Their case about whether donald trump violated the constitution hes accused of both holding aid to ukraine to pressure it into investigating his political rival joe biden and of obstruction of congress well the democrat controlled house is expected to make trump the 3rd president to be impeached and u. S. History. But at the same time donald trump is about to address a Campaign Rally in battle creek michigan right now the Vice President mike pence was on stage earlier the u. S. President dismissed the impeachment process as an assault on america and his Republican Party. But we will get you back to the debate in a moment but 1st she has with how the 8 hours of debate has played out. I mean the research gentleman from new york over several hours the democrats repeated arguments that have now become very familiar the president needs to be held to account many speaker the house of representatives has now considered 2 articles of impeachment against President Trump the 1st article charges that the president used his Public Office to coerce a Foreign Government into attacking his political rival. The 2nd article charges that the president took extreme in unprecedented steps to obstruct our investigation into his kind of taken together the 2 articles charge that President Trump placed his private political interests above our National Security above our elections and above our system of checks and balances what we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the constitution is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our National Security and the integrity of our elections the basis of our democracy a central charge against the president is that he was demanding the Ukrainian Government announce an investigation into joe biden and his son hunter in return for an official white house visit with a tree any over the republicans argue that the democrats have failed conclusively to prove that case they say President Trump was right to be concerned about corruption in ukraine in addition they argue that home to bidens position on the board of the Ukrainian Energy company while his father was taking the lead in ukrainian policy as Vice President does warrant further examination and they argue that impeachment is simply the attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election we on the republican side have no problem taking our case to the majority and to the people of this country because they elected donald trump and it is a matter for the voters not this not in this way not in the way this is being done it is trampled Everything Else believes in our democrat colleagues have weaponized the impeachment provision of the constitution to nullify the votes of 63000000 americans who elected president donald j. Trump this is not about a phone call or your crane or even his use of the executive privilege you have to remember that 95 of the democrats on this floor today voted to impeach donald trump before the july 25th phone call ever happened between President Trump and president selenski a trial is expected to be held in the senate in january the Republican Leadership is hoping. For a relatively quick process of perhaps 2 weeks the president is almost certain to be acquitted the polls suggest the u. S. Public is evenly split over impeachment and thought doldrums Approval Ratings have increased since impeachment proceedings began in the autumn she every 1000 washington. Well lets go now to our correspondent koster shes joining us live on capitol hill in washington d. C. It was supposed to be a 6 hour debate heidi that was well what was decided but its gone on for some 8 hours now. Thats right when you account for the procedural housekeeping that happened earlier of them plus these times when the clock on those 6 hours isnt running we are stretching now well into the night just after 8 pm here in washington time but we are expecting these historic votes on the articles of impeachment are imminent or expected by the last speakers are now on the floor and members of both parties framing this decision in historic terms democrats saying that what we are witnessing is the solum use of the impeachment tool which was in vision by the countrys founders to be used only against those who hold the highest offices when they be trade their country and democrats say that is what donald trump has done when he asked ukraine to interfere in the upcoming u. S. President ial elections republicans using equally historic terms to describe what they see as a sham in this impeachment process they say this is a partisan effort by the democrats to remove trump from office because they dont like his policies they say the democrats are fearful that trump would win reelection in november of 2020 and thus he needs to be removed from office via impeachment now republicans really cant do much about actually impeaching or preventing the impeachment. At this point because within just a few more minutes time we expect democrats to cast those historic vote they have the numbers in the house of representatives to pass the articles of abuse of power and obstruction of congress against trump which would formally impeach him making trump only the 3rd u. S. President to face that congressional sanction and then of course that only opens the next chapter of this impeachment proceedings when trumps fate whether or not he remains in office with them be decided in a trial that moves to the senate and as you know elizabeth its very different political dynamics on that chamber with republicans trumps own party holding the majority in the senate and with the Top RepublicanMitch Mcconnell havent been have having been Crystal Clear in publicly