Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, (D-NY) appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning and host Margaret Brennan asked him about the Mueller report. Jeffries isn’t just some random Democrat chosen to deliver the day’s talking points. He’s the fourth highest ranking Democrat in the House and Democratic caucus chairman. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee and the Budget Committee. So, when he offered four questions that can be answered by the Mueller report being made public, my ears perked up.

Jeffries asked a) Is President Trump is a legitimate President?, b) Is President Trump a Russian asset?, c) Is President Trump the functional equivalent of an organized crime boss? or d) Is President Trump just a useful idiot who happens to have been victimized by the greatest set of coincidences in American history? No partisan bias there, right?

Let’s take the first step in terms of the full disclosure of the report and the underlying documentation,” Jeffries said on “Face the Nation” Sunday. “The American people deserve to know whether Donald Trump is either: A, a legitimate president; B, a Russian asset; C, the functional equivalent of an organized crime boss or; D, just a useful idiot who happens to have been victimized by the greatest collection of coincidences in the history of the republic.”

.@RepJeffries says Pres. Trump might be illegitimate, a Russian asset or a “useful idiot.” pic.twitter.com/A5sHoRQOaV

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 24, 2019

I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a performance from a politician on national television, at least not at the level that Jeffries was lowering himself to in his descriptions of Trump. A useful idiot? A crime boss? I mean, I already knew the man despises President Trump. Jeffries, you may remember, referred to President Trump as “The Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”. So an ugly attack wasn’t unusual coming from him but it’s like he’s just trying to top himself now.

The problem with Jeffries is his own sense of entitlement. He honestly thinks he’s entitled to show such conversational incivility. You know, the end justifies the means. For instance, when he was questioned over the Grand Wizard remark, did he think he should apologize? No. No, he did not. He excused this remark as a way to open up a dialogue on race. I’m not kidding. He tried to act as though such an insult would open a discussion, not end one.

“Third, with respect to the comments of a few days ago,” he said. “We’ve got to have an opportunity for at least one day a year to have a candid, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race. It seems to me we can’t have that conversation of Valentines Day, we can’t have that conversation on St. Patrick’s Day, it is perhaps appropriate for us to be able to have that difficult discussion on MLK Day, when we’re celebrating the life and legacy of a champion for social justice.”

That was back in January of this year. So, since he got away with that ugliness without a public apology, he’s emboldened to continue on. Sunday’s interview gave him a platform to go beyond racial accusations and into the legitimacy of the President’s election.

Rep. Jeffries is deliberately obtuse when he’s questioned about a desire for impeachment. No, no, no, he said. Democrats aren’t focused on impeachment. They ran on a legislative agenda and just want to get back to working on that.

Asked if House Democrats will seek to launch impeachment proceedings against the president regardless of Mueller’s conclusions, Jeffries said Democrats didn’t run on impeachment in 2018 when they took control, of the House after nearly a decade in the minority.

He said Democrats will focus on their legislative agenda on health care, voting rights and infrastructure — and only initiate impeachment proceedings if the case against Mr. Trump is “compelling.”

“We are not going to proceed unless the case is compelling, the evidence is overwhelming, and most importantly public sentiment around impeachment is bipartisan,” Jeffries added.

Public sentiment isn’t bipartisan on impeachment, though. Even Nancy Pelosi had to dash hopes of impeachment proceedings because there is no appetite for that circus except on the far left. It would likely torpedo a 2020 presidential victory, too. The only hope now is for an abundance of House committee investigations to keep the Democratic narrative in the news cycle, which we have been all but guaranteed will happen.