Rev. Al Sharpton said during his MSNBC show Sunday that the legacy of impeachment will forever be a stain on President Donald Trump's presidency. While a Democratic strategist pointed to Trump's history of always falling short.
"The fact is I've known Donald Trump for 35 years," Sharpton said during a panel discussion. "Marched on him after the Central Park Five. Had other times he would try to be a Democrat, would come to our National Action Network conventions. One of the things that is core to him is that he's always fought for legitimacy. He was never looked at as a peer by the legitimate business community in New York and around the country. Now for him to be impeached, even if he's not convicted and removed, it gives him the imprimatur from here out that he's illegitimate. There will always be the asterisk on his name that schoolchildren will read. Is this the reason we're seeing 170-some-odd tweets from Mr. Trump that he is feeling at the core that his legitimacy as a president will be permanently stained?"
Former Hillary Clinton spokesperson Philippe Reines explained that the difference between Trump and former President Bill Clinton is that Americans opposed the impeachment. Sunday, Fox News released a poll saying not only do people believe the president should be impeached, but 50 percent now believe he should also be removed from office, up from the mid-40s before the Judiciary Committee hearings.
"There's a huge difference. Bill Clinton won in a legitimate electoral landslide in both '92 and '96," he recalled. "Donald Trump's electoral win was ranked 46 in American history. His 63 million in the popular vote was 3 million behind Hillary Clinton's 66 million votes. This is not the same as Bill Clinton. And by the way -- it did hurt Bill Clinton long term. Yes, people don't know that he was impeached but not removed. They know he finished his term. But Republicans did pretty well in the following 20 years."
Reines wondered, however, where the stain would appear, Trump's record of bullying or inability to pass anything other than his tax cut, which wasn't received well by voters.
"What is it that is going to have to emerge as his real work?" Reines asked. "This is all that he has done for three years, which is either commit a crime or cover up the crime that he committed or make it worse by obstructing any investigations of the crime. That's what he's about."
"He doesn't care about that," said Republican strategist Rina Shah, claiming that the president didn't care about it because there were so many people at his rallies.
"Oh, sure he does," Reines shot back about Trump cares a lot about his legacy.
Shah then claimed that Trump doesn't care about the numbers -- an ironic statement because just hours earlier, Trump ranted about the numbers on Twitter.
Reines explained that the most significant difference between Clinton and Trump is that Clinton hasn't "gone through 50 years of his adult life trying to live up to his father."
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