stating that he and the white house are in total coordination on this trial and that he has every intention to help the president clear his name. And heidi we are all watching now live pictures off the u. S. President donald trump hes arrived at that very big supporters rally in battle creek michigan weve already heard from the u. S. Vice president lets listen in now to donald trump. Thank you to Vice President pants hes a good guy weve done a great job together Merry Christmas rishi again thank you its. One of the 3 we had in michigan i dont think he was at one of the greats was that the great is the. One im thrilled to be here with thousands of hardworking patriots as we celebrate the miracle of christmas the greatness of america and the glory of god thank you very much. Indeed you know you said everybody you saying Merry Christmas again did you know my. Remember when i 1st started this beautiful trip this beautiful journey i just said to the 1st lady youre so lucky i took you in this fantastic chair or and its so much fun they want to teach you they want to do worse than that by the way by the way. By the way it doesnt really feel like were being impeached at the countrys doing better than ever before we did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong. We have tremendous support in the Republican Party like weve never had before nobody. But the sacred cities in our country striving for the striving to have. Eyes happen the government for speaker or a speaker the ayes and nays on the. Yes and. The yet isnt a server question does favoring of the by the yesterdays vote rise as efficient number having risen the gays in nature order members of record their votes by a mechanic device this will be a 15 minute bow so there we go we have 15 minutes of voting now following that 8 hour debate on those 2 articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump the members of the u. S. House of representatives have been given 15 minutes to vote on those 2 articles they will be doing so by electronic voting and we can see some of those votes in front of us that is 100 on the republican the democratic side rather 100. To impeachment republicans 60 so far. And as we moms that choice lets also listen to the u. S. President is addressing supporters in the battle creek michigan for the thank you for his so i came in and i remember the speech so i said why are you allowing them to steal your Car Companies why are you allowing them to go to mexico and to go from china where they come in from china they build them in china they sell him into a country with no tax and you lose your jobs you lose your factories the companies leave and you get nothing why are they i asked that a long time ago and we stopped it weve stopped. You see that. And we just made the u. S. M. C. A were getting rid of nafta which i think is the worst trade deal ever. Are and is very exciting its a great deal its a great deal its going to stop exactly what we were just talking about it makes it very very prohibitive they can do it but theyre going to pay a hell of a big price to do it. And history has proven that stops them but we have a great u. S. M. C. A that we negotiated with mexico with canada now from the standpoint of the farmers you know whats going on we had tremendous trade barriers in canada we had a tax on Dairy Products 297 percent tariffs nobody talked about it with canada and we had some really bad things with mexico we dont have a wonderful deal and if we didnt have a good deal you know what i would have done. Why i would have put tariffs on both countries and that would have been a 5. Unfortunately the deal has been sitting with nancy pelosi for a long time i would have. And she had a lot of pressure especially from manufacturing areas farmers a lot of pressure to sign it so heres what happens so i get along with labor you know i had a lot of union labor vote for me tremendous amount of labor in new york where i come from we have a lot of unions and thats ok thats fine so we left a little stuff for the union because we figured to get it signed will give a little bit and we did it and we have one great deal and now you have the democrats tried to take credit for this and thats ok whatever it takes. For 7 months insists they dont do anything we given by the way i spoke to the unions the day before say fellas you gotta get it done and you know and union labor loves me and i love you to answer. Your thoughts so we have a great deal with mexico with canada and it is striped i said out loud because i say to him right now if they ever wanted to break the deal thats ok if somebody wants to break it you would be the you always have to have an alternative right and this country the deals we made you know we did a deal with south korea thats great we did a deal with japan 40 1000000000. 00 deal with japan and went out there was just a little piece of a deal ok that was a piece of the deal and i said to japan look you got to make this deal over to put a 20 percent tariff on the cars and thats before money than anything were talking about so we have. From. With the. So we are monitoring to live important events the 1st is the vote in the u. S. House of representatives all article one so the 1st article of impeachment against President Trump lets bring in heidi show custer she is joining us live from capitol hill we are watching the numbers heidi and theyre very much what we expected 160 days so far from the democrats 105 republicans nay and one democrat has voted nay. Right and all of that so far has been expected we knew all along that these historic votes would likely go down narrowly partisan lines and that is exactly what we are