Amber Athey "Pelosi Losing Credibility Daily with Handling of Impeachment Articles"

Chris Winn and JD Sharp talk with Amber Athey, The Daily Caller in DC, on the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders feud. With the upcoming Democratic debate, Elizabeth Warren accused Sanders of stating in a private conversation in December of 2018 that, “he didn’t think a woman could win the presidency.” Obviously, this would be an explosive accusation or anybody but it is especially so for a Democrat, especially Sanders, who is seen as the ultimate inclusive man. The team asks Athey how she believes this will affect the campaigns moving forward.

She responds that she doesn’t believe this is going to affect Bernie so much because people are seeing through the timing of this leak. It happens right as Bernie is surging in Iowa, right before the debate. All of a sudden, details from a private meeting, years ago, come out as Bernie being a sexist. Elizabeth doesn’t respond to the rumors for hours, allowing them to circulate. And when she does respond, she says she believes they were accurate but doesn’t want to talk about it any further. This doesn’t make sense considering if you have a major allegation of sexism against a leading opponent, you would think that whoever is making that allegation should have to feel more questions about it, but she is refusing to do so. 

It’s very odd how the Democratic Party candidates go after each other rather than all agreeing their goal is to beat Donald Trump. Instead of Elizabeth Warren being the front-runner as she was a few months ago, you now have Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and now Pete Buttigieg, further into the race. It seems she is getting a bit desperate and finding some way to get her name back into contention. This may have been what was driving the allegations that were made against Bernie.

It’s a bit too late for the debates to have much impact, with ratings declining significantly. As we’ve seen over the past year, with each debate, fewer and fewer people actually watch them. We’ve also heard the same policy discussions over and over. Unless there’s something different talked about, the debates more than likely won’t have much effect on polls. What will be more interesting is when we get into actual caucuses and primaries to see whom the true leaders are. 

America is also anticipating impeachment as a topic of discussion for this debate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that the house will vote Wednesday on a resolution to name the impeachment managers for the Senate trial of President Trump. Sources have told many outlets that Pelosi told democratic colleagues in a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill that she would not announce impeachment managers during that meeting. Athey believes the timing is still up in the air, but if Pelosi does submit those articles to the senate in time and name impeachment managers, then the Senate is required to take that up within one day. The trial could be expected to complete within three to four weeks. However, Athey believes this has been politically disastrous for her and that these articles are not as urgent as she has led her Caucus to believe. Athey believes Pelosi is now trying to backtrack and send them without any promises that this trial will be conducted in a fair manner. It seems she has given up anything she was trying to leverage over McConnell with nothing in return. 

In response to Trump’s economic sanctions following the minor attack on Al-Assad Air Force Base, instead of declaring war as expected, JD Sharp asks if Athey believes Iran tipped off the United States in the killing of Kasam Soleimani because he wasn’t as liked as people were led to believe he was. Athey doesn’t believe in this prediction as Iran’s supreme leader was weeping openly at Soleimani’s funeral. She says that the US has been unwilling to share their intelligence with the public. There have been multiple conflicting stories as to why the US decided to strike Soleimani. They claim there was an imminent attack planned on multiple US embassies, but haven’t provided proof of that. An NBC news report also claims Trump approved the strike months ago, under the condition that either Soleimani or Iran was responsible for killing an American. At this point there isn’t really a clear answer if there was in fact an imminent attack. 

There is also debate on whether the president had the authority to carry out this strike or whether it was an act of war that would have required approval by congress.  Either way you look at this, this is a losing argument for people who are against the strike or believe the president needs congressional approval. Most people are in support of killing Soleimani, but they were worried about the actions afterward; whether it would lead the US into war. It doesn’t seem that’s the case with Trump responding with economic sanctions. This follows Trump’s campaign promises of getting the US out of endless wars and disentangling us with the Middle East. IT seems pretty in line with what he said he was going to do.