May 27 2024 39 mins
The U.S. Senate has particular Constitutional responsibilities and political duties. As the deliberative body it is meant to check the impulses of a more rambunctious House of Representatives, confirm judicial appointments, ratify treaties and, when necessary, act as the jury in the event of the impeachment of the President or Cabinet officials. Ira Shapiro, Senate scholar, former staffer and U.S. Trade Ambassador, focuses on the impeachment responsibility in his updated version of “The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America,” recently released. In a blistering indictment of his own, Shapiro assigns principal blame to Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader, considered by Shapiro and others to be the most powerful Senate leader in history, for the opportunity he let pass to convict former President Donald Trump after his second impeachment. Trump’s election denialsim led to a mob insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. While the U.S. Senate, by 2022, was functioning well enough to pass major pieces of bipartisan legislation, questions remain about the body’s ability to function effectively in these turbulent political times.