watching unfold these numbers of course are not final the vote on that 1st article of impeachment of use of power is ongoing had a 15 minute time limit but you are seeing here that the democrats except for the one who has dissented thus far have been you knighted in their approval of this article of impeachment just going down the numbers there are 431 members of the house of representatives we believe there is 2 if not more who are absent from the chamber today due to other personal reasons and so the magic number to get these articles approved appears to be around 215 if not 216 depending on exactly who is present a simple majority needed to pass these articles and democrats certainly have those numbers and in this chamber there are 233 democrats all together so even suffering this one defection and perhaps it will grow to one or 2 others they say they absolutely have the number of still pass this article of impeachment after they consider abuse of power we expect then the 2nd article obstruction of congress then to be voted upon and there is a little bit more. Doubt as far as how Many Democrats will be approving that 2nd article there have been significantly more who have said that they may vote against that article although they have voted to approve the 1st abuse of power and of course it only takes one to pass in order to consider it the president to be formally. Thank you for that is live on capitol hill lets bring in our White House Correspondent kimberly how could shes joining us. Live from the white house and as were watching that Vote Committee interestingly another democrat has voted nay to. Abuse of power and i think we were expecting one or 2 democrats to vote. Against the party lines and against impeaching the president the president can believe whos you know in battle creek michigan with his supporters saying it doesnt feel like were being impeached and you know we did nothing wrong and taking the stage kimberly just as that vote begad. Yeah we were wondering if we would get this split screen moment to encapsulate the divisions that exist in the United States and wow its happening the vote is coming down in the house of representatives democrats on the left side of the political spectrum voting to impeach the president on the right the conservatives in this country many of them gathered in the kellogg aerated battle creek michigan listening to President Trump supporting him and many of them we know because ive reached out to someone whos in the stadium right now listening to the president saying that they are with President Trump all the way is the quote it really shows just where america stands right now and the president capitalizing on that as you point out talking about the hard working patriots as he calls them who are supporting him and also the president as he took the stage really pointing to the media criticizing them calling the Fake News Media saying that not only have they covered him unfairly during this impeachment inquiry and now the vote but for the very 1st days of his presidency now one of the other things the president has been talking about we expect that he will address impeachment according to one of the press secretaries the Deputy Press Secretary hogan gidley about one 3rd of the president s speech is expected to address impeachment but to as we know from this president he rarely sticks to the script he is visibly angry about whats taking place in the house of representatives because he feels he has had a very successful presidency so far that he may go much longer the president is highlighting as he talks there are some of the things that he believes hes accomplished in terms of creating jobs he has achieved historically low unemployment hes in a border state with canadarm east michigan where he is right now hes talking about the trade deals that hes renegotiated since taking office. So hes highlighting the promises that he believes hes kept of voters and why does he want to keep those promises to those voters in michigan its a battleground state he needs to win reelection in 2020 so the president on the stage right now pushing back against the forces in the house of representatives the democrats who as we know are out this moment voting to impeach the president for what they say is abuse of power in his Political Office and committee inching those numbers you know on the democrat side voting for impeaching the president who want abuse of power were seeing them and chop 204 as heidi was saying earlier there are need 2522168 simple majority but despite that you know as you were saying when you talk to someone who is at that rally will they dont care about the impeachment proceedings and it doesnt change how they feel about him i mean is that an indication of of trumps popularity or the status of u. S. Politics today. I think its a little bit of both this is a very divided country as we keep saying but theres a very narrow sort of in the middle independent group that exists in a lot of these battleground states and what weve heard throughout the day not just from President Trump but also his campaign is that they expected this if the democrats moved ahead with impeaching the president that it could help donald trump at least thats what were starting to see in some of the poll numbers now its only a few polls you have to be careful especially when a campaign is sending out poll numbers but the Trump Campaign claims that the president the support for the president these key battleground states has gone up about 6 percent so that is significant expect the president is going to really try and capital eyes on that moving forward and expect i cant hear everything the president is