Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 23, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

As my colleague Nick Arama posted this morning, Mitch McConnell has secured the votes to go ahead and use the same rules that applied in the Clinton impeachment to conduct President Trump’s coming Senate trial. Even Lisa Murkowski is on board after making noise to the contrary during the holiday break.

The people who Democrats would have needed, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) are reportedly siding with McConnell on sticking to the Clinton model of the process.

Murkowski also agreed. She said that any witnesses should only be discussed after they got the articles and after that process.

This never should have been controversial, as it was Democrats who shaped the Clinton rules. The idea that we should change them now and that it was some great travesty that McConnell was refusing to do so was nothing but pure partisan hackery. But when Democrats know the media will do their bidding, not pointing out that Republicans are just asking for the same rules as 1999, it’s easier to proceed with being hypocrites.

With Murkowski and Collins on board, McConnell has the votes to ignore Schumer’s demands and Senate Democrats are starting to realize the jig is up.

Here’s Sen. Chris Murphy, who’s covered himself in glory over the Iran escalation, telling Pelosi that it’s time to send the articles of impeachment over.

Meanwhile, multiple Senate Dems saying now that it's clear GOP is dug in against witness deal, it's time to send the articles and start the trial.
"I think the time has past. She should send the articles over," said @ChrisMurphyCT https://t.co/MIUFSFkxnn

— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) January 7, 2020

Hilariously, just 24 hours ago, reporters were saying that McConnell had lost his leverage and Pelosi had the upper hand.

The 24-hour news cycle. A tale of two tweets. pic.twitter.com/wU8XJb1eso

— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) January 7, 2020

There was never any reason for a “deal.” You don’t make deals with people who have no leverage and want to change the rules they formerly orchestrated when the shoe was on the other foot. Good on McConnell for standing strong here and calling Pelosi’s bluff.

Once again, the smart set have been proven wrong about their assertions. Pelosi never had any “leverage” and Laurence Tribe’s scheme was idiotic from the get-go. Every media outlet that thought it was brilliant looks a little dumber today. In the end, withholding the articles of impeachment only caused more Americans to check out, to the point where basically no one outside of political junkies are paying attention.

In short, this backfired spectacularly for Democrats and it’s only going to get worse once the trial starts.