The holidays were hard for President Donald Trump. The impeachment process continues despite how much he wishes it would end, and he's now even been removed from Canadian broadcasts of "Home Alone 2" (along with "several" other scenes not "integral to the plot"). Despite signs that the scene was merely cut for time, the president took this as a snub saying that it must be in response to his success in lobbying NATO allies to pay more.
Trump's response to being cut from the broadcast was relatively lighthearted, but the tweet he shared supporting a QAnon conspiracy theory is much more dangerous. In the past, followers of this conspiracy have committed horribly violent acts, most notably an attack on a pizza parlor in Washington D.C.. QAnon followers believed the restaurant was a front for a pedophile ring made up of lawmakers and celebrities. Earlier this year, QAnon was designate a potential domestic terrorism threat by the FBI.
In impeachment news, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi continues to delay sending the article of impeachment which were agreed upon by the House-along party lines, to a Republican controlled Senate. This decision flies in the face of the President and GOP leaders' wishes for a speedy trial and a swift exoneration.
One of those GOP leaders, Mitch McConnell, has made it clear that he's not interested in a fair trial saying he isn't "impartial" and that he is coordinating every move with the Whitehouse. Reportedly, Pelosi is waiting for McConnell to agree to a fair and impartial trial before she will send over the articles of impeachment.
Not all GOP members are comfortable with the tactic taken by McConnell: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Rep., said she was "disturbed" by his promise of "total coordination" with the president. Promising to stay impartial herself, Murkowski said, "For me to prejudge and say 'there's nothing there,' or on the other hand, 'he should be impeached yesterday,' that's wrong, in my view, that's wrong."
The delay is enraging the president who has tweeted countless times about the process calling the House majority leader "Crazy Nancy Pelosi" on Christmas and repeating his common refrain that "there was no crime, the call... was perfect.'' The President has a history of targeting the progressive cities that many Democratic lawmakers represent calling Nancy Pelosi's district which includes San Francisco a "filthy dirty district" and suggesting she should be challenged in her primary.
Pelosi herself has shown in the past that she is not afraid to butt heads with the president. Early in 2019, during the government shutdown, Trump cancelled a trip Pelosi had scheduled on a government funded plane. In response, Pelosi withdrew her invitation to the president to present his State of the Union address before Congress. Eventually, Trump capitulated to Democratic demands. Business Insider has reported that a source close to the president's legal team said, "as long as those articles of impeachment sit in Nancy Pelosi's hands, Trump is powerless."
In the meantime, the public's view of the process has stayed steady since October. Polling shows support for impeachment at 50%, and Evangelicals seem nearly as split. An op-ed published in Christianity Today calling for Trump's removal has caused controversy and tension between Christian religious leaders.
Christianity Today, a publication founded by Billy Graham, published the article on December 19, and within days 200 evangelical leaders had signed a letter opposing the editor of the site.
Fellow conservative Christian publication The Christian Post denounced the op-ed which they saw as a sign of "Christian elitism". The Christian Post used scathing language against anti-Trump Evangelicals saying Christianity Today showed "obvious elitist disdain and corrosive condescension for fellow Christians."
In the same breath, The Christian Post called the anti-Trump critique "ignorant" and "uneducated". Condemning the elitism they claim was shown in their fellow conservative publication, The Christian Post wrote, "Unbelievers might well conclude, 'These Christian preach love for neighbor, but they certainly don't seem to practice what they preach!'"
Since the pro-Trump article was published, The Christian Post's editor, Napp Nasworth has resigned saying he had "no other choice". Nasworth saw publishing the pro-Trump article as anything but an op-ed as inappropriate and unsupportable. He said his former employers seem "conspiratorial" in their position on impeachment and compared The Christian Post with the far-right website Breitbart, another pro-Trump site. Nasworth said that in 2016 there was a sort of consensus between Christians editors about "who Trump was" but that their views have changed while his have not. To his point, the site published an article in 2016 telling Christians to "back away" from Trump calling him "a scam". Nasworth said he was reluctant to leave the publication because he feared there would no longer be any "alternative view to team Trump". The former editor predicted that if the site "joins team Trump, then that will destroy the reputation of The Christian Post."