Chris Hayes: Impeachment Comes Down to Trump Getting Caught ‘Cheating’ to Win, and GOP Just Doesn’t Care

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tonight talked during his live show about impeachment as coming right down to President Donald Trump getting “caught cheating” ahead of the election.

“He’s cheating on the basic fundamental thing we use to select our representative government, right? The thing that we pride ourself on, fair and free elections,” he said, before bringing up Russian interference and the now-infamous Michael Cohen payoffs.

As for the latter, Hayes recalled how much Trump’s campaign was hurt after the Access Hollywood tape came out and how Republicans were disavowing Trump in that moment. “And now imagine after that moment… that everyone learns he had paid off an adult performer to cover up an affair? That really would have made an impact,” he said. “But we didn’t find out because Donald Trump and Michael Cohen conspired to cheat, to violate campaign finance law to make sure that didn’t happen.”

But in the lead-up to the 2020 election, Hayes said Trump supporters “don’t care” about him cheating because “in their eyes the president is cheating in furtherance of the will of the American people, that the ends justify the means.”

Hayes — after noting Trump didn’t win the popular vote and that Democrats won in 2018 — said, “When they talk about the will of the American people, they are talking about a minority of those people. They just are. That’s their base. But those are the people they view as real Americans. Those are the people worthy of representation. They are the rightful owners of this country’s destiny.”

He continued, bringing up a sign Republicans displayed showing Democratic leadership and highlighting that they’re from California, New York, and Massachusetts:

“Honestly, it can feel like when you’re watching these hearings and watching politics that House Republicans particularly really don’t view that part of the country that does not support them as legitimate, that they are not worthy of representation or political power or being able to call the shots because those are not the right people. They’re not the rightful heirs to the American project. So like Donald Trump they are all in on this cheating as a political project for the party. And it goes beyond this impeachment. You have gerrymandering in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina as soon as they get control.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

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