Rachel Maddow Highlights McConnell’s Big Contradiction About Impeachment Trial

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said Monday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to have his cake and eat it too when it comes to the second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.

The House has impeached Trump over his role in inciting the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last month, and the Senate will begin his trial on Tuesday. McConnell, who was Senate majority leader when the House voted to impeach, refused to recall the Senate to start the trial while Trump was still in office.

“Once Trump was gone, McConnell voted with all those other Republicans to say, ‘you know, this trial really should have started while he was still president and now it’s too late,’” Maddow said.

Maddow then used an analogy about gym class to make her point.

“It’s like if your gym teacher made you keep running laps even after the bell went off and then sent you to the principal’s office because you were late to the next class,” she said. ”‘You were the one who was making me run laps!’ ‘Go to the principal’s office, what did I tell you?’”

“The Democrats would have happily acceded to Trump being put on trial while he was still president,” Maddow said. “It was Mitch McConnell who stopped them doing that and now it is Mitch McConnell saying, ‘Well, it’s too late now.’”

Essentially, Maddow argued that Republicans were arguing that Trump couldn’t be tried while he was president ― or after.

“But Senator McConnell wants everybody to know just how much he wants Donald Trump to be held accountable for what he did,” she said.