Key takeaways from House impeachment debate
Senate readies for January trial as full House vote looms; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews made what he thought was a "fascinating" observation as the House of Representatives voted on the two articles of impeachment against President Trump.
"I've been listening and I've been watching and I've heard something that wasn't said all day," Matthews began. "Now here's a president, a human being, being accused of horrible things, of selling out his office, of trading his public trust for personal gain, a terrible assault on who he was. And yet, all day long, with all the Republican speakers, they were able to say anything they want all day long... not one Republican member of the House stood in that well and defended this president's character."
He continued, "No one person said he was an honest man, not one person said he's a good man, not one person said he could've had done something like this, and that is powerful stuff -- that a party felt that they can play all the games today. They could talk tactics and style. They talk about everybody else's situation, but they never defended the man, the person in the White House, his character. This is extraordinary."
Earlier in the day, Matthews' colleague Chuck Todd declared that Trump's impeachment marked "the worst decade in American politics."
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"This feels like we’re coming on the air dealing with a government-shutdown threat, not impeachment," Todd said. "The reason I say it that way is because that is how numb, I think, our politics is to what we’re facing. I mean, this should be a moment where the whole country is basically having their own gut check, where we are -- we are having a national conversation trying to figure this out."
He added, "The fact that we’re not having it, that this feels like just another battle in what has been... Basically, this has probably been the worst decade in American politics, certainly in our lifetimes."