The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Biden Impeachment is a Losing Game

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Chris Cuomo breaks down the Republican's latest attempt to impeach President Biden, arguing it's a mistake and distraction from real issues. He sees it as political theater rather than legitimate oversight, and believes Congress should focus on problems like the economy, healthcare costs, and immigration instead. Chris thinks impeachment has become a blunt political weapon that undermines democracy. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are headed down the primrose path once again, and man, it's gonna end badly because that's what the primrose path is all about. What am I talking about? Impeachment. We don't fake the funk here, and here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be.

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Why? Because you want to wear your independence. It's reinforcing, and the money's going to go to charity. You are about to get played once again. We just swapped the R's and the D's, and here we go again down the path of impeachment, okay? Now, primrose path. Why do I call it that? Shakespeare coined the phrase, okay? And it is a path where everything feels good and looks pretty, but it leads to dead ends and disaster. And here is the bait and switch with impeachment, okay? Motivated members of Congress, and by motivated, I mean politically, say, I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for you to stop this horrible monster of a man who is doing all of these things.

Now, there may be a monster. There may be perfidy, people acting in bad faith, malfeasance, maybe even criminality. Very rare, very rare. High crimes and misdemeanors. We'll get to that. But look, at bottom, do you know what it really is? A fool's errand. Because they can't remove any president. They don't have the votes. And we do not have the cooperation in Congress that we did during Watergate. As divisive a time as that was, you had people of President Nixon's own party go to

him and say, you're donezo. You have to leave or we're going to vote against you. That ain't happening today. It is a zero-sum battle to the bottom where they stick with their own team, where the worst of their own is better than the best of the other. It's just how it is. Now, I don't like it. That's the game. I want you out of the parties. It's just how it is. Now, I don't like it. That's the game. I want you out of the parties. I want you to be independents. I want you to be critical thinkers, free agents.

But impeachment, why? First reason why, constitution, okay? No question. The right, the power is in the enumerated powers of the Constitution. Article 1, Section 2. The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachment. Fact, okay? Article 2, Section 4 says that the president and vice president and the officers will be subject to impeachment by Congress.

Okay, so there is a right. Now we get to, is it right? That takes us down the road of what they believe to be necessary oversight, okay? That takes us down to the, there's a forked road here, right? But it's not really forked. They're really parallel paths that the Republicans are going down. But the dynamic is very similar to when the Democrats were going after Trump. The same complaints exist on one side as they did the other before. It is uncanny and it is disgusting that they are pretending that they've switched sides on this. And I'm really faulting the Republicans right now because I believe they had high ground.

Did Trump do bad things? Undoubtedly. Did he do things that are political malpractice? And did the people around him do things that are political malpractice? Undoubtedly. Did he do things that could be disqualifying in terms of whether you should ever vote for him? Undoubtedly. Did he do things that could be disqualifying in terms of whether you should ever vote for him? Undoubtedly. But high crimes and misdemeanors, to the extent where you would get enough votes from both sides to get rid of him, no way. That's why I thought that going down the path of impeachment both times was a mistake, because I thought it was a mistake for you and a concentration on your interests.

Now, people can criticize this argument, and that's okay. The problem is that they do it by saying that I'm an asshole and stupid and I'm a shill because they can't make arguments. They don't have insights. They just have insults that are a focus of their feelings about something. And that's a whole other problem. We'll deal with that another day. But with Trump, it was, yeah, I think he did these things. I think he did a lot of these things. I actually think there was collusion between his campaign and

Russian operatives. Collusion is not a crime except under securities law. It's a behavior. And they were taking meetings they shouldn't have taken. All right? And Trump was saying things and encouraging things he should not have. Russian agent, dossier. Listen, I was never somebody who was trying to get ahead of that story. Go ahead and look. Oh, but you covered it.

Of course I covered it. You had a special counsel picked for the first time ever going after a president for these kinds of things. The last thing was about blowjobs with President Clinton. I mean, it was a joke. It was a fool's errand. The guy wound up more popular and powerful after the probe than before it with the Lewinsky stuff. So that was a bullshit canard, okay? This was different because we know

that Russia and Iran and China and others are messing with us online and trying to find ways to screw with us. And we're so ripe for it because we're so desperate to be divided right now. We're just addicted to grievance. So we're easy pickings for people. And thank God it hasn't been any worse, at least not yet. So did I think it was worth the scrutiny and the criticism? Absolutely. Did I think it was worth the process? No. Why? Because you weren't going to remove him. What is the point of spending all of this time and money and political capital and attention, time most of all though, right, of those that I list,

when you're not going to be able to act on it? Oh, for posterity, to set a standard. What standard did it set? The guy did something worse after this with January 6th. And then they shortcut the process because what was the point of hearings? There was an exigency involved. There was an exigency involved. I agree with that. And, oh, they didn't even have hearings. There was no due process. Look, the process is set out the way the House wants it to be set out. And really, it is whatever they want by votes. There is no mandate of hearings.

