Donald Trump has been reduced to fantasizing out loud about his escape plan

| 11:25 pm EST November 21, 2019
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

The House impeachment hearings, a clear win for the Democrats and a clear loss for Donald Trump, aren’t even over yet. There’s no indication that the Senate impeachment trial will take place before early next year. Yet Trump is already fantasizing about his escape plan. It’s not clear the extent to which he’s trying to convince us, and the extent to which he’s trying to convince himself.

Donald Trump’s White House is floating a scenario this evening in which the Senate subpoenas Joe and Hunter Biden to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, even as Trump’s allies are floating a scenario in which the Senate trial takes two weeks and concludes just before the Iowa caucus. But they don’t get to decide any of this. Mitch McConnell does. And for better or worse, McConnell isn’t stupid enough to play along with Trump’s idiotically self-defeating games.

If the Republican Senate were to try to subpoena the Bidens to testify in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, it would backfire on a spectacular level. It would almost 100% guarantee that the Democrats would win the White House, the Senate, you name it, in the 2020 election. Trump is delusional and mentally incompetent enough to want to go with this kind of plan. But Mitch McConnell won’t let it happen, because while McConnell is incredibly villainous, he’s not an idiot.

Mitch McConnell will run the Senate impeachment trial in whatever manner ends up being best for Mitch McConnell. If things continue the way they are, with a growing majority of Americans wanting Donald Trump ousted, McConnell will just try to get the trial over with as quietly and non-controversially as possible. Whether Trump is convicted or acquitted, McConnell will just be trying to minimize the damage to his Republican Party.

Donald Trump can fantasize all he wants about subpoenaing Joe and Hunter Biden to testify at his Senate impeachment trial, so Trump’s stooges can ask asinine questions, and Biden will turn into a pumpkin, and Trump will magically gain enough new votes from it to win in 2020. But that’s not real life. That’s the delusional daydream of a desperate man. Trump should consider himself lucky that McConnell won’t let him turn it into a shitshow, because that would guarantee Trump’s downfall.