The NY Times does a Q & A piece on the Republican ex- Massachusetts governor who is running against President Trump for the 2020 Republican Party Presidential nomination….
Last poll I saw on this had Trump @85%….Weld @ 15%…..
Weld’s comments COULD end upping used by a Democrat running against Trump next year?
William F. Weld and President Trump not only seem to be from different political parties — they seem at times like they are from different planets.
Mr. Weld, the former Massachusetts governor who is challenging Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, is betting that there are still enough Republicans and independents who find the president so objectionable that they can be moved do what voters rarely do: defeat the sitting president in a primary.
Mr. Weld supports abortion rights and gay rights, and he wants to talk about issues like climate change, which Mr. Trump has called “a hoax.” He is an intellectual who quotes Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, which can seem jarring in a political culture consumed with the insults and punch lines on the president’s Twitter feed.
The New York Times interviewed Mr. Weld about the states where he will start campaigning next month, his belief that the president has committed acts far worse than Richard Nixon, and what his high school production of “Julius Caesar” taught him about Mr. Trump’s exercise of power.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q. You’ve said you were appalled by the Mueller report but also that impeachment is not going anywhere in this Congress. So do you think it’s time to move on and to focus on issues that are more likely to change how people see President Trump, if that’s possible?
A. It’s stated pretty clearly that Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy. Fine. Move on from that point.
The obstruction point is detailed in the report. Indeed, at the end of volume two, they say, “We were unable to form a judgment that he is not guilty of obstruction.” And this is after 80 pages of lurid obstruction of justice evidence, which is well over the bar beyond what Richard Nixon did, well over.
I want to stop there because you worked on Watergate as a lawyer. When you say that what Trump did went beyond the bar of what Nixon did, what do you mean? That’s pretty significant.
A fact that’s gotten too little attention is that a good deal of the analysis that went into the decision by the House Judiciary Committee to vote for the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974 was the analysis under what’s called the Take Care Clause.
The president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. Among his duties specified in the Constitution is that he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed…..
image…The Hill