CNN hosts Jake Tapper and John King agree that Republican unity in Congress is at a high point amid a Democrat-led impeachment investigation into President Trump.
Tapper and King appeared on a Thursday panel to discuss the first public impeachment hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing featured three law professors invited by committee Democrats and one by committee Republicans.
“Republicans are more unified now against impeachment, I think more so than I’ve ever seen them throughout the entire Trump era, including from the moment candidate Trump, or candidate Trump, came down that escalator until now. I’ve never seen them this unified,” Tapper said.
Since the impeachment investigation into Trump began, no Republicans have joined Democrats in backing impeachment. GOP Rep. Will Hurd, one of a handful of Republicans in Congress openly critical of Trump, declined to call for impeachment after impeachment hearings in the House Intelligence Committee. Hurd is also not running for reelection in 2020.
“The Republican loyalty, you’re right, it has increased,” King said. “The fact that even the retiring Republicans are not putting on the table the possibility of splitting, we’ll see if it happens, but there’s zero indication right now that any Republican is going to leave the president in the House and really zero indication that we’re going to see that in the Senate.”
The Democrat-invited law professors are Noah Feldman of Harvard, Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina, and Pamela Karlan of Stanford. The lone Republican witness is Jonathan Turley of George Washington University.
