MSNBC political contributor Jake Sherman explained that President Donald Trump wants to hold a Senate trial against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, but that even in the hyper-partisan era, it's nothing more than a "fever dream."
Reports reveal that Trump wants to turn the impeachment trial in the Republican Senate into a reality television show where he can make the case against the Bidens to justify his bribery of Ukraine. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shut the president down.
"Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and Adam Schiff will not be testifying in this trial no matter what," Sherman explained. "So the White House seems to be engaging with the hypothetical that could only set them up for disappointment. So, I don't understand that. Their party controls the Senate; presumably, they understand what's doable and what's not doable. They know this is not doable, so I'm not quite sure what the strategy is with posturing and presenting a reality that is not even -- it seems like a fever dream of some sort."
Sherman went on to explain that the rules for the impeachment are extremely narrow and were crafted by both parties. So, turning it into a trial against the Biden family would require not only Democratic support but the support of Republicans who are up for reelection in 2020.
"There are still some senators who are going to bristle and bringing in Hunter and Joe Biden and creating a trial to bring witnesses that only have to do with the matter at hand," said Sherman. "So, again, this is not a reality that anybody up here on Capitol Hill where the rules are going to be written, they're not dealing with these hypotheticals, although the White House appears to be for reasons not clear to me."
Sherman's second point was that the hearings that the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have held are far different than the trial that the Senate would hold.
"So, there's not going to be grandstanding of the same kind of magnitude you saw in the House hearing," Sherman said. "Of course there's going to be some of that, but this is a trial, and the Chief Justice presides over it, so it's a totally different format, but we have to accept the reality that Republicans by and large, maybe minus one or two or three of them, are going to defend the president. That's what their politics demand. That's what they've been doing up until now."
Watch his full take in the video below: