Trump is counting on Americans not watching and being too stupid to understand impeachment: Ex-White house aide

During a CNN panel discussion about the recent decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to hide much of the impeachment evidence, a former White House official said that Republicans are counting on Americans not paying attention.

Trump left the country the night before the impeachment proceedings were slated to begin. He refused to say a word to reporters, who he normally answers questions from when headed to board Marine One.

Former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart explained that in theory, a president would want to do something huge and important to distract from the impeachment. Trump, however, has a tendency to take any progress and blow it with a tweet.

"He has undermined his political position, I think, from the beginning," said Lockhart.

But the thing that strikes him most from the White House, he said, is that they want to keep Americans in the dark as much as possible.

"They are counting on people not paying attention," he said. "Today, they simultaneously argued two separate constitutional theories that are opposite. The president saying, 'The Second Amendment is a strict constructionist argument that the framers knew what they were doing when they put the Second Amendment in.' And then the lawyers go up to The Hill and say, 'The framers didn't really know what America would be like 200 years later.' So, it's the exact opposite argument."

He went on to say that they also say that Trump can't be indicted for a crime, but then claimed Trump also couldn't be investigated for a crime. Now, Trump's team is arguing that given everything, "the president can't be removed unless he's committed a crime." All of the comments conflict with each other.

"How would we know if he's committed a crime if we've never gone to court or he can't be investigated?" asked Lockhart. "It's this circular logic that you'd think, if people were paying attention, that would collapse onto itself. They're counting on us not watching and not understanding."

Watch the full take in the video below: