With impeachment “almost certain to pass” in the House, Seth Meyers turned his attention on Monday to the Republican-controlled Senate, which will ultimately determine President Donald Trump’s fate.
The Late Night host began with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) who “kept insisting” to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that Trump was just concerned about general “corruption” on his phone call with the Ukrainian president and not, as he stated, trying to get that country to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.
“Paul just kept mindlessly repeating his talking points,” the host said, adding, “There’s no way to break through with these guys. They just recite their pre-programmed lines. Anchors have to yell at them the way you yell at one of those automated customer service agents.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Meyers called Paul’s argument “obviously absurd on its face” before moving onto his even more powerful Republican colleagues in the Senate. “Not only are they continuing to cheat in the election as we speak, but they’re also trying to cheat in trial about the cheating,” the host said.
While the Senate is supposed to act as a “fair and impartial jury,” Meyers noted that both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham “have said explicitly their only goal is to end the trial as quickly as possible, call zero witnesses, and take their marching orders directly from the president himself.”
“They’re supposed to be the jury and they’re literally going on TV admitting they’re not going to be impartial and they’re going to take their orders from the president,” Meyers added. “Only in the Senate can you openly brag that you’re not pretending to be a fair juror.” He compared Graham to someone who’s “just making stuff up to get out of jury duty.”
“This is the Republican Party of Trump,” he concluded. “A party that sees any challenge to its power as illegitimate, that’s fine with cheating to win elections, and that rigs trials to avoid consequences for that cheating. They don’t care what they have to do to win, even if it involves cheating and then defending that cheating by going on TV and spouting”—to quote Trump—“bullshit.”
