Rich Lowry: Removing Trump from office for his abuses of power would blow a hole of legitimacy in our national politics
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From the November 3, 2019, edition of NBC's Meet the Press
CHUCK TODD (ANCHOR): That was what struck me in our poll, Rich, oh, he can’t get impeached, and I don’t know if he can win re-election. Like, both things can be true.
RICH LOWRY (NATIONAL REVIEW EDITOR): Yeah, what's also amazing though, impeachment is 49/46, which pretty much exactly mirrors the popular vote for 2016.
TODD: The presidential vote.
LOWRY: The last three years we think there have been a lot of developments. In the big scheme of things, there have been no developments. It's exactly the same situation. I think Cole is working himself up to what I think is the best defense, which is that impeaching and removing a president would literally be an unprecedented act in American history. So you need the enormity of the offense to match that severe and unprecedented punishment. And even if this was, improper and I think elements of it were, I don’t think it reaches that level.
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LOWRY: There's an NPR/Marist poll a couple weeks ago, had 52% supporting the inquiry, but then asked it the best way to deal with this to remove him, or have an election. It was 58/37 in favor of an election. So that's a very strong suit for Republicans. Also, I just don’t think removing him would actually at the end of the day be good for the country. It would blow a hole of legitimacy in the center of our national politics that would take years to heal.