Why Can't Trump Just Admit That He Made A Mistake?

[RiverDog]

Getting the Ukrianian president to say he didn't feel threatened doesn't end his troubles. Why would it?

It seriously erodes the case against him.

It obviously doesn't help the case, but it doesn't "seriously" erode it, either.

“The President of the United States sought to enlist a foreign government to interfere in our democratic process by investigating one of his political rivals -- and may have used the withholding of Congressionally-appropriated foreign assistance days earlier as intimidation”

The second part is not proven and if he released the aid, it's all done. If the Ukraine never even knew he withheld aid, then that is even worse for the Dems. That is the part that I want to see. If he withheld aid intending to play the Democrats to make them look like idiots, while not really ever intending to keep the aid back so he can have the Dems release information about Joe Biden per their request that is some serious political gamesmanship. I think he may have done it.

I disagree. It is not required that the targeted country or person interpreted what Trump told them as a threat or not. What matters is that he was seeking to intimidate them into an action that was specifically designed to help him retain power. Furthermore, he needs to explain why he delayed the aid. He's already changed his story once.

Really, think about it. How credible would the Biden information have been if Trump just somehow released it himself or some news organization released it. Probably would have passed completely unnoticed. Instead The Dems demanded its release focusing the public not only on Trump's behavior but the behavior of the Democrats biggest contender's son. Do you think Trump supporters will see this as anything other than a double standard?

The "Biden information" has already been investigated, they concluded that there was no wrongdoing, and closed the case. What Trump was seeking to do was for them to re-open it. The mere re-opening of the case would have damaged Biden.

You have to have a credible threat to show abuse of power.

Trump had a credible threat in the form of the funds he was withholding. Additionally, the mere fact that he is the president of the world's richest and most powerful country is a threat unto itself. And keep in mind that he didn't release the funds until he was prodded by Congress then didn't even offer the Senate Majority Leader a reason to why they were impounded in the first place.

Sorry, ASF, I have to side with I-5 on this one. The fact that Trump failed in his attempt to coerce the Ukrainians, or that the Ukrainians failed to interpret his actions/words is irrelevant. Besides, what is it that makes you want to believe the Ukrainian president? Had Trump voluntarily dropped his attempt, then it MIGHT have made a difference. But he only stopped after the whistleblower came forward and Congress started asking questions as to why the aid was held up.

[RiverDog]

On another note Ben Sasse who faces a primary fight said these revelations are “very troubling “ As did Pat Toomey and Thad Cochran. So the dam is leaking . Meanwhile as Joni Ernst says she sees “nothing “ In the report video of her in 2014 advocating impeaching Obama over executive actions surfaced just today....

Get ya popcorn

You can probably count on Romney and Susan Collins going against Trump, maybe Murkowski, too. But you're going to need 20 of them to flip and join all the Dems if you want to remove the POS from office.

At this point, they're probably going to need more than the "transcripts" if they want to flip that many Senators. Perhaps there is more information in the whistleblower's report.

[I-5]

Riv, without any more information, we already have:

- Trump asking for foreign help on a political rival
- Trump implicating 'his' Attorney General Barr as part of the politcal favor he asked for
- Trump using a telephone call from the office of the presidency to a foreign leader on behalf of personal business, namely his personal lawer Giuliani
- Evidence today of an attempted cover up of the transcript by White House staff

I didn't even mention the withholding of congress-approved funds, which Trump has already shifted stories on.

Big, big, big problems. Who knows what the Senate will do? On paper, they should back Trump. But what if they see that the public is jumping ship at that point, including part of his base? Senators are loyal to themselves first, and they're not going to willingly go down if a ship is sinking. No one can say what will happen either way.

[RiverDog]

Riv, without any more information, we already have:

- Trump asking for foreign help on a political rival
- Trump implicating 'his' Attorney General Barr as part of the politcal favor he asked for
- Trump using a telephone call from the office of the presidency to a foreign leader on behalf of personal business, namely his personal lawer Giuliani
- Evidence today of an attempted cover up of the transcript by White House staff

I didn't even mention the withholding of congress-approved funds, which Trump has already shifted stories on.

Big, big, big problems. Who knows what the Senate will do? On paper, they should back Trump. But what if they see that the public is jumping ship at that point, including part of his base? Senators are loyal to themselves first, and they're not going to willingly go down if a ship is sinking. No one can say what will happen either way.

I agree with all that, but I'm not the one you're going to have to convince. They need to turn the opinions of at least 20 Republican Senators, and judging by the comments I've seen so far, I don't think that many are close to giving him up. There are a lot of them that are keeping their power dry by not saying anything and wanting information, but there's been a number that have come out and denounced this as nothing but more white noise out of the Democrats.

I'll be interested to see how the opinion polls move next week after the public has been able to digest this somewhat. If Trump's average job approval drops down into the 30's, that might be enough to get more R Senators to cave.