No, that headline is correct. MSNBC host Chris Matthews opened Wednesday’s Hardball by channeling the famous line from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to declare that it's come time for House Democrats to put up or shut up when it comes to impeachment. Not surprisingly, Matthews identified with the former, especially following this “day of history” with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s public statement.
“To impeach or not to impeach? That is the question that now confronts House Democrats. After Special Counsel Robert Mueller broke his silence today, the moment of decision has clearly arrived. If the House leadership doesn't start hearings now, I believe it's hard to see them ever doing it in the months ahead. Again, now or never,” Matthews asserted.
Leading into a soundbite from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Matthews made sure to tout a tweet from Mueller biographer and former Howard Dean aide Garrett Graff: “Mueller is, in his own Mueller-like way, screaming for presidential impeachment proceedings. But he's too respectful to say it as directly as America (and Congress) evidently needs him to say it.”
During the first of three interviews involving current or formerly elected Democrats, Matthews wondered to 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke about how to time out Trump’s impeachment (click “expand”):
I don't think they're going to subpoena him. It didn't sound like Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary, is in any mood to subpoena the guy. He's a hero to most Americans, not to treat him like a subpoenaed witness. If there's not some reason to hold off on, what is — do you see any justification to put this off? It's now June next week. We're going into summer. Fourth of July is coming. We're going to have the congressional — the presidential campaign, which you're very much in the middle of coming in the fall. It’ll be — you guys will be competing in the Iowa caucuses come this fall. I don't think there's an opportunity for hearings unless they get going now.
Liberal Republican David Frum of The Atlantic came onboard moments later and laid it out for Matthews: “If the Democrats in the House start a process that ends with Donald Trump being out of office, history will judge them favorably. If they start a process that ends with fortifying Donald Trump in office, history will judge them unfavorably.” Ouch.
Going to the first commercial break, Matthews referred to the Barbara Streisand skit “Coffee Talk” to insist that “it’s time” for “the whole country” to discuss impeachment “among themselves and everybody watching right now.”
A rare moment of frustration came in the B-block as Matthews screeched to The New York Times’s Peter Baker:
[I]f [Mueller] knew from the time he got this commission two years ago that he could not indict the President and, therefore, it would be unfair, as he said in the report, to accuse him if you can't indict him, why didn't he say so the first day on the job. Because we've been waiting for two years, not just the Democrats and the media, all of America was waiting for him to come out and give us a verdict. He didn't give us a verdict. He said it's up to Congress to have the verdict.
And in following colleague Chuck Todd’s lead of not asking Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) about anti-Semitism, Matthews focused on impeachment and, in this bit, the downside of impeaching Trump to play devil’s advocate (click “expand”):
Well, I hear your passion and I feel it and I share it. I just want to say one thing. Pelosi is sitting there. She's a pol and she's a good one and she's saying wait a minute, there's a lot of excitement. There’s always a lot of excitement when you start a war. But once you get into a war, and it will be a war with Trump. He will declare the fact that you and your caucus are trying to upset the American people's decision of 2016. That you and the deep state he'll call it and the FBI and the media are all out to turn against the American people and this will be a coup, it will be an attempt to destroy our democracy and he'll do this every single hour that the impeachment exercise is at work. Can your leadership withstand that attack? Can you as a Democratic Party withstand that kind of attack?
And then in ending the show, Matthews dubbed May 29 to be “a day of history” with Mueller’s public remarks that “shifted the verdict on the President's guilt or innocence to the U.S. Congress” as opposed to April 18 when the report actually came out.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on May 29, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
May 29, 2019
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: It’s now or never. Let’s play hardball. [HARDBALL OPENING CREDITS] Good evening, I'm Chris Matthews in Washington. To impeach or not to impeach? That is the question that now confronts House Democrats. After Special Counsel Robert Mueller broke his silence today, the moment of decision has clearly arrived. If the House leadership doesn't start hearings now, I believe it's hard to see them ever doing it in the months ahead. Again, now or never. Having kept the remarkably low profile for more than two years, Robert Mueller today delivered his first and only remarks on the findings of his investigation. In doing so, he made clear that he was bound to the Justice Department's legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. But in a devastating blow, Mueller specifically said that the evidence he gathered does not clear the President of obstruction of justice.
ROBERT MUELLER: If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime.
MATTHEWS: Well, those remarks directly contradict the President's claim of total exoneration. The special counsel went further, citing the legal opinion of the Justice Department. He also made clear that only Congress can charge a sitting president with wrongdoing.
MUELLER: The opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.
MATTHEWS: Well, that's impeachment. As one author of a book on Robert Mueller wrote today on Twitter, “Mueller is, in his own Mueller-like way, screaming for presidential impeachment proceedings. But he's too respectful to say it as directly as America (and Congress) evidently needs him to say it.” Likewise, Congressman Justin Amash, the only Republican lawmaker to publicly support impeachment said on Twitter, “[t]he ball is in our court, Congress.” And while Mueller's public remarks have fueled new calls for impeachment among Democratic lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains cautious.
