Donald Trump’s ‘reality show’ impeachment trial has America voters transfixed

ANALYSIS: Divided doesn’t come close to describing how voters feel about Donald Trump. And for many, his long-running impeachment saga is just the latest instalment in the ongoing reality show.

• Election result is the only Trump verdict that counts

About six hours into the marathon legal argument about how US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will play out, more than a couple of the hundred jurors in the Senate chamber were spotted nodding off.

It wasn’t just that under the stringent rules of an impeachment trial, the senators who will decide Mr Trump’s fate are only allowed to consume water or a “tall glass of milk” while they are sitting in the chamber.

It was also the fact that a lot of what was discussed on day-one of the historic Senate trial wasn’t new.

Impeachment has never unseated a US president and there is every indication this trial has little chance of doing so. Picture: AFP

No bombshells, no new witnesses and nothing close to agreement between the warring Republicans and Democratic senators about how the trial is going to play out.

“It’s miserable,” said Oklahoma senator, Jim Inhofe, 85, one of several members of Congress who had also sat for the 1999 trial of Bill Clinton, of the impasse.

But he wasn’t worried about the long night ahead, saying: “Doesn’t bother me a bit if I can stay awake!”

Although impeachment has never unseated a US president and there is every indication this trial has little chance of doing so, that hasn’t stopped it from transfixing America.

Divided doesn’t come close to describing how his people feel about Mr Trump, just over 1000 days since he took office, and for many this is just the latest instalment in the ongoing reality show.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks out of the Senate chamber at the Capitol. Picture: AP

Democrats see Mr Trump’s request of a “favour” from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as an inelegantly-veiled threat from the mob-boss Commander in Chief that if the newly installed leader didn’t probe Joe Biden and his family then he could kiss goodbye hundreds of millions of dollars in military support and the valuable optics of a watertight alliance with the US.

Trump supporters say the President was doing his job and that he had every reason to ask questions about why Mr Biden’s unqualified son held a highly paid board position at a Ukraine energy company when his father was US Vice-President with responsibility for the relationship with Kiev.

The White House defence appears to be that the aid was paid out, that Mr Trump has released a transcript of the contentious Ukraine phonemail, and that the charges of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” are not impeachable offences.

“There is absolutely no case,” said White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone, appearing for Mr Trump.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone speaks against an amendment offered by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during the impeachment trial. Picture: AP

But for every presidential tweet to “read the transcript”, there are dozens more from his detractors exhorting those seeking the truth to do the same thing.

Like the blue dress that divided the internet in 2015, Trump’s enemies and his supporters are looking at identical evidence and coming to opposite conclusions.

With Republicans holding the numbers in the Senate, which needs to reach a majority verdict to oust Trump, Democrats have gone into this battle knowing they are likely to lose it.

But there is little doubt that the show they plan to put on in coming days is about winning not just hearts and minds, but the war that will be November’s presidential election.

Originally published as Donald Trump’s ‘reality show’ impeachment trial has America voters transfixed