[Max Goodman]

"Donny, Donny, listen to me. This Pocahontas chick is bad news. Sure you can take her, but wouldn't you rather go up against a guy puts people to sleep every time he opens his mouth? Sure you would. So here's what you do. You call Zelensky. ... No, no. Ukraine. Don't worry about it. We'll dial, we'll put you on. Here's what you say..."

[Roger Slater]

Max, I think it's as likely to hurt Biden. Even if people don't believe the charges against him, they may well fear that a hint of doubt and scandal will hang over his campaign like a cloud, the way Benghazi did with Hillary. Besides, he is not innocent of having allowed his son to exploit international business opportunities that clearly would not have been available to him had he not had a family connection. While Trump is hardly the one to make an issue of such a thing, given his own children, it may still leave an unpleasant taste in some voters' mouths and appear like just another type of low-level corruption.

[James Brancheau]

Christ, wrong thread.

[James Brancheau]

I think the horrible part is how horrible this guy who occupied the presidency was. I don't think any of this touches Biden. And even if it did, who gives a shit.

[John Isbell]

I agree, I don't really care about Biden. I can live with him in the White House or out of it, though he's not my candidate. OTOH, Trump is the pustule that tracks the current diseased state of the national GOP. I'm afraid it's time for a radical intervention. Or from another perspective: everything Trump touches turns to s**t. And that has to be dealt with.

Cheers,
John

[Julie Steiner]

Just because the current Vice President is less of a loose cannon than Trump, that doesn't necessarily mean that everything would be sweetness and light and stability and decorum if Mike Pence were President instead.

[Roger Slater]

Of course not, Julie. But I don't think that's a relevant consideration. Prosecutors don't hesitate to go after the head of a crime family just because they know that an equally bad replacement is waiting in the wings. Trump has to go because Trump is and has done what he is and has done, not because we actually want Pence to be president.

[John Isbell]

I'm also interested to let the impeachment inquiry play out. I anticipate more than one crony being implicated, and Pence's name has already come up more than once. We're what? Two days in?

Cheers,
John

[Julie Steiner]

I'm just trying to rein in some of the jubilation about the prospect of Trump getting bumped. Once a malignant tumor has been removed, there is usually some cancer left behind, and painful chemotherapy to look forward to.

(Then again, whenever I've thought that surely, SURELY, the latest Trump lie or scandal or insult MUST spell the end of Trump's political career, it never does. So my assessment of the situation should be taken with a grain of salt, anyway.)

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if Trump has arranged things so that if he goes down, Pence goes with him, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is next in the line of succession. The unimaginable horror of that prospect is one of the main things that has kept so-called conservatives so otherwise-inexplicably loyal to an aberration like Trump, I think.

[Roger Slater]

Julie, as I told someone earlier today, the chances of Republicans doing anything that would result in a President Pelosi are about the same as the chances that Jared Kushner will divorce Ivanka to marry Greta Thunberg. I believe Trump is trying to drag Pence into things as a way to guarantee that the Republicans in the senate stay in line.

If it came down to having to impeach both, I'm confident they would first oust Pence, then find a replacement a la Gerald Ford before going after Trump. But this is all just fantasy land.

It occurs to me, though, that they need to add a couple of counts of obstruction of Congress (defying subpoenas, etc) so they can get rid of Trump without implicating Pence.