MSNBC anchor Katy Tur went off on President Donald Trump Thursday, asking a Democratic guest "what more does the House need" to debate his fitness for office and possible impeachment.
Tur was on the air when news broke that Trump had abruptly canceled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) congressional delegation trip to three countries, including Afghanistan. She was scheduled to leave Thursday with other members of Congress, but Trump denied her use of military aircraft, citing the government shutdown and the need to continue negotiations over border security.
Tur, who became nationally prominent while reporting on Trump's 2016 campaign, was upset on Pelosi's behalf. She noted the speaker was second-in-line for the presidency and hit Trump for outing her trip. Later, she discussed the Atlantic's new cover story calling for Trump's impeachment and asked her guest, Rep. Dan Kildee (D., Mich.), what he thought about this passage, which she paraphrased, where the author said Congress needed to more fully debate Trump's fitness:
The fight over whether Trump should be removed from office is already raging, and distorting everything it touches. Activists are radicalizing in opposition to a president they regard as dangerous. Within the government, unelected bureaucrats who believe the president is acting unlawfully are disregarding his orders, or working to subvert his agenda. By denying the debate its proper outlet, Congress has succeeded only in intensifying its pressures. And by declining to tackle the question head-on, it has deprived itself of its primary means of reining in the chief executive.
"I don't know if it'll come to that, because there's so much riding on the investigation that Mr. [Robert] Mueller is completing—" Kildee started, before Tur interrupted.
"Is it all about the investigation though?" she asked. "Let's talk about his conduct in office, the way he speaks about people and targets individual Americans. He's intimidating witnesses. He's calling African nations s-hole countries. He's blowing up alliances. He's taking the notes away from the interpreter. The list goes on and on and on. What more does the House need in order to debate fitness for office?"
Kildee called them "behaviors that are outside the norms of common decency" but reiterated the Mueller report's significance had to be considered when it was completed. He also called on Senate Republicans to exercise greater oversight over the White House, calling Trump "psychologically unstable."