Trump Impeached Again: What's Next?

By Yuval Rosenberg

Trump Impeached a Second Time

The House on Wednesday impeached President Trump for the second
time in 13 months, this time for “incitement of insurrection” for
his role in trying to overturn the results of the election and
encouraging a mob of supporters to march on the Capitol a week ago
as Congress was affirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump, already one of only three presidents to be impeached,
becomes the first president to be impeached twice.

Unlike in December 2019, when all House Republicans opposed
Trump’s first impeachment and defended the president,
10 Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday in
supporting the incitement charge, making it the most bipartisan
impeachment vote in U.S. history. The final tally was 232 to
197.

Still, the vote followed hours of impassioned debate during
which Democrats and Republicans argued whether the impeachment was
the most appropriate remedy with just seven days left in Trump’s
term, whether the process was too rushed and whether it would help
reestablish democratic norms and ensure the safety of the republic
or further inflame the divisions that have riven the nation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told lawmakers that Trump must be
impeached, and convicted by the Senate.

“We know we experienced the insurrection that violated the
sanctity of the people's capital and attempted to overturn the duly
recorded will of the American people. And we know that the
President of the United States incited this insurrection, this
armed rebellion against our common country,” she said. “He must go.
He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all
love.”

She later added: “It gives me no pleasure to say this — it
breaks my heart.”

Few Republicans defended Trump, with many instead criticizing
the impeachment process or comparing the storming of the Capitol
and the effort to stop the constitutional election process to last
year’s Black Lives Matter protests.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who in November had

propagated Trump’s false claim that he won the
election and objected to certification of the Electoral College
results, on Wednesday said that Biden had won the election. He
criticized last week’s violence and said that Trump “bears
responsibility” for the attack on the Capitol. But he warned that
impeachment would “further fan the flames of partisan division” and
said that a fact-finding commission and a censure resolution
instead “would be prudent.”

Trump told reporters Tuesday that his speech to supporters
gathered in Washington last week was “totally appropriate” and that
another impeachment push was “causing tremendous anger.” On
Wednesday, the president called on Americans to help ensure a
peaceful and orderly transition of power, saying in a
statement that “there must be NO violence, NO
lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind.”

What’s next: The timing of a Senate trial remains
uncertain. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will not
agree to a Democratic request to bring the Senate back into session
before its scheduled January 19 return, meaning that a trial won’t
happen until after Trump is out of office. The timing of a trial
will also depend on when the House sends the article of impeachment
to the Senate.

McConnell
told GOP colleagues Wednesday that he has not made
a final decision on whether he will vote to convict Trump. The New
York Times
reported Tuesday that McConnell has told
associates that he believes Trump’s actions are impeachable — and
that he was pleased that the impeachment effort would make it
easier for the Republican Party to move on from Trump.

Schumer Presses Biden to Seek More than $1.3 Trillion Covid
Relief Package: Report

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce details of his
coronavirus and economic relief proposal on Thursday. As Biden and
Democrats prepare their spending plans, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY),
who is set to become the Senate Majority Leader, has pressed Biden
to seek a package totaling more than $1.3 trillion, Bloomberg News

reports. More from Bloomberg’s Erik Wasson and
Laura Davison:

“Biden will seek a deal with Republicans on the next
round of Covid-19 relief, rather than attempting to ram a package
through without their support, people familiar with the matter said
on Tuesday. The new president could pass some stimulus items using
a special budget tool with just the votes of the 50 Democrats and
independents in the chamber, but prefers to try a bipartisan
approach first.”

Biden’s proposal is expected to call for funding for
vaccinations, aid to state and local governments, increased direct
payments of $2,000 and additional unemployment insurance. Biden is
expected to seek a larger stimulus and infrastructure package later
on, after the initial relief bill. See below for more on what might
be in that larger package.

