The Note: Mueller highlights moment of truth for impeachment push
Mueller's testimony comes at a moment of truth for Trump's potential impeachment
The TAKE with Rick Klein
It's been a stubborn reality of the impeachment debate: The only people more eager to talk about it than those who favor it are those who don't.
So it is that Robert Mueller's long-awaited congressional testimony comes at a moment of truth for the potential impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The number of House members supporting impeachment proceedings grew to 95 as of last week's House vote. That came after a fresh outrage: Trump's racist attacks on four House Democrats.
The number is unlikely to grow much beyond that in the foreseeable future -- unless something major comes out of Mueller's Capitol Hill appearances on Wednesday.
Several of the Democrats who are the focus of Trump's attacks are nonetheless pushing the conversation in that direction.
"I'm not going nowhere, not until I impeach this president," Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., said Monday at the NAACP convention, which will draw 2020 contenders later this week.
Already, presidential candidate Tom Steyer is calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel the August congressional recess to focus on impeachment and congressional accountability. That will nudge the 2020 conversation along -- including among members of Congress who would rather be campaigning than voting for the rest of the summer.
Trump, meanwhile, knows that Pelosi can count votes.
"They tried an impeachment vote," the president said Monday, "and they got slaughtered."
The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks
The tide of opposition aimed at Puerto Rico's governor is rising.
Over the weekend, 2020 Democratic candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, traveled to the island in solidarity with the protesters who have been taking to the streets and calling for the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló.
Rosselló has been in hot water for some time and announced that he would not seek re-election. He faces allegations of mismanagement after Hurricane Maria and protests erupted last week after controversial group chats, involving the governor and several of his top advisers, leaked to the press.
Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a co-chair on Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and was one of the targets in the leaked chats.
On Saturday, Sanders said Rosselló needed to go immediately, and the pile on has only continued from there. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, the only Latino in the 2020 race, was one of the very first to call for the governor to resign. Author Marianne Williamson led the charge with a tweet on Thursday and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio added his name on Monday. New York City has the largest Puerto Rican diaspora in the continental U.S.
Trump called Rosselló a "terrible governor" on Monday and went on to argue that the territory was suffering from "totally, grossly incompetent leadership" in general.
An aside, but Trump also said, "I'm the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico."
Regardless of who has done what for the Americans there, it is hard to imagine Rosselló will be able to hold out much longer or be effective.
The TIP with Briana Stewart and Sasha Pezenik
Packed together into one room, voices speaking different languages, faces behind wire fences and many without a passport, visa or papers. Some would be turned back, rejected from the United States. Where -- and when -- did you just imagine? Was it America's southern border? The front lines of today's fractious immigration battle or was it New York's Ellis Island in its hey day? It could easily be either.
On Monday, Beto O'Rourke and his wife Amy visited Ellis Island -- which once processed more than 12 million immigrants on their way into the U.S.
"Where I live in El Paso could be the Ellis Island of today," O'Rourke told ABC News during his tour. "Perhaps millions of people who become Americans -- coming from Mexico and El Salvador and the Western Hemisphere -- first set foot in the United States, in my hometown."
The trip was a chance to trace his and the country's roots to the border battle in his hometown in Texas. It was also a chance for the presidential candidate to dig deeper on one of his signature issues -- immigration -- on the heels of the June debate in Miami where his fellow 2020er Castro said O'Rourke should "do his homework" on the issue.
THE PLAYLIST
ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Tuesday morning's episode features ABC News Chief Global Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, who tells us about the latest escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Then, FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver joins us to break down fundraising strategies for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. http://apple.co/2HPocUL
ABC News' "The Investigation" podcast. On the eve of Robert Mueller's anticipated testimony on Capitol Hill, "The Investigation" sits down with one of the members of the House Judiciary Committee who will ask the former special counsel questions, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I. http://apple.co/2HPocUL
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The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.
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