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« TODAY IN POLITICS »
Republican Congressman Will Hurd (Andrew Harnik / AP)
1. On the significant moments and figures from the impeachment hearings:
After 12 witnesses packed into five days and many, many, many hours of testimony, the public impeachment hearings wrapped up this week with testimonies from Fiona Hill and David Holmes.
+ Hill, the former top expert for Ukraine and Russia on the National Security Council, displayed no patience for the GOP strategy, accusing Republicans of peddling a “false narrative” that amounted to Russian propaganda, Russell Berman writes.
Hill’s testimony amounted to a remarkably direct rebuttal to House Republicans who have stood resolutely in support of Trump during the impeachment inquiry.
+ Will Hurd, who will be retiring from Congress and who has seemed more open-minded to the impeachment inquiry than most House Republicans, didn’t seem to be sold on the testimonies.
If Democrats can’t persuade a moderate Republican like him to vote to impeach President Trump, they’re unlikely to win over any Republicans at all.
+ President Trump’s go-to impeachment defense has been attacking the civil servants who testify—but that bellicosity could be politically risky for him in 2020, Ron Brownstein writes.
Few in either party dispute that Trump could mobilize enough voters who respond to these attacks on elites—and his related condemnation of cultural and racial change—to squeeze out an Electoral College victory in 2020. But compared with earlier conservative populists, he’s operating in an environment with a greater potential for backlash against attacks on expertise.
2. On what we’re talking about when we talking about that aid to Ukraine:
It’s become central to the impeachment proceedings, but the specific line of inquiry around withheld military aid money has obscured a deeper foreign-policy question, Uri Friedman writes.
For a policy that’s purportedly a pillar of the decades-old international order, military aid to Ukraine is pretty new.
3. On standout moments from the latest round of Democratic debates:
+ Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris warned their rivals not to take black voters for granted.
Biden’s claim to black support—while backed up in the polls at the moment—seemed to come out of an earlier era, when the “first black president” was not Barack Obama but Bill Clinton, and when white politicians relied on endorsements over authentic experience to prove their connection to the black community.
+ Pete Buttigieg is now a 2020 Democratic frontrunner—what was evident in recent polls also became evident on the debate stage. Elaine Godfrey watched the debate with Mayor Pete diehards in D.C. Here’s what she saw in their fandom.
Indeed, to the supporters buzzing around the second floor of the bar, which had been decorated with streamers and a cardboard cutout of the mayor, Buttigieg isn’t just experiencing a temporary bump.
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