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President Trump was talking turkey today. At the White House, he performed a solemn task. He pardoned what he referred to as ‘the beautiful feathered friend, the noble bird’. In all, it was two turkeys that received, from the Chosen One, as his former energy secretary Rick Perry referred to Trump yesterday, his dispensation. Bread and Butter, who hail from North Carolina, can gobble further.
Trump was intent on appearing in a magnanimous mood, but he couldn’t help resist throwing in a dig at Adam Schiff during his remarks, claiming that he had spared Bread and Butter from the indignity of having to appear before Adam Schiff. Indeed, a few hours before the event, Trump made it clear that another species of animal other than turkeys was really on his mind. He stated on Twitter, ‘The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress. I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify.’
Who these wolves are Trump did not specify, but he is clearly worried about his own survival in the lupine world that he inhabits. Now that congressional Democrats have announced that the first impeachment hearing will begin on Wednesday, the stakes continue to rise for Trump. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has invited constitutional scholars to instruct the panel whether Trump’s Ukrainian hanky-panky rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. At the same time, he sent a letter to the White House informing it of the hearing and inquiring whether Trump himself plans to attend or whether he will send his own counsel. The gravamen of Trump’s defense, however, will surely be road-tested at a rally on Tuesday in Trump’s new home state, Florida. There he will likely hammer away at Burisma and Joe and Hunter Biden, claiming that he, not they, is the true victim of l’affaire Ukraine.
If Democrats are concerned about Biden’s ability to stand up to Trump or about Ukraine, they aren’t showing it. Quite the contrary. Biden shows that for Democrats, as for Republicans, scandals, real or manufactured, simply don’t count (which, incidentally, is another reason why Michael Bloomberg has zero chance at outpacing Biden).
Indeed, despite all the doom and gloom in the media, Biden continues to appear poised for success. A new Quinnipiac poll indicates the notion that Biden is headed for the skids is stuff and nonsense. He’s pulling away from his competitors. The bottom line, the poll, explains, is that Elizabeth Warren is tanking and Biden is flourishing: ‘Former vice president Joe Biden has retaken the lead in the Democratic primary race for president as Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s numbers have plummeted, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Biden receives 24 percent of the vote among Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic, while South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg gets 16 percent, Warren receives 14 percent, and Sen. Bernie Sanders gets 13 percent.’
Trump was right to worry about Biden. No Democrat has a better chance at ousting Trump from the Oval Office. But in trying to knock Biden out of the primary by inventing a grandiose Ukraine scandal, he may only have elevated Biden’s political fortunes — and sabotaged his own.
