Mitch McConnell just wrote a check he can’t cash

| 10:00 pm EST January 23, 2020
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is once again trying out his favorite sleight of hand trick, in the hope no one will notice that it’s the same sleight of hand he tried and failed to get away with earlier this week. CNN is reporting that McConnell is planning to have Republican Senators vote not to call any witnesses next week, on the premise that the resulting legal battles would take too long. It’s time we stop falling for this.

Mitch McConnell wants us to be pissed off that he’s managed to get away with this corrupt act of not calling any witnesses. This works in his favor, because it means we’re buying into his premise that he has the votes for this and it’s a done deal, which means we’ll give up instead of spending the next week fighting back against it.

The thing is, this tells us McConnell actually doesn’t have the votes for not calling any witnesses. If he had the votes, he’d just hold the vote, and win. Instead he’s telling the media that he has the votes in the hope that it’ll set off a chain of events (the media parroting his words, the Resistance getting discouraged and pulling back) that’ll lead to him getting the votes he needs.

We know this is what Mitch McConnell is doing, because it’s what he always does. Just three days ago he announced that he had the votes to pass his absurd rules that would have ensured the impeachment trial ran until midnight every single night. Then two days ago, McConnell ended up holding a vote on a much less severe rules package, after his own Republican Senate caucus clearly forced him to water it down behind the scenes.

Now that we know Mitch McConnell doesn’t have the votes for not calling any witnesses, it’s a signal for the Resistance to start hammering away at the most nervous of Republican Senators. They’ve already forced McConnell to cave this week on his rules package; they can be pressured into forcing McConnell to cave on witnesses. McConnell doesn’t have a magic wand, and when he doesn’t have the votes, he doesn’t have the votes.