After losing Kennedy Center case, Trump throws tantrum, calls for judge’s impeachment – MS NOW
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The president appeared quite outraged after a federal court ruled that he had to follow the law regarding renaming the Kennedy Center.
Shortly before Christmas, Donald Trump’s handpicked allies, mindful of the president’s obsession with self-glorification, claimed that they had renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, adding the Republican incumbent’s name to the venue.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio member of the center’s board who was excluded from voting on the name change, quickly filed suit, arguing not only that the process was improper, but that the entire gambit was illegal for the simplest of reasons: A name change required congressional approval, and that had not happened.
With this in mind, it wasn’t too big of a surprise when U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Friday that Team Trump’s gambit was obviously illegal and gave the Republican operation 14 days to undo what it had done.
On Friday afternoon, when much of the world was waiting for the president to shed light on his plans for the war in Iran, he instead published a 580-word tirade to his social media platform, whining at great length about the judge’s ruling and suggesting that he was prepared to give up on his Kennedy Center ambitions altogether. From the online rant:
[B]ased on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center, almost all of which lose large amounts of money throughout the Country, we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it. […]
I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.
In other words, if the courts say Trump has to follow the law, he’ll stomp his feet, take his ball and go home.
On Saturday morning, the president kept going, publishing a 721-word harangue that went after the judge’s wife, before telling the public that the nation’s “Court System is RIGGED.”
For good measure, on Saturday night, the Republican added that the judge and his wife “should be ashamed of themselves,” before concluding, “Judge Cooper, like numerous other Crooked Judges on my cases, should be IMPEACHED.”
The key phrase in that sentence was “numerous other.” Two months into Trump’s second term, he became the first modern American president to explicitly call for the impeachment of a sitting federal judge for ruling in a way the White House didn’t like, and the scope of his vision quickly grew.
“We have bad judges, we have very bad judges,” Trump said last spring. “These are judges that shouldn’t be allowed.”
A group of congressional Republicans apparently interpreted Trump’s appeal as a directive and got to work introducing impeachment resolutions against judges who ruled contrary to the White House’s preferences. At last count, GOP lawmakers have filed impeachment resolutions against eight federal judges, and as radical as the crusade is, House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed the effort earlier this year.
It stands to reason that Cooper could face an impeachment resolution of his own, despite national polling that found 70% of Americans are opposed to impeaching federal judges over rulings the president doesn’t like.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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