Medved: ‘I don’t want to be remembered as being on the wrong side’

President Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday over the violent siege of the nation’s Capitol, making him the only president to be twice impeached. Ten Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to impeach. Michael Medved, host of The Michael Medved Show on 770 KTTH, joined KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show to discuss the week’s events.

“It’s great to talk to you always, and particularly these are such epic times, and so much of it comes right around here to our own state,” Medved said. “Of the 10 Republicans who had the courage — and I think it did take courage — to vote to impeach the president a second time, of those 10, one-fifth, 2 of them, were from our state.”

At one point, it was thought there could be up to 20 Republicans that may vote to impeach, but Medved says he’s surprised it was 10.

“I knew that there would be five because there were five who committed in advance. But there were other people who came around, like Dan Newhouse from the Tri Cities in our state,” he said. “And look, right now, talking to serious people, it’s all up to Mitch McConnell. And Mitch McConnell has been shockingly open to the idea of voting to convict the president.”

“The reason for it — and this is really the essence of the entire matter — has Donald Trump been good for our politics?” Medved continued. “Has he been good for America’s public discourse? Is it a good thing to have him out there campaigning for a return to power in 2024? Even though I believe he has no chance of winning the presidency again, he has a great chance of wrecking the Republican Party forever,” Medved added.

While he believes it’s still unlikely that the 17 Republican senators needed to convict President Trump will happen, it’s not “outside the realm of possibility.”

UW law professor: Removing Trump through impeachment ‘would be challenging’

Moving forward, Medved says there will be a long process to “purge Trumpism” from the Republican Party.

“And by Trumpism, I mean this: This just came out, there’s a new member of Congress from Colorado named Lauren Boebert, and she tweeted on the morning of the riot, ‘Today is 1776,'” he explained. “Now that indicates that she was aware of something like this happening, and there are stories now of members of Congress who took future rioters around the Capitol building, showing them where to find stuff.”

Medved agreed with Gee and Ursula that it should lead to losing your rights to be a delegate, and added that he thinks probably a criminal charge as well.

“The one thing that encouraged me about the vote yesterday was even though he voted no, like most Republicans did, the great majority of Republicans, on impeaching the president, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, acknowledged a number of things. He acknowledged, number one, this was not antifa. That people are saying, ‘Oh, these were antifa people masquerading as Republicans.’ It’s not true. And he acknowledged that the president was accountable, and he used the term ‘responsible’ for what happened.”

“Now that’s a move in the right direction, in the direction of sanity,” he added.

While some Americans are asking what took them so long, Medved says he’s encouraged that there seems to be almost unanimity that the president is wrong.

“I am at least encouraged that there seems to be almost unanimity here for everybody who isn’t Matt Gaetz, or Mo Brooks, or Andy Biggs, or one of these cavemen in the House, there seems to be almost unanimity that the president is just wrong about this. … He needs to apologize,” Medved said.

America will not be destroyed

Medved says when he speaks out against Trump, he gets a lot of responses, including some death threats.

“I get letters all the time, and emails, and responses, and it’s still, to this day, anything negative about Trump gets a very angry response, and they organize listener boycotts, … I guess the idea is — and this is what’s wrong with our politics — they expect you to come, it’s like the shirts versus the skins, or the Jets versus the Sharks, or the Hatfields versus the McCoys,” he said. “It’s just gang warfare, and nobody even knows what it’s really about.”

When people say we’ve lost our country or that Joe Biden will destroy it, Medved wonders what it is that people really fear.

“What’s at the heart of it? I mean, yes, he’s going to raise taxes. But you know what? The majority of people in the country, and it’s a big majority, think that taxes should be raised on wealthy people,” he said.

“And do I think that’s a good idea? No, I don’t. … But it doesn’t mean the end of America,” he added. “… Joe Biden is many things. He is not a radical, Marxist, socialist revolutionary. That’s not the guy. And by the way, he’s also not senile and a puppet of people who are going to use him to destroy America.”

He believes that more and more Republicans, “decent patriotic Americans” who are committed to the country and its principles, are understanding that it’s dangerous to be associated with the people who so strongly support Trump, and those who stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“There are some people who are just beyond the pale. And if the Republican Party is the party that supports statements, supports this big lie that the election was stolen, or that there was election fraud, or that Joe Biden didn’t win — the big lie at the pit of it all … is the lie that Trump won,” he said. “There’s no universe, there’s no alternative universe here, in outer space, where Trump actually won this election.”

“The point over here is, look, … what we just saw seven, eight days ago in the Capitol building was about as clear a division between right and wrong as it could possibly be,” Medved said. “And this is one of those things I don’t want to be remembered as being on the wrong side.”

Listen to the Gee and Ursula Show weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM, and to Michael Medved weekday afternoons from 12 – 3 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM. Subscribe to the podcast here.