There is no mandate of anything, okay? And there is no mandate that you have to have closed-door meetings like they're now forcing on Hunter Biden. It doesn't say anywhere you have to do that. Oh, by the way, in terms of precedent, even within that party, Hillary Clinton said, I'm not coming in any closed-door meeting with you mutts. I'm Benghazi. I'm only doing it publicly. And that's what happened. You see what I'm saying? So the idea of, well, this is how you do it. It's not how you do it. It's how you want to do it. See what I'm saying? The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being

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I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments, and you do it right from your couch. discreet sexual health treatments. And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever.

And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options.

HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions? You need an online consultation with a health care provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan.

All right. So now they're swapping. The Republicans, who I believe had real arguments to say this is not in the interest of the Republic. This is going to divide people, what you're doing with Trump. Let the people decide. Okay. Let him be prosecuted. Let him lose the election and let him be prosecuted. Okay. I thought that they had high ground on that issue. Not that Trump had high ground, but that people saying this is bad for the democracy had a point. Now, is it a dispositive point?

No, you could argue it either way. And obviously the Democrats disagreed as did a majority of Americans. All right. So Jim Jordan, one of the most vocal opponents of what they were doing to Trump is now doing the exact same thing to Biden. Oh no, no, we had hearings.

We had a lot of proof. Please, please. And then there is this mystery that when we get these extra powers for impeachment, then we'll get the things that were being denied and then we'll really have it. That's what they said the last time, okay? It's not going to happen.

They don't have the smoking gun that they would need to trigger that kind of consensus that involves democrats to get rid of biden and once again there is an election right here let people decide it the same argument that the republicans made about denying the legitimate procedure for replacing a supreme court justice Let the people decide who should get to fill the seat. You see what I'm saying? It's all just playing to advantage. This is the problem with the two-party system. And you don't have to see them as equal actors and equal malefactors for the game itself to be toxic.

They only play for advantage. Hunter Biden is about oversight. Oh, we're supposed to look. Says fucking who? Why am I using coarse language? Because I'm disgusted. I'm tired of it. We're never going to get to a better place.

The only thing that's going to pull us out of this is such a huge enemy from without that we can't focus on these bullshit battles from within. 9-11 was enough to do it for a moment. The pandemic wasn't even close. It wound up making us more sick in so many ways. Oversight. Who says? Well, it's in the Constitution, right? Right? Right? No, it's not in the Constitution. It's not an enumerated power of Congress in the Constitution. It's implied. Now, do I believe that Congress has purpose of oversight? Absolutely. Over the agencies, as a check on the executive, 100%. As a check on the judicial, yeah, I do. I think it gets tricky, but yeah, I mean, they get to pick the Article 3 judges, the federal judges. I think they do have a legitimate oversight purpose, but what do we

know about it? It takes us to the Supreme court. It was a case, I think in the twenties, it doesn't matter. This hasn't been litigated enough because it's neither party really fucks with the ability to have oversight because they both want it when they're in power. But which is another problem with the party system, by the way, it's not in the Constitution. It's not a creature of law, federal or anywhere else. It's a culture. It's a tradition that we have allowed to permeate our political process. And that's why leaders from Washington on and down have said, stay away from parties.

Jefferson, Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt. And yet here we are. And we are exactly in the place that they worried about. Dominated by the parties in its interest of advantage. Anyway, Supreme Court says, oh yeah, there is congressional oversight for the purposes of creating, clarifying, and using legislation to deal with issues. Now, what does that tell us? That oversight is not supposed to be

some parallel prosecutorial process. It's fact-finding so that you can design laws or understanding of current laws, strengths and weaknesses, to aid in the legislative process. That's not what they're doing with Hunter Biden. They're looking to prosecute his ass. And then they come up with this,

well, the DOJ is deep state. Yeah, yeah. Weiss, appointed by Trump, deep state. Christopher Wray, appointed by Trump, deep state. Bill Barr, who gave Trump one of the best passes ever, made Comey look fair. Made Comey look fair with what Bill Barr did during all of the drama with Trump. He also just took a pass on Biden. Come on, come on.

