Race for the White House 2020 # 21

Nobody would be caught these days saying our politics are high-minded or mature.

Most the talk on cable news this weekend will be about the war of words between Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. By attacking each other, in very personal terms, both appeal to the bases of their parties, and neither can afford to lose their base.

The self proclaimed "very stable genius" in the White House took umbrage over Speaker Pelosi's claim this week that he was engaged in a "cover-up" over the Mueller Report (and not just on his head.) Trump then used that opportunity to berate Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer and a scheduled White House meeting and stormed out of the room. He said he would not work with the Democrats on anything unless they stopped all their investigations. The Democrats of course are intent on continuing to investigate anything that is possibly Trump-related, while Trump has ordered his Attorney General to investigate the investigators that originally started investigating him in the first place.

The principles would then publicly disagree about Trump's temperament during the encounter. The executive claimed he was quite calm and ordered his staff at a press conference to testify as such. Pelosi said somewhat sarcastically that she would "pray" for Trump and mused that his staff or family should stage an intervention and that maybe Trump wanted to take a leave of absence as President since he no longer wanted to work with them on infrastructure. Trump claimed that he has been "watching Nancy very closely" and suggested she was dealing with health issues herself. He retweeted a doctored video of her speaking in a slowed down manner made to make her sound drunk. I have heard radio hosts play similar slowed-down clips of Trump for laughs.

So, what to make of all this? For one thing, Pelosi clearly got under Trump's skin and of course he is never able to let anything go. None of this makes either look very good in the eyes of the average American, but the left-wing base of Pelosi's party has been pushing harder and harder for the House to open an official impeachment proceeding against Trump in the wake of the White House deciding to not let former White House Counsel Don McGahn testify before Congress. By being seen publicly as "feuding" with Trump, Pelosi may have at least bought herself some time with the pro-impeachment elements in her conference and party.

Everyone agrees that Trump would survive an impeachment process in the GOP controlled U.S. Senate, but many Democrats still want the House to go forward. Trump seems to want it too for political reasons (even as he has falsely suggested in the past that he could get the Supreme Court to stop it early.)

If the House does impeach Trump and if he remains in office, his path to reelection would go easier.  That is one thing that both he and Pelosi agree on these days, and why the Speaker has a very difficult job.