The public impeachment hearings were a total GOP disaster

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Updated 7:18 PM ET, Thu November 21, 2019

Washington (CNN) It’s hard to imagine how the past three days could have gone worse for Republicans.

The public impeachment hearings were never going to be a good thing for Trump — given that the proceedings were controlled by the House Democratic majority and we knew, from a series of closed-door depositions over the past month, that the witnesses who would be called had a) expressed deep misgivings about President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 and b) suggested that there was a not-so-secret quid pro quo in place that unless the Ukrainians announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden they would not get the White House meeting with the President they so desired.

But even by those standards, what happened over the past 72 hours was a disaster the likes of which not even the most pessimistic Republican could have predicted.

Continued

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Article URL : Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large Updated 7:18 PM ET, Thu November 21, 2019