the Speaker of the House has that power,” Scarborough quipped after suggesting Trump read the country’s founding document. He then went on to point out that one key GOP Senator, Lisa Murkowski, has said she’s “distressed” by majority leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy regarding the Senate’s own handling of the impeachment.
“Murkowski’s remarks are significant because a 51-vote simple majority is all that’s needed to set the impeachment rules,” Scarborough explained. “Republicans only have 53 votes. Democrats would need four Republicans to break ranks and actually call for witnesses, call for evidence, call for the very things — depositions, for instance — that Republicans called for and got in 1999 in the impeachment of Bill Clinton.”
The House voted on two articles of impeachment last Wednesday, drafted by the House Judiciary Committee, which charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. For abuse of power, the House voted 230-197; for obstruction of Congress, the House voted 229-198.