Democrats Plan a Major End Run Around the GOP

You’ll probably be hearing a lot about “budget
reconciliation” in the coming weeks, as Democrats work to pass a
substantial spending package in the early days of the Biden
administration. The term refers to the legislative rule that allows
the Senate to bypass a filibuster threat and approve one bill
pertaining to spending and taxes each fiscal year with just 50
votes — the size of the Democratic Senate caucus in the new
Congress.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who will chair the Budget
Committee,
told Politico this week that he has big plans for
the reconciliation maneuver. “Understanding that my Republican
colleagues have in the past — both under Bush and certainly under
Trump — used reconciliation for massive tax breaks for the rich and
large corporations, and they’ve also used reconciliation to try to
repeal the Affordable Care Act, I’m going to use reconciliation
too, but in a very different way,” Sanders said. “As we speak, my
staff and I are working. We’re working with Biden’s people. We’re
working with Democratic leadership. We’ll be working with my
colleagues in the House to figure out how we can come up with the
most aggressive reconciliation bill to address the suffering of the
American working families today.”

Not everything in Joe Biden’s agenda can pass via
reconciliation — increasing the minimum wage, for example, would
probably not be allowed, due to the rules surrounding the
legislative option. But there are plenty of major agenda items that
could conceivably be included in such a bill, with the main limit
being the willingness of conservative Democrats such as Sen. Joe
Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to go along
with it.

Vox’s Dylan Matthews rounded up some of the items included
in Biden’s agenda that conceivably be included in one or more
reconciliation bills:

  • Covid relief checks increased to $2,000, up from the
    current $600;
  • Billions in aid for state and local
    governments;
  • More money for vaccine research and
    distribution;
  • A $3,000-per-year child allowance;
  • Federal vouchers for housing;
  • Paid maternal and sick leave;
  • Universal pre-K;
  • Federal funding for child care;
  • $2 trillion to invest in clean energy and climate
    research;
  • Debt forgiveness for student loans, worth up to
    $10,000;
  • Free community college;
  • Lowering the Medicare eligibility to age 60;
  • Creating a public option for health insurance within the
    Affordable Care Act;
  • Increasing taxes on the corporation and the
    rich.

There are likely additional possibilities, but even
passing some of them could “transform American life dramatically,”
Matthews says. “An America where pre-K is universal and child care
is affordable for all, with trillions in clean energy investment,
free community college, paid maternity leave, a child allowance for
parents, and a housing program that nearly eliminates homelessness,
is a very different America,” Matthews
writes. “And it is in reach for the Biden
administration.”

A major constraint: As readers
familiar with the passage of the 2017 Republican tax cuts may
remember, reconciliation faces a major hurdle known as the Byrd
Rule, which among other things says that the legislation cannot
increase the deficit beyond a 10-year window. That could limit
severely the size and scope of an eventual package. But Biden has
said that he wants to raise taxes on the rich and corporations,
which could give him as much as $4 trillion to cover the cost of
new spending and go a long way toward creating the FDR-size
presidency he has said he wants to achieve.

Number of the Day: $3.3 Billion

The omnibus and coronavirus relief package signed into law in
December includes a tax break that could be worth billions of
dollars for the owners of rental properties. In a mere 116 words,
the provision allows rental owners to depreciate their properties
over 30 years, rather than the 40 years under current law.

Proponents of the reduced depreciation schedule say it
simply corrects an error introduced by the 2017 Republican tax
overhaul. Whatever the cause, the benefits are clear. The Joint
Committee on Taxation estimates that the altered rule will cost
$3.3 billion in lost tax revenue over 10 years
— and that rental owners will gain about
$1.2 billion by the end of the 2021 fiscal year alone. (h/t
Roll Call)

Quote of the Day

“The first couple of weeks it was all: Why aren’t they all
done, why aren’t you getting them out fast enough? The next story
is going to be: There’s hundreds of thousands of people waiting for
the vaccines and we don’t have any.”

– Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) at a news briefing
Tuesday, as quoted by
Bloomberg News in a piece on the concerns raised
by the Trump administration’s
vaccine rollout changes meant to expand and speed
Covid immunizations.

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