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WASHINGTON – Preparation for Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, which begins Tuesday, focused on the former president’s words on January 6, as well as whether it is constitutional to impeach and remove judge a former official.
But those discussions so far have overshadowed a more central question in the trial: Did Trump use his platform – and his powers – as president to try to overturn an election he clearly lost?
Consider these actions by Trump in the days and weeks after news agencies declared Joe Biden the winner:
- He praised – and even called out – GOP members from Michigan’s Wayne County Canvassing Board who refused to certify the county’s election results; they then reversed their course.
- He telephoned a meeting of the Pennsylvania State Senate to try to overturn the results in that state: “We have to cancel the election because there is no doubt that we have all the evidence, we have all the affidavits , we have it all, ”Trump said.
- His allies were behind the Texas lawsuit in the US Supreme Court challenging the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; the court dismissed the lawsuit.
- He begged Georgia’s secretary of state to find him some more votes to overturn the election result there: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than us. Because we won the state, ”Trump said.
- And then finally, on January 6, he urged his gathered supporters as Congress prepared to certify the Electoral College’s results.
“We’re going to come down to Capitol Hill, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to cheer some of them that much,” Trump said.
“Because you will never take back our country with weakness. You have to be strong and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count voters who have been legally nominated, legally nominated.
Much of the story in the two months after the election was about state officials and courts failing to follow Trump’s will.
What turned out to be different about January 6 is that some people finally followed through.
Downloading data: the numbers you need to know today
56 percent: The share of Americans who say former President Trump should be sentenced in the Senate, a new ABC-Ipsos poll shows.
27,115,843: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the most recent data from NBC News and health officials. (That’s 328,572 more than Friday morning.)
465,576: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far, according to the most recent data from NBC News. (That’s 7,849 more than Friday morning.)
81,439: The number of people currently hospitalized with coronavirus in the United States.
323.8 million: The number of coronavirus tests that have been administered in the United States so far, according to researchers from the COVID Tracking Project.
80: The number of days Biden has left to meet his 100-day vaccination goal.
100: The age of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who passed away this weekend.
Tweet of the day
Talk politics with Benjy
You’ve probably heard a lot about the Green New Deal. But if one of its main goals – a rapid transition to electric vehicles – comes to pass, it won’t be AOC that is the face, but billions of dollars in corporate marketing.
This was the result of Sunday’s eye-catching General Motors ad, which featured Will Ferrell, Kenan Thompson and Awkwafina racing electric cars in Norway, where more than half of new car sales are electric. GM announced last month that it would phase out all fossil-fueled vehicles by 2035. Automakers are betting they are near a tipping point in terms of price, range and charging technology , after which electric vehicles will become both cheaper and more practical than their gasoline. powerful rivals.
So where does politics come in if the private sector is already doing the heavy lifting? Go up the timeline. President Biden’s infrastructure plan for his 2020 campaign includes building 500,000 charging stations, and his tax plan called for expanded credits for electric vehicles to make them more price competitive with the average consumer. And some states have taken a more direct approach: California requires all new car sales to be electric vehicles by 2035.
This all explains how Norway ended up in a Super Bowl commercial. They also offered tax breaks to electric vehicle manufacturers and upfront funding for public charging stations with the aim of moving even faster to all-electric sales by 2025.
Multitasking watch
This week could be a crucial test of the Senate’s ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.
The Senate will begin impeachment hearings against former President Trump on Tuesday. But at the same time, the Senate will be able to consider two other nominees to President Biden’s Cabinet who cleared their votes in committee last week.
UN Ambassador candidate Linda Thomas-Greenfield was elected to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by an 18-4 vote last week, and HUD candidate Marcia Fudge went through the committee Senate banks by a 17-7 vote. In addition, Biden’s pick to head Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, will receive its confirmation hearing in the Senate on Tuesday morning.
Biden Cabinet Watch
State: Tony Blinken (confirmed)
Treasury: Janet Yellen (confirmed)
Defense: Ret. General Lloyd Austin (confirmed)
Attorney General: Merrick garland
Internal security: Alejandro Mayorkas (confirmed)
HHS: Xavier Becerra
Agriculture: Tom vilsack
Transport: Pete Buttigieg (confirmed)
Energy: Jennifer granholm
Interior: Deb Haaland
Education: Miguel Cardona
Trade: Gina Raimondo
Workforce: Marty walsh
SKIN: Marcia Fudge
Veterans Affairs: Denis mcdonough
An ambassador: Linda Thomas-Greenfield
Director of National Intelligence: Avril Haines (confirmed)
EPA: Michael regan
SBA: Isabel Guzman
Director of OMB: Teeth of Neera
US Sales Representative: Katherine tai
ICYMI: What else is going on in the world
Trump’s Senate impeachment trial begins this week. Here’s what you need to know.
Who are Trump’s (last) lawyers?
Liz Cheney is doubling down, saying the GOP needs to stop “kissing” Trump.
Biden says the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic has been “even more dire than we thought.”
Biden’s team is planning a major trade push around its relief bill, hoping to avoid the mistakes of the Obama era.
Here’s what the head of the American Federation of Teachers says about the reopening.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial has resumed.
Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman launches his candidacy for the Senate.
Could California really elect a Republican as governor? The former mayor of San Diego thinks so.
What’s up with the Republican Party of Georgia?
Dennis Kucinich may be preparing to run for mayor in Cleveland.
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