MSNBC political analyst Eli Stokols said Monday that Republicans are facing two unenviable choices as the 2020 elections approach — defend President Donald Trump from Democratic investigations into the conduct of his administration, or “putting their heads in the sand” and pretend everything is fine. Stokols made the observation after host Kasey Hunt remarked that despite the president’s statements to the contrary, Trump’s Twitter feed revealed a president “preoccupied” with the threat of impeachment
“I think the president’s Twitter feed can be confusing, because you see him reacting to always just the smallest slights and insults,” said Stokols. “So he’s going to react to something as large and important as the Mueller report, even though he can also be reassured to know that an impeachment proceeding, if it would go forward out of the House, would never pass the Senate.”
Trump “believes that, at least in theory, Democrats pushing the envelope on impeachment will make it easier for him to continue to portray them as simply out to resist him, to be obstructionist,” Stokols continued. “And he thinks that fits well into his reelection argument in 2020.”
“He will toggle himself between feeling nervous and needing to vent on Twitter, and then feeling supremely calm and reassured by certain things that he’s safe,” he went on, adding that the GOP was equally nervous.
“As these things come out and there’s more that gets laid out there in the Mueller report and from these investigations that Democrats are going to pursue,” Stokols said, “Republicans are going to have to stand by and either fight these investigations as the president wants them to do, or they are going to have to sit there and look the other way and put their heads in the sand.”
“That’s not great for any of them on the ballot in 2020.”
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