President Donald Trump is even more "gangster" than Richard Nixon, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg explained Wednesday on MSNBC's "The Beat" with Ari Melber.
"We begin with Democrats coming out swinging on investigating Trump. Adam Schiff making it official with a new framework for a sweeping investigation of Trump, Russia and, of course, the money trail," Melber reported.
"Congressman Schiff announced Dems will use subpoena power to probe coordination between Russia and Trump," he continued. "Also probing the scaring, but potentially legal scenario, where foreign actors hold financial leverage over Trump or his family."
Melber played two clips, showing how both President Richard Nixon and President Donald Trump used their State of the Union addresses to demand an end to investigations.
"I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end," Nixon said. "One year of Watergate is enough."
"If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation," Trump said. "It just doesn't work that way."
Goldberg offered a critical caveat to the comparison.
"The similarities are clear, but I think there's a significant difference too. Without saying anything to minimize Nixon's criminality, he wasn't up there issuing a threat," she explained.
"What trump did was sort of like Gangster Nixon," she argued. "It's like, 'nice country you got there.'"
"He's trying to extort the United States Congress out of meaningful oversight," Goldberg explained.
"I think it just goes to show how far we have sunk in under two years of this presidency, that that wasn't the headline coming out of this State of the Union," she noted. "The very fact he made this gangster-like threat was something that everybody rolled their eyes at because we have become so inured to gangster-like behavior and lawlessness."
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