High ranking GOP Senator admits how terrible Bill Taylor’s testimony is for Donald Trump
To give you an idea of how poorly the House impeachment testimony is going for Donald Trump, several of his House Republican allies are currently holed up in a secure SCIF room and refusing to leave, in a desperate last ditch attempt at preventing today’s witness Laura Cooper from testifying. Now we’re getting a sense of just how ugly Bill Taylor’s testimony was yesterday – and we’re getting it from a high ranking Republican.
John Thune, the second highest ranking Republican in the Senate, said this to reporters about Bill Taylor’s testimony against Donald Trump: “The picture coming out of it based on the reporting we’ve seen is, yeah, I would say is not a good one.” What’s notable here is that Thune isn’t even trying to spin Taylor’s testimony in Trump’s favor.
More to the point, Senator Thune is clearly worried about trying to maintain his own credibility here, as opposed to propping up Donald Trump. Thune knows that once Bill Taylor’s testimony becomes public, it’s going to be utterly devastating for Trump, and it’s going to send pro-impeachment poll numbers even higher. Thune is trying to get out ahead of this, even as Trump’s expense, because in the end it’s every Republican for himself.
This comes after Mitch McConnell, the only higher ranking Senate Republican than John Thune, made multiple moves last night to distance himself from Donald Trump. McConnell and Thune know full well that if Trump is going down, their only hope of surviving this is to make a point of kicking Trump while he’s down. That kicking, from the highest ranks of the GOP, has clearly commenced.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report