On CNN Saturday, Politico's Melanie Zanona noted that President Donald Trump's decision to attack former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in a tweet while she was testifying to Congress not only risks another article of impeachment — it is also leaving his Republican allies unable to defend his behavior.
"Melanie, it's hard to know what all independent and undecided voters might be thinking, but I had a guest on earlier who made a powerful point, in that some voters might be looking at the pattern of how the president describes particularly powerful women, and he would call her bad news and she had such an esteemed reputation," said anchor Fredricka Wilson.
"Right, and this plays exactly into Democrats' hands. It makes her more of a martyr," said Zanona. "This is what Republicans did not want to happen. They had huddled in the basement. They weren't going to go after her and attack her credibility as a witness. They wanted to praise her and thank her for her service. So privately, Republicans were dumbfounded that he would tweet in the middle of this hearing. Some of the Republicans wouldn't even answer questions about it. I had one lawmaker on the committee, a Republican, John Ratcliffe, I tried asking him about it and he faked a phone call to avoid talking to me about this. It shows how difficult a spot Republicans are in."
"Melanie, you said you'vereached out to Republicansdefending the president'sattacks on Yovanovitch, herclaims of this smear campaign.In your view, does this showthat some Republicans may berethinking their defense of thepresident on this?"
"I think they're rethinking alot of their defenses," said Zanona. "We've seen each one of theirdefenses has crumbled under theweight of this.They've tried to mention he wasjust trying to root outcorruption in Ukraine.We have witness after witnesssaying he was focused oninvestigations.They've tried to say that mostof these witnesses aresecondhand accounts, they don'thave firsthand knowledge.Now we have another potentialwitness who is saying hedirectly heard Trump's voicetalking about theseinvestigations ... They don't have a whole lot ofgood options here."
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