saying right now as were talking but the tone leading into this was certainly very sharp from the campaign one of the shocking things coming out was that they said in fact that they believe that this impeachment that was taking place was political revenge by the democrats on behalf of the Clintons Hillary clinton who ran against donald trump in 2016 thats certainly a very striking and sharp way of describing what other democrats have said or rather republicans said as democrats attempt to undo the results of the 2016 u. S. Election. Temperate tempers are flaring right now in the United States were seeing it in the language we expect well be hearing more from the president on this especially as we get those final numbers in the house of representatives as they stand now committee 211 and favor of impeachment on the 1st offical abuse of power and 15151 has to scan up again theres Something Like 2 minutes left on the votes theyve been given 15 minutes and after that we are going to go to the 2nd. The call of impeachment which is obstruction of obstruction of congress so both of those votes and interesting i suppose though we were expecting it to democrats have voted against impeaching the president and just remind us kimberly you know in this very partisan times why would democrats go against their party and against impeaching the president. Yeah well without getting too deep in the weeds some of what we saw in the sort of Congressional Elections which are the ones that happened 2 years and after the president ial election we saw a couple of places where those districts had previously been republican they went democrat some of those democrats are under a lot of pressure going into the 2020 election as so we did see at least in one case one democrat who is now considering going error is switching parties this essentially crossing over to become republican but theres a lot of pressure on some of these representatives in their districts to defend their actions given the fact that their only districts that they represent are relatively divided its not the case for all members of congress but many are under a lot of pressure so thats one of the reasons that we see maybe some of this reticence or vacillating back and forth in terms of what to do but at the end of the day we knew this was going to go down party lines for the most part and thats consistently what we expect to see we have for some time concluded that likely donald trump would be impeached those numbers seem to be pointing in that direction so this is what the the sort of the focus is now for the white house moving forward we did speak to some members of the white house staff earlier they said theyre focusing now on the senate where they do have control of that chamber but again the chances that donald trump will be vindicated are likely but its not something you can count on 100 percent depends how this trial could go i mean if there are witnesses the president seems to think it will go in his favor but in washington right now nothing is a guarantee and we now have 220. 00 votes company in favor of pitching the president on the 1st article. Is and pinched and it goes to the trot and we dont know what would happen in the trial but how much of how much of a black mock is impeachment i mean how much do you think one of both of this president. Absolutely its definitely not only will it bother its bothering this president we have seen just let it just remember 24 hours ago what we were talking about were talking about a 6 page letter by the president of the United States ranting that this was an attack on american democracy who declared open warfare that this was a coup by the democrats on official white house letterhead essentially we had 6 pages of the president s most vitriolic tweets all condensed into one document it was shocking and yet that is the tone and temperature that we have had in washington and from this white house for some time this is a very visibly angry president for a number of reasons he knows the history books that children in this country moving forward are going to remember donald trump was impeached it seems to be the foregone conclusion this is a man with very thin skin he is concerned about his reputation this is a stain on his legacy and he cant fathom how this could be possibly happening given he sees that he has made so many accomplishments jobs low unemployment Strong Economy he believes that he has done a lot to help this country and so hes still sort of trying to come to grips with all of this and so thats why we see this president fighting back whether its on twitter whether its on that letter whether its in front of his supporters in battle creek michigan hes making the argument it is notable in all of this when were talking about impeachment back in 1908 with president bill clinton that was in his 2nd term this is donald trump his 1st term in other words he has an opportunity to take the decisions of the capitol hill members of congress to the voters in november and certainly he is going to make the case that and remember hes the disrupter in chief he campaigned on this he never came to do washington properly and hes kept that promise and hes going to make that case we believe on the campaign trail and well have to see what the voters say. About it from november whether or not donald trump does get a 2nd term exactly can be and whether the voices you know agree with with how the members of the house of representatives of voting on these articles of impeachment the latest numbers 227 voting in favor with 178 voting against very much along party lines 225 democrats have voted yes and interesting lee can believe we see one