I know it is convenient to think about conspiracies and darker explanations of things that trouble you and you don't understand. I get it. I get it. But that doesn't make it so. So look, oversight does have its place, but it's being misplaced with what they're doing. Impeachment is being abused again in my position. Now, again, again, I get that Democrats are going to jump on my head for good and bad reason. And I am now kind of firmly cemented as the man who says what you're not supposed to say. Because let me tell you, so many people, when they're not in their official platforms before you, say the same shit that I'm saying to you. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I know that was a

waste. Oh, yeah, we really shouldn't be doing this, but hey man, this is how it is. They say things like that. They're just not gonna say it to you because they don't wanna lose their team affinity. You know what I mean? They don't want their own to go bad on them. I don't have anybody.

So that's why I get attacked by everybody. And that's the nature of the job. That's what I signed up for. I get it. I get it. And I'm now boosted by my own personal experience. Having been shit canned, having had the media go bad on me and everybody go bad, I now realize that I don't need anybody else.

So I don't give a shit if I'm getting loved up by the media or by the lefties or the lefties in the media or the righties. You know, I'm not a righty. I'm not a lefty. I'm reasonable. I'm a progressive pragmatist. I'm someone who has a set of principles that I think should apply to our policies.

And you go case by case. And sometimes it can be controversial, right? Second Amendment. Of course, there's now an individual right. Scalia had it, the court had hinted at it before, although they had never found one before him. And there is something about being an originalist, which is what Scalia was supposed to be,

and then interpreting this right that wasn't specifically in the Constitution. But look, we're never getting rid of the guns. An increasing number of lefties, by the way, have guns. By the way, why guns. By the way. Why? Home protection. Same reason I have it.

It's stupid because you got to secure the weapon so well, if you're following the law the way I am, that by the time I get the thing and I get the lock out of it and I get loaded, you know, I don't know how I'm going to get the jump on anybody. But I have to operate within the law. So I believe that you're going to have an individual right and you can also regulate it so that you don't have as many weapons of what people call

war, although I think it gets hard to define. Look, I see reasonable ways through, put it that way. I'm not all one way or the other, all right? Except when it comes to the party system, which I think has to die. So impeachment, they're saying, well, we're different than the Democrats were because one, we have a lot of proof. No, they don't. Okay. They do not have proof that Biden was on the take from his son. They just don't have it. They have it by implication. And this word salad of what was done in Ukraine, trying to pretend that Biden wasn't doing the bidding of the State Department

and what the executive branch wanted with Ukraine. The guy, they were dirty. It's a kleptocracy, that place. We'll see if Zelensky can make it any better. But it was shady. Now, is it also shady that Biden's son was getting paid for doing work with an expertise he doesn't really have?

Yeah, welcome to reality. Welcome to reality. How are you offended by that? And just to go apples to apples, but it's okay that Trump's son-in-law gets $2 billion from the Saudis. The head of the snake when it comes to terror, by the way. The head of the snake.

16 of the 19, 9, 11 guys, Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is the main export of Islamist extremism. It comes from Saudi Arabia, the money, but we leave them alone. Why? They got DAP. He gets $2 billion in an investment fund. The guy is not known for his business savvy. That's not shady. Of course it's shady. Just like with Hunter Biden. This is what happens with a lot of people in power. I can't tell you how many people came to me when my brother was in office as governor, trying to get inroads legitimately, or in my opinion, not so legitimately,

to do business with the state. And I just knew better. I knew that all this ends badly. It's not worth whatever money there is to do it. Not gonna do it, didn't money there is to do it. Not going to do it. Didn't do it. Most do it. They find ways to leverage what they can do.

And they pass these lobbying laws and stuff, but there are ways around it. All right? So do I think that what they were doing is the greatest demonstration of proper conduct? Likely no. Likely no. Does that make it a crime?

Does that make it worth your time of having your representatives spend time on chasing that instead of the real problems you have? The border, the border, the border. But they don't do shit on it because they're chasing Hunter Biden. Oh, they can do two things at once.

No, they can't. So now they say, the Republicans, the same ones who said that impeachment was just a way to wedge, just a wedge to divide us. They're doing the same effing thing. Oh, yeah, but we have more proof.

Oh, we had hearings. So what? They had a special counsel and a shit ton of hearings and everything else the first time they went after Trump. They still didn't have the there there that warranted any of it. And they're not going to have it now. Oh, but we're only voting on an inquiry. Where do you think that leads?

It's just more hearings. Yeah, but it gives us more power to get things. Yeah, yes and no. The guy calling for it, you know, yeah, look, Jordan pushed back on a subpoena to him. He says, oh, they never came back to me on the January 6th commission. Okay, but he still bucked the system within his rights.

