Newly sworn in Representative Rashida Tlaib (MI-D) made headlines when she used an expletive to explain her support for impeaching President Trump.
CNN reports that Tlaib was speaking at a MoveOn event and recalled the night she won her election. She explained how her son said that “bullies don’t win” when she won. Tlaib went on to say that he was right, adding, “because we’re gonna go in there and we’re going to impeach the motherf****r.”
Before Tlaib was running for office, she had been thrown out of an event where the president was speaking in Michigan. She interrupted him to ask if he had ever read the Constitution, according to CNN. She ran on a platform of impeachment, explaining on Twitter that her reason for running is “because this is about electing the jury to impeach (POTUS) and I will make a heck of juror”.
On Thursday the Detroit Free Press published an op-ed by the Congresswoman in which she said, “the time for impeachment proceedings is now. President Donald Trump is a direct and serious threat to our country. On an almost daily basis, he attacks our Constitution, our democracy, the rule of law and the people who are in this country. His conduct has created a constitutional crisis that we must confront now.”
Her office released a statement on Friday saying, “The Congresswoman absolutely believes he needs to be impeached. She ran and won by making this very clear to the voters in her district. Donald Trump’s actions have harmed the 13th Congressional District and this country, and Congresswoman Tlaib will not stay silent while this happens.”
Representative Tlaib is defiant in the face of GOP outrage, taking to twitter to double down.
Newly elected House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters the difference between the previous GOP freshman class and the current Democratic majority, citing a resolution “to not use foul language” that “almost every single freshman” signed on to.
McCarthy was asked by a reporter about how many in his caucus called out the president when he called Stormy Daniels, the porn star he had an affair with in 2011, “horseface” via a tweet. His answer was “I think a lot of them did in that process.”
Former GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, whose appearance President Trump also insulted during the 2016 campaign, condemned the president’s attack on the woman he had an affair with when his wife was at home with their four month old child. President Trump has a history of insulting women and infamously bragged about grabbing women by the pussy on the Access Hollywood tape that came out days before the 2016 election.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about Representative Tlaib’s in a Town Hall that will be aired tonight on MSNBC. Pelosi said that she is “not in the censorship business … I don’t like that language, I wouldn’t use that language, but I wouldn’t establish language standards for my colleagues.” Pelosi added that Tlaib’s language was no worse than the language President Trump has used.
Why It Matters
The GOP and the Religious Right have long claimed the high road, vigorously criticizing then President Clinton for having an affair with a 23 year-old intern in the Oval Office. Republicans argued that character mattered and what a man did in his private life impacted what he did in his public employment and they drafted articles of impeachment.
Ken Starr, Independent Counsel who investigated Bill Clinton for a decade, released a report that detailed every tawdry detail of Bill and Monica’s trysts. Some of the loudest proponents of impeaching Bill Clinton now are President Donald Trump’s loudest defenders against impeachment.
The moment the Republican Party took in Donald Trump – the man who bragged about grabbing pussy, who famously said avoiding STDs was his own “personal Vietnam”, who cheated publicly on his wives, who was friends with known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who paid off porn stars to be quiet about their affairs – as their own, they ceded the high moral ground.
No one in America will ever take them seriously again when they argue that character matters. Because, clearly, it doesn’t. Not to the party that embraces a man like Donald J Trump.