vote from a republican a republican member voting for impeachment is that a surprise. It is a surprise i have to see who it is to get a little bit of context about why that might be happening now one thing that you have to be careful of when we watch these votes come down it sounds a little silly but sometimes vote they make a mistake they push the wrong button im not exactly sure how it works but sometimes youll see that vote go up and then somebody goes by the way you made a mistake there and its corrected and suddenly disappears so we really need to look at that final number right in order to interpret it so im not a 100 percent sure certainly wed have to see who that member is to make more sense of it but accidents do happen its hard to tell until we get those final numbers but that one votes whether its intended or a mistake its not going to make a difference as it to this obstacle because right now even without it we have 227 days i mean democrats have 233 members and they only need a simple majority from the 431 members in the u. S. House of representatives and again they only need one article of impeachment to be pasta for the president to be impeached. Yeah and to be clear just for those who maybe are joining us late. You know we follow this you know hour by hour minute by minute but these articles of impeachment lets recap what they are they are obstruction of congress and also abuse of power abuse of power what does that mean the allege the democrats allege the president leverage a white house visit and also withheld military aid from ukraine in order to dig up dirt on his political rival former Vice President joe biden now whats really interesting in all of this is that these ultimate articles of impeachment are nothing compared to what democrats were initially accusing the president of bribery corruption even obstruction of justice but in the end a more serious criminal charge theyre much more watered down and that has given some leverage to the republicans to say this is an argument based on opinion on emotion not on concrete evidence and of course the pushback argument on that is that the white house obstructed that they did not allow all the evidence to get into the American Public and this is why were going to have to watch carefully in the senate when ultimately these charges are articles of impeachment go to the trial in the senate and again theres a question about objectivity there because that is a party controlled a body controlled by the president s own Party Republicans its unclear what that trial is going to look like the president has at times that he wants to call all kinds of witnesses even potentially testify himself which is not probably a very good idea but we do know talking to some of our white house sources that in fact the white House Counsel had simply only it will be a part of that but beyond that its unclear many people argue that a very short trial in the senate would probably be the best bet for the president with more information perhaps there could be some republicans that may not continue to support the president and he may potentially be removed. Office theres a big question mark about what goes forward can tell you Kellyanne Conway the top counsel to the president has said that theyre waiting to see what the president decides. And kimberly just to let you know were no longer seeing that one republican yet again the recap so far is that 229 voting yea that is 228 of them democrats another republicans and one independent well lets bring in our the correspondent Alex Alan Fischer Kimberly i think were going to go to allan now but we will be back with you no doubt on that a bit later allan the you there. Yeah right here right allan so 229 votes in favor the 1st of the peach mint abuse of power when will that make its way to the senate where you are. Well we expect the trial to start in the beginning of january we think probably january the 6th of the day that the proceedings will start the senators will then be sworn in on the 7th this is where the battle grown will be this is the next big battleground in youve got to remember this is truly historic only 3 president s have been impeached in the history of the republic of the United States under johnson was one bill clinton was the other a no donald trump interestingly enough in the true previous cases the senate cleared both president s and donald trump will be hoping thats what happens here so be activist judge and jury although the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States john roberts essentially oversees the proceedings but how did the trial is actually conducted while that strong up by the leader of the republicans in the senate Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans have already said that they want to see it very short trial with no witnesses many of them of said that theyve already made up their decision even though on january the 7th theyll be sworn in and theyll be asked if they are going to judge the facts impartially impartial judges of the law as well but many of them already decided that this is a political process and therefore their decisions have already been made and then on january the named both sides will be given 24 hours to present their Opening Statements to the senate what happens after that not entirely clear because we could call for witnesses or they could just go for a very very short trial. See the Opening Statements are enough theres nothing new needs to be brought in you remember the during the impeachment trial of bill clinton no new witnesses were called on to the floor and that certainly seems to be the way that the republicans are approaching this even