Rep. Devin Nunes argued that the impeachment trial against President Trump is a much bigger scandal than McCarthyism.
The 46-year-old California Republican has been an ardent defender of the president and made the comparison to former Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who accused colleagues of being communists and spies.
“What’s happening today in the Senate floor and last three days and last three months previously in the House of Representatives, this makes Joseph McCarthy, the former senator in the 1950s, look like nothing. It looks like nothing,” he said during a Thursday interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
“Remember, this is a man who has accused — [Rep.] Adam Schiff has accused and [Speaker] Pelosi, the leaders of the Democratic Party — have accused me of being a Russian asset, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic candidate, of being a Russian asset, the Senate majority leader of being a Russian asset, [and President] Trump of being a Russian asset.”
Nunes is not the first person to compare aspects of Trump’s impeachment trial to McCarthyism. When Trump tweeted negatively about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch while she was testifying in the House impeachment proceedings, members of the media compared the president’s message to McCarthyism.
“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian president spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. president’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors,” the president said.
CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash said the president’s tweet was “almost worse” than McCarthy’s accusations, which brought down a number of people.
