President Donald Trump is embattled on so many fronts that it can be dizzying to keep track.
In a new column, Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin makes the case that the debate need not focus on what high crimes & misdemeanors” means.
Rather, she says, it's enough that Trump is an "inveterate liar, who lied to get himself elected in the first place, over every possible candidate."
"There is a moral and political dimension that gets lost along the way: If Trump has repeatedly, compulsively lied to the American people (oh, say, thousands of times) and sent lawyers and aides out to lie for him (e.g. Sarah Sanders insisting Trump knew nothing about hush-money payments to women with whom he allegedly had extramarital affairs), why should he not be disqualified from seeking reelection?" Rubin asks.
Rubin then discusses the lies Trump told on the campaign trail and to protect himself from various court cases, plus his lies about policy accomplishments such as claiming that new steel mills were opening and that a wall on the border with Mexico was already being built.
"If one believes democracy requires that elected leaders shouldn’t trick, manipulate, bamboozle and flat-out lie to voters to obtain office and explain what is going on, then Trump should never, ever be elected to anything again," she writes. " What’s the Republicans' excuse for backing an obsessive liar? Someone should start asking them."
Read the full column here.