And so will the people now within their rights. Where is it going to leave us? They're going to find proof of a high crime, a misdemeanor. We don't even know what that is. Bribery, corruption, would taking money from your son to do things for a foreign entity count? Hell yes. Do I think they're going to get that?

Hell no. I've had a lot of dealings with Ukrainians, those in power now and those past. And you know what? All of them think that this is a joke, except ones who are looking to benefit from it. So here we are again in an election year when we've got issues with the economy, when we got real issues about how we're going to use policies to face some real big problems in our society. And one of them, you know, you guys, don't be like this. Don't be people who, when I mention the trades, think lowbrow.

Tech is a trade, okay? Tech is a trade. IT is a trade. IT is a trade. Okay? All of the traditional trades are incredibly lucrative and needed. For every two tradespeople who are retiring,

they're only being replaced by one. And you wonder why we need migrant labor? And you wonder why there's such demand? Oh, yeah, but those are low-rent jobs. You got to go to college. Really? Let me ask you something. Do you have a hard time finding a lawyer? Do you have a hard time finding a doctor? Not getting healthcare, because that's about insurance,

which is one of the next wars that Congress should be waging instead of going after each other with political prosecutions, because those rates are going up. I know it's going up for you. It's going up for me. I'm getting hit. Home insurance, umbrella coverage, life insurance, health insurance. They're not fighting those fights. Why? Because they're distracted by this shit. And this shit works better with you guys. The trades. Let me tell you something. My kid's getting ready to go to college. We got one in college. We got a young one who's getting ready to go to high school. We got one who's getting ready to graduate. One, I'm strongly encouraging him, take a year, man, figure out who you are

and who you want to be. He's not dead set on being a professor or a doctor, you know, something where you need a professional degree to get to college and get to professional school. Let me tell you something. You apprentice as an electrician. You know what you're doing. You learn the trade or as a plumber. You start a business. You start building up trucks and teams.

Most of the guys who have the big boats at the marinas where I fish are tradespeople, contractors. Yeah, that's right. Millions. Now, not everybody, but let me tell you something. Look up jobs for welders. Oh yeah, but that's dangerous. Everything's toxic these days. Okay, you don't have to be a welder. But it is a time for us to be thinking about these things, our philosophy, our principles, what we're about. And instead we're dying in distractions,

drowning in distractions. Impeachment was supposed to be very rare. It is no coincidence that they said they were going to do it as soon as they could and did it as soon as they could with Biden right away. And they've been on it ever since. They've been coming at him as long as the Democrats were going after Trump.

And again, let the people decide and then prosecute the guy's ass when he gets out of office. If you really have the there there of criminality, then prosecute his ass. But why take up the people's time on these things? Here we go again. And I think it's a mistake, not because I give a shit about Biden, not because I give a shit about Biden, not because I give a shit about his son, but because I give a shit about us and how the people in power use and abuse the time and the mandate we give us with a false sense of satisfaction. You believe that because you're a righty and the people on the right are attacking the

left that they're doing your bidding. That's not why they're supposed to be there. They're supposed to be making your life better. Your life is not better or worse if they get a House impeachment of Joe Biden. They're not going to remove him in the Senate. They'll never get a two-thirds vote. So where are we left? In an election. Where we're going to be anyway. Let the people decide, use the powers for what they were contemplated for. You don't think it's a coincidence that all this is happening because it just started to happen? And that between Watergate and Clinton,

you didn't have it? And after Clinton, it was like, God, was that a mistake? Come on, we're better than this. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Thank you very much for subscribing, following, checking me out on News Nation. These are the kinds of conversations we have every night. I disagree, but I disagree with decency, all right? And I know very often I'm saying things that you're not supposed to say, but I got to live with myself.

And I see everything so clearly, saying things that you're not supposed to say, but I got to live with myself. And I see everything so clearly. And I want you to have a chance to make your own choices with clear eyes as a critical thinker and a free agent. I'm not about left or right. I am about reasonable. My name is Cuomo and I'm proud of it. But that does not make me a Democrat. And my father's party is long since dead.

Okay. The parties have swapped sides. The people he used to fight for are now Republicans, working people who are scared and worried about their future and whether they'll be able to sustain their own dreams because of the systems around them. That's who he fought for. Now, a lot of them are Trumpers, dissuaded from their own interests by cultural interests and fake fights. But the fear is still real. So thank you for checking us out on the Chris Cuomo Project and on News Nation, 8 o'clock Eastern, every weekday night. All right? Check out the sub stack. We're going to have deeper conversations there and there will be interactivity I will not be doing anywhere else. Okay? I appreciate you. I'll see you soon. Any problem? Let's get after it.