TIME's new cover: "We've upped the ante." Why Nancy Pelosi is going all in against Trump

[riversedge]

@TIME TIME’s new cover: “We've upped the ante.” Why Nancy Pelosi is going all in against Trump https://ti.me/2QASs8k
https://time.com/5762021/nancy-pelosi-trump-impeachment-gamble/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=politics_&linkId=80332614

Link to tweet

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'We've Upped the Ante.' Why Nancy Pelosi Is Going All in Against Trump


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Pelosi in her office in the U.S. Capitol on December 9.

By Molly Ball January 9, 2020

Nancy Pelosi isn’t wild about the question. The impeachment of President Donald Trump is under way, and I’ve asked the Speaker of the House if she thinks it’s the most important thing she’ll ever do. We’re sitting in her elegant office in the Capitol, on gold-upholstered armchairs around a low table topped with a vase of hydrangeas. Over her shoulder, the sweeping view of the National Mall is shrouded in wintry clouds. For a long moment, the Speaker goes silent as she seems to compile in her mind the list of accomplishments she’d rather claim as her legacy.

“Apart from declaring war, this is the most important thing that the Congress can do,” she finally says. “I’m most proud of the Affordable Care Act. But this is the most serious initiative that I’ve been involved in in my career.”

Pelosi has spent decades at the highest levels of politics, but the past 12 months have been arguably her most consequential. Returning to the speakership after eight years running the House Democratic minority, she established herself as counterweight and constrainer of this divisive President. She outmaneuvered Trump on policy, from the border wall he didn’t get to the budget agreement he signed loaded with goodies that Democrats wanted. She oversaw an unprecedented litigation effort against the Executive Branch, racking up landmark court victories. And she was the tactician behind the investigation that resulted in Trump’s impeachment on Dec. 18.

Nancy Pelosi's Gamble


As the new year dawns, she’s led the impeachment of a first-term President for the first time in history, an action that stands poised to determine the shape of politics in 2020—and history.

What is most striking about this moment in Pelosi’s career is that at the peak of power, she is not protecting her position but rather using it in aggressive, even risky ways. Impeaching Trump is a gamble for Pelosi. It has intensified Republicans’ fealty to the President, rallying his base and supercharging his campaign fundraising, potentially increasing his re-election chances. The polarizing effort could jeopardize Democrats who hold seats in Trump territory, and thereby endanger Pelosi’s House majority. With impeachment, Pelosi is betting her own place in history.


Pelosi has always been a risk-taker, from defying Chinese authorities by protesting at Tiananmen Square in 1991 to pushing Obamacare through the House with nary a vote to spare in 2010. But she is careful to cast impeachment not as a political gambit but as a project to preserve the checks and balances of American democracy. “That’s my responsibility: to protect the Constitution of the United States,” she says.

That battle is playing out on multiple fronts. As Congress returned and Trump launched the country into a potential conflict with Iran, Pelosi sought to rein him in. The House planned to vote Jan. 9 on a war powers resolution designed to limit the President’s ability to escalate the conflict. The behind-the-scenes court battle that Pelosi has field-marshaled aims not just to check Trump’s current power grabs, but also to set precedents that will stop future Presidents from doing the same, or worse.........................................

[Flo Mingo]

1. k&r n/t

[Scarsdale]

2. The jelly fish spined

gop should be taking notes. Mrs. Pelosi has more courage than the entire crew COMBINED. She is fighting for what is right about this country, as the gop slowly disintegrates all decency. Someday we will find out WHY the gop is backing the worst, least qualified, repulsive, ignorant, low class, foul mouthed excuse for a president to ever enter the Oval Office. If tRump is the best the gop has to offer, then God help us all. He is and always will be a total DISASTER.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Yeah, TIME, it's risky to stand for the Constitution

either we've degenerated into fascism, or TIME has.

[empedocles]

5. The Speaker has a historic role to play

[Hekate]

6. Once again, Trump fails to get a TIME cover. Everyone can see the honor goes to Mme Speaker...

...and why it is she deserves it. But all Donny Two-Scoops can see is that HE didn't get it.

[Bluepinky]

7. Maybe he'll be on the cover once he's behind bars in prison.

That would be the cover I’d love to see: Trump in an orange jumpsuit looking out his windowless jail cell, muttering to himself.