(....)
7:05 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS [TO BETO O’ROURKE]: Now that Mueller is not going to testify, I don't think they're going to subpoena him. It didn't sound like Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary, is in any mood to subpoena the guy. He's a hero to most Americans, not to treat him like a subpoenaed witness. If there's not some reason to hold off on, what is — do you see any justification to put this off? It's now June next week. We're going into summer. Fourth of July is coming. We're going to have the congressional — the presidential campaign, which you're very much in the middle of coming in the fall. It’ll be — you guys will be competing in the Iowa caucuses come this fall. I don't think there's an opportunity for hearings unless they get going now.
(....)
7:10 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: You know how to write a big story about a big question and here's the big question: Will history judge the Democrats in the House favorably if they take a bye on this? If they just say good opportunity, we don't think we've got the numbers, we're not doing it.
DAVID FRUM: If the Democrats in the House start a process that ends with Donald Trump being out of office, history will judge them favorably. If they start a process that ends with fortifying Donald Trump in office, history will judge them unfavorably. Success is going to matter here. The ball is indeed in Congress’s court. Very important not to hit it into the net. There are not 67 votes in the Senate to remove. The Congressman is absolutely right about the consequence of an acquittal of the President in the Senate. Even more seriously, to start an impeachment process at this point means to rally a fissuring Republican Party around the President. A lot of Republicans who don’t like Donald Trump —
MATTHEWS: It's already 90 percent, though.
FRUM: — but it’s — it's 90 percent of a much smaller party. Republicans are now at 25 percent of the country. They used to be 35. You — you rally people to him. Success is crucial and if you're not going to succeed, don't start.
(....)
7:14 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: I can't read into the mind or heart of the Speaker, guys, but there’s one thing that I that the Pelosi mind thing is worrying about. Her minefield ahead of her is this. If you begin the hearings with a split house, with Republicans not supporting it, Amash, sure, nobody else. You walk into probably a year in which the president is the victim. The President plays the demagogue. We know now he's nimble at this. He plays it brilliantly. “The deep state has now arose. I told you they were coming to get me. The bureaucracy, the prosecutors, the FBI, the Justice, all those people and those liberals and the media. All those people you don't like, all those liberals, all those people, they are coming out to get and take back what you voted for in the electoral college in 2016. They're coming to ruin our democracy, save me.” Congressman, is that the fear, that dark knight of terror that Trump would know how to play if he had to play it?
CONGRESSMAN JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Oh, I think that's absolutely part of it, Chris, yes. In terms of the political messaging, of the political vulnerability of pursuing an impeachment, yes, it's all of that. But again, I think when we think about this historically and the moment that we're in, if a president is allowed to obstruct justice the way this president has and the evidence suggests, then what does it mean for the rule of law and for our democracy? What does it say to a future president, whatever their political party, about the power of the presidency to ignore the law and usurp power from congress and basically break the law. There's longer term damage that's at stake here.
MATTHEWS: You know, I was thinking now of that old skit that Barbara Streisand did, coffee talk and I was thinking now it’s time for people to speak among themselves and everybody watching right now, if there’s one or two of you watching, have the debate at home right now. Is it smart? Is it right for the Democrats to impeach right now? Because I don't think they'll do it in three or four months or next year. I think now they have to make that decision, yes or no, it is existential, perhaps for their role in history, but it's time for coffee talk. You know, discuss it among yourselves. Thank you, U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro and thank you, David Frum. I'm serious, the whole country should talk about this, especially democratic liberals.
(....)
7:24 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: if he knew from the time he got this commission two years ago that he could not indict the President and, therefore, it would be unfair, as he said in the report, to accuse him if you can't indict him, why didn't he say so the first day on the job. Because we've been waiting for two years, not just the Democrats and the media, all of America was waiting for him to come out and give us a verdict. He didn't give us a verdict.
PETER BAKER: We’ve got this process right now.
MATTHEWS: He said it's up to Congress to have the verdict.
(....)
7:37 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS [TO RASHIDA TLAIB]: Well, I hear your passion and I feel it and I share it. I just want to say one thing. Pelosi is sitting there. She's a pol and she's a good one and she's saying wait a minute, there's a lot of excitement. There’s always a lot of excitement when you start a war. But once you get into a war, and it will be a war with trump. He will declare the fact that you and your caucus are trying to upset the American people's decision of 2016. That you and the deep state he'll call it and the FBI and the media are all out to turn against the American people and this will be a coup, it will be an attempt to destroy our democracy and he'll do this every single hour that the impeachment exercise is at work. Can your leadership withstand that attack? Can you as a Democratic Party withstand that kind of attack?
(....)
7:58 p.m. Eastern
MATTHEWS: Well, today was a day of history. The country's top investigator of an American President shifted the verdict on the President's guilt or innocence to the U.S. Congress. As I said earlier in the show, the question now is to impeach or not to impeach.
