Texts with Pete, and how to impeach a president

THE LEDE

The Policy Stakes: Big public decisions tend to move very slowly — and then very, very fast. Donald Trump woke up Monday morning with a fairly stable grasp on his presidency; now, he’s facing impeachment over pushing the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

The question for Democrats is: How do you conduct an investigation like this in today’s hectic political media cycle? Early indications from Nancy Pelosi are: quickly. This may be more of a Netflix season, with all the episodes dropping at once, rather than an old-fashioned weekly TV show.

And then a nation’s lonely eyes will turn to…Mitt Romney. My colleague Paul has refused to make odds on exactly how unlikely it is that Trump will actually be removed by the Senate, if he’s impeached by the House. I am (very slightly) less skeptical.

The Political Stakes: Do you miss Bill de Blasio yet? I texted with him on Friday, the day he dropped out of the campaign.

BTW: Elizabeth Warren tweeted my texts with Jay Inslee, and I’m hoping we’ll get her in here soon.

READ RECEIPTS...

Pete Buttigieg

If you’d told me a year ago that the presidential campaign in late September 2019 would look like a contest between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, with other major national figures like Kamala Harris trying to stay in the mix, I wouldn’t have been surprised. If you’d told me that one of the strongest candidates would be the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, I would have been shocked. But Pete Buttigieg has found a broad lane for an optimistic Midwestern mayor, a young man who appeals to your mom, and a progressive who talks like a centrist.
We texted Monday before the Ukraine story broke — Buttigieg had already said Trump “deserved” impeachment in April, and reiterated it this week — and after I got his adviser, Lis Smith, to give him the phone.

BUZZFEED NEWS' IMPEACHMENT LINK SPECIAL

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