TV ratings are ‘way down’, GOP’s Nunes again says during Trump impeachment hearings
Update: Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California again brought up TV ratings during an impeaching hearing — this time as former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and National Security Council Russia and Europe expert Timothy Morrison testified.
“Well, ambassador and Mr. Morrison, I have some bad news for you. TV ratings are way down, way down,” Nunes said Tuesday. “I don’t hold it personally — I don’t think it’s you guys. But whatever drug deal the Democrats are cooking up here on the dais, the American people aren’t buying it.”
Nunes said last week Friday that ratings “must be plummeting” compared to the ratings for the first hearing Thursday, but according to Hollywood Reporter, “The second day of impeachment hearings drew a TV audience about the same size as the first day’s coverage.”
Friday had 12.73 million viewers compared with 13.1 million on Thursday, according to Hollywood Reporter.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, had sarcastically referred to efforts to tie security aid to a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens as a “drug deal,” saying he wanted no part of it, according to earlier testimony.
Original story:
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee ended Friday’s impeachment hearing by saying that television ratings for the congressional proceedings “must be plummeting right now.”
“I hate to break it to my colleagues, if there’s anyone else out there watching television ratings, but they must be plummeting right now,” Rep. Devin Nunes of California said in his closing remarks.
Nunes, an ally of President Trump who represents part of the Central Valley, went on to say that “I would suggest that we get back to the work of the Intelligence Committee, that we pass a trade agreement with the United States, Mexico and Canada that would actually help the American people out. Because this is an embarrassment.”
More than 13 million viewers tuned in for broadcast and news network coverage of the hearing on Wednesday, according to Variety, although those numbers for the earlier hearing did not include viewers who streamed the proceedings online. But fewer people watched the impeachment hearing Wednesday than watched earlier high-profile congressional testimony from former Trump fixer Michael Cohen and fired FBI director James Comey, the Hill reported.
Nunes’ comments came after hours of testimony by Marie Yovanovitch, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2016 to May, when she was forced out following what she called a smear campaign over her anti-corruption efforts, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Nunes also criticized how Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the committee, handled the hearing.
“I would just say to the American people: Today’s show trial has come to an end,” Nunes said Friday.
In an earlier closed-door deposition before the panel, Yovanovitch testified that Trump recalled her because she had opposed efforts by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, and others to lobby Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden, now seeking the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election, Business Insider reported.
Both George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state, and William Taylor, who replaced Yovanovitch, “corroborated Yovanovitch’s claims” that she “did nothing wrong” in testimony Wednesday, while acknowledging that ambassadors serve at the sole discretion of the president, as noted by Business Insider.
What’s Trump accused of doing?
Trump is accused of withholding $400 million in military aid to Ukraine — which Congress had already approved — to get the Eastern European country to investigate the son of political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden. The Associated Press reports a whistleblower complaint revealed a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the American president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Biden’s family and Ukraine’s possible role in influencing the 2016 election.
Ukraine was, and still is, fighting with Russian-backed separatists in a war that has lasted five years and killed 13,000, PBS News Hour reports.
Democrats say the withholding of aid is evidence of a “quid pro quo.” It’s illegal “to solicit anything of value from a person from a foreign country in U.S. elections” under federal law, as noted by The Associated Press.
A whistleblower complaint filed by a member of the CIA on Aug. 12 gave details about the president and his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani’s moves to get Ukraine to investigate unfounded allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, The Washington Post reported. “The complaint also alleges that the White House moved to ‘lock down’ the details of a July 25 call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart,” The Post reported.
What do Trump’s defenders say?
A Republican strategy memo released Tuesday argues the evidence doesn’t show Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian leaders into investigating Biden’s family by holding up military aid, CBS News reported.
The strategy memo says Zelensky has denied feeling pressured in the July 25 call and that Ukrainian officials were unaware at the time that the aid had been put on hold, though this has been disputed by U.S. officials testifying in the inquiry, according to the network. The memo also says the U.S. released the aid package in September without any Ukrainian investigation of Biden’s family taking place.
Trump, who has frequently described the July 25 call as “perfect,” has denounced the impeachment inquiry as a “witch hunt” and demanded lawmakers instead investigate his accusations against Biden’s family, Fox News reported.
What happens next?
The U.S. House Intelligence Committee, led by committee chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., began open hearings on the impeachment inquiry Wednesday following a series of closed-door depositions.
William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, testified Wednesday before the committee and took questions from representatives.
Taylor said during his deposition with the committee that he threatened to quit when he learned Trump was withholding the military aid, NBC reports. According to the network, he told a colleague in a text message, “it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
Kent issued a memo soon after the call between Trump and the Ukrainian president outlining “his concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and the U.S,” according to CBS News.
Lawmakers have not outlined a timeline for the impeachment inquiry, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to move through it “expeditiously,” The Associated Press reports. Democrats have said they hope to complete the inquiry by the end of the year.
The full House of Representatives would then vote on whether or not to impeach Trump. The matter would then go to the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate for trial, with Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court presiding.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 4:03 PM.
