After months of fiery tweets, partisan language, and closed-door and public testimonies from dozens of witnesses, Donald Trump has become the third president to ever be impeached by the House of Representatives.
"Last night was historic," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif. 43rd District) told Cheddar a day after the House voted in favor of two articles of impeachment, straight down party lines.
Historic, it was.
In an America starkly divided in national politics and a presidential election less than a year away, Trump will now hit the campaign trail to seek re-election as an impeached president. Never before has this been done.
Now the Republican-controlled Senate awaits the articles of impeachment so it can play its role — holding the impeachment trial.
Democrats, like Waters, are concerned that a GOP-majority Senate, run by Leader Mitch McConnell is allying itself with the president.
"They are going to do whatever they need to do to support the president," said Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee.
While Democrats have argued the president engaged in quid pro quo by halting military aid to Ukraine in an effort to get President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into 2020 hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden, Republicans have largely argued against the process.
"The Republicans had no substantive defense. They did not talk about why this president shouldn't be impeached," Waters said.
She also added, "Some of the arguments [Republicans] made were ridiculous. To get on the Floor of Congress and liken him to Jesus Christ? And have a moment of silence?"
Waters was referring to Rep. Barry Loudermilk's (R-Ga. 11th District) floor speech, where he compared the impeachment vote to that of the trial of Jesus: "When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers,"
"During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats have afforded this president in this process," Loudermilk stated.
Throughout this process, Republican have also noted that some Democrats have been calling for impeachment since his election.
Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga. 9th District), one of the most vocal opponents in the conference against impeachment, stated in his opening remarks Wednesday, "One of our members, Ms. Tlaib, said on the night she was sworn in, 'We're going to impeach…' Well, you know the rest. In May of 2019, Al Green said, 'I'm concerned if we don't impeach the president, he'll get reelected.' That is probably the most prescient thing said by the majority in the last year, is they said, 'We can't beat him if we don't impeach him.'"
Collins, using Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich. 13th District) and Rep. Al Green (D-Texas 9th District) as examples, argued that because the Democrats lost the election in 2016, they never gave Trump a real shot at the presidency. Now he, and the Republican Party, say the Democrats are using impeachment to get him out of office before the upcoming election.
As early as May of 2017, Waters called for the impeachment of Trump. Two years later, she stands by that decision.
"When people say I started early, I started early to learn more about this president. I started early to understand why he acted the way he does, I started early to determine that there was nothing presidential about him," she said Thursday.
Peter Zalzal, associate vice president for clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, joined Cheddar to discuss the Biden Administration's unveiling of stricter fuel-efficiency standards for new automobiles. "The administration estimated that these rules will reduce about 2.5 billion tons of climate pollution by 2050, and using less fuel also means that we have to go to the gas pump less often. And so it means we save money, thousands of dollars in avoided fuel costs each year for consumers," he noted.
The relatively robust March jobs report showed that despite the low unemployment rate, Black, Hispanic, and women job seekers are still having difficulty finding work. William M. Rodgers III, the vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis noted that participation rates in the labor force ticked up for minorities, adding to other positive signs of growth. He also spoke to Cheddar News to discuss further the jobs figures, the state of the labor market, and rising inflation.
U.S. markets opened higher to kick off the second quarter, despite a miss on the March Jobs Report. The economy added $431,000 in the month, slightly lower than the $490,000 analysts had expected. The unemployment rate also ticked down to 3.6% from 3.8%. Kevin Simpson, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Capital Wealth Planning joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
President Biden is going after billionaires in his 2023 budget request to congress. The proposal would establish a 20% minimum tax rate on all households worth more than $100 million, as well as raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Rhett Buttle, Small Business for America's Future Senior Advisor, Business Policy Expert & Biden Campaign Business Advisor, breaks down the proposal, what it aims to accomplish, and how small businesses might feel about it.
The Biden administration has announced the U.S. will accept up to 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and provide more than 1 billion dollars in new funding for the growing humanitarian crisis. The move comes as President Biden meets with his western counterparts in Europe to demonstrate a united front against Russia and show support for Ukraine. Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge, Immigration Attorney for Outerbridge Law, explains how this is going to work.
The DOJ has endorsed an antitrust bill targeting tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. The legislation would ban the companies from favoring their own products and services over their competitor's, making it more difficult them to dominate the marketplace. Greg Day, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Georgia, breaks down the bill and its potential impact on anti-competition in the tech sector.
Catching you up with what you need to know on Apr 1, 2022, with Ukrainians hoping to flee the besieged city of Mariupol with a ceasefire is in place, President Biden orders the release of oil from U.S.reserves, LGBT activists suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the "Don't Say Gay" Law, U.S. passports offering an "x" option for gender, and more.
America’s employers extended a streak of robust hiring in March, adding 431,000 jobs in a sign of the economy’s resilience in the face of a still-destructive pandemic and the highest inflation in 40 years.
