Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has never been and never will be the most charismatic speaker on the Republican side. But after the events of last night, the senator from Kentucky got up today and in his usual calm, unruffled fashion, gave the Democrats a verbal beating.

The speech McConnell gave was as good as you could have hoped for in defense of President Trump. In a thirty-minute speech, McConnell slowly and systematically took apart the shenanigans that the House has been orchestrating in order to get to this point. If you have the time to invest in watching Senator McConnell dissect the impeachment of Donald Trump, I suggest you do so.

“This particular House of Representatives has let its partisan rage at this particular president create a toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future,” McConnell said on the floor, accusing Democrats of giving in to “temptation” with their impeachment vote while challenging their handling of the articles in the aftermath.”

McConnell decried the effort, for which no Republicans voted, as “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.” It taps into long-standing complaints by Republicans that the impeachment has trampled over minority rights in the House, and that Democrats were pursuing an outcome they have preordained before Trump was even sworn into office.”

And McConnell notes that suddenly, after all their talk and this “rush” to impeachment without getting all the witnesses (that the Senate Democrats would now like to have), Nancy Pelosi is putting the brakes on impeachment by openly saying that she might not send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial.

Mr. President, looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial. They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process, but now they’re content to sit on their hands. This is really comical. Democrats’ own actions concede that their allegations are unproven. The articles aren’t just unproven, they’re also constitutionally incoherent.”

Frankly, if either of these articles is blessed by the Senate, we could easily see the impeachment of every future president of either party. Let me say that again. If the Senate blesses this historically low bar we will invite the impeachment of every future president.”

No one quite seems to understand what Pelosi’s play is here. Legally, her part is finished. She doesn’t get to set the rules of the Senate, and she has known that from day one. With the Republicans in charge in the Senate, impeachment now falls under their control. Pelosi doesn’t have any leverage here, and the courts could indeed force her to send over the articles to the Senate. Nancy, glue your teeth back in and start chewing nails, because your part in this charade has ended. With the impeachment vote, you have set a chain of events in motion that you cannot stop, even as Speaker of the House.

Not allowing the Senate to act on approved Articles of Impeachment becomes Constitutional extortion and creates chaos for the presidency.

It also sets in motion a tremendous threat to our Constitutional system of checks and balances.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 19, 2019

Nancy Pelosi’s threat to refuse to transmit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate for disposition is an incredibly dumb and dangerous idea.

There is a reason one person can’t be Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader at the same time!

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 19, 2019

But that’s okay, because after all her bullshit about it being a “solemn” and “sad” day yesterday, ol’ Nancy is feeling as giddy as a schoolgirl again.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "Seems like people have a spring in their step because the President was held accountable for his reckless behavior. … I have a spring in my step because of the moral courage of our caucus" pic.twitter.com/Xy0ru76uFJ

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 19, 2019

Nancy Pelosi knows that Donald Trump will never be convicted by the Senate. The Botox that has gone to her brain has convinced her that if she just holds on to the articles of impeachment and tries to wait for favorable trial agreements, she can do some damage to not just Trump, but Republicans as well. After all, the Democrats are likely to pay a political price for these impeachment follies. Pelosi wants the Republicans to have a Pyrrhic victory that does an equal amount of damage to both sides.

Mitch McConnell made it perfectly clear in his speech today that he knows the score of this game. His drawling, monotone delivery masked what really is a barn-burner of a speech, and would have made several viral moments if it had been delivered by almost anyone else. Even though McConnell will never set a crowd afire the way that Donald Trump does, we should be grateful that he is Senate Majority Leader today, and that he delivered this speech on this day. History may remember yesterday’s vote, but history will record McConnell’s speech as well.

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Featured image: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, cropped, official portrait, public domain