though the democrats have said look there are people that we want to hear from people that can speak to what happened 1st hand and theyve named Mick Mulvaney the acting chief of staff the man who stood up in a News Conference in the White House Briefing room and said of course there was a quid pro quo thats how we do Foreign Policy and you have to get over it they also want to speak to john bolton who was the National Security advisor who resigned or was fired depending on which view you want to take but was said to have walked away from one of the phone calls saying that he didnt want to be involved in what was described as a drug deal between donald trump and the ukrainians and also might pompeo what did he know and when did he know it important questions during the nixon impeachment hearings that would be directed specifically at mike pompeo but certainly the republicans are giving no indication that they want to talk to these people they want them there is witnesses its going to get very political but this youve got to can keep saying this enough alan im going to interrupt you have a story about to hear from nancy pelosi of the house thats listen im have i have. The question is on their gassing of article of syria there isnt ever say i was the pairs. The eyes have it the ayes have it for what purpose does the gentleman from new yorks. Neighbors. Let her but i asked her why the matter is speaker i asked her i rather have this is the gentleman from new yorks record i asked for. A recorded vote is requested those they were never heard it was hard it was sort of arrived the. In order. A sufficient number have arisen recorded vote is orders members will record their votes by electronic device. Is a 5 minute vote so well be listening to the listening there to House Speaker nancy pelosi and she is calling for a vote a recorded vote an electronic vote on the 2nd article of impeachment against the us President Donald Trump that is obstruction of congress unlike the 1st article one where members were given 15 minutes to 2 to vote there is 5 minutes for the house of representatives to vote on the 2nd article obstruction of congress well lets bring in guest alan baron now he is a former special impeachment counsel to the house of representatives he has been following the 8 hour debate with us here on aljazeera and he is joining us live from washington d. C. So mr baron the vote on the 1st who abuse of power very much going as expected 228. 00 democrats voting for impeachment one independent voting also for impeachment no republicans voting for it but this does mean that with those votes and with the democrats having the simple majority needed i mean does this mean that donald trump the 45th president of the United States will be only the 3rd president to be impeached thats absolutely right in fact with that vote he was impeached the is of each. Theres really nothing more to say about it other than thats thats the state of play and now theyre going to of course to look at the 2nd article and vote i think they only have 5 minutes rather than the 15 that they had for the 1st article mr baron can i ask you why the 15 minutes for the 1st article in the 5 for the 2nd. Your guess is as good as mine i dont think it is that much more difficult to push the switch that says yes or no way so i really dont know. If theres no obvious reason why it would be different and now that we do know that the us president is going to be impeached what happens now between the house of representatives and the senate well there are a couple of options lets take the more traditional route. The articles of impeachment are the the next thing they will do is decide who the managers will be for the house they are the congressman who will present the evidence against the president in the senate they will get the order goals in a written form and the lead manager will then lead the whole delegation from the chamber in the house across the capitol from one end to the other to where the senate sits and the literally the sergeant at arms of the senate opens up the door they all march in the. Manager headbangers will present the articles by reading them to the fully assembled senate all of them will be there and the majority leader in the senate will say thank you very much well get back to you when were ready to hear the evidence they all walk out they leave and were now into the 2nd phase where the process is in the Senate Rather than the house and were hearing that the senate trial might begin you know sometime in early january but we really have no idea what the trial is going to look like dewey if witnesses will be called. Well thats correct as i said that what ive given you is a sort of traditional process for a senate for an impeachment and taking the articles over to the Senate Another possibility which ive alluded to. Earlier questioning today is the possibility that the oracles are not taken over to the senate that the house keeps the articles theres nothing in the constitution that requires that they walk over to the senate and present them and that they continue to investigate they try to get additional witnesses that they havent heard so far and they just sit on the articles until the not until the november election thats a possibility ive heard a lot of talk about it. The chances of that going in that direction are probably small but it is a possibility and mr barron do the democrats have a better chance of subpoenaing getting subpoenas for the witnesses that they want to testify in the trial you know witnesses that they think will be crucial the White House Acting chief of staff miss while veiny who said i think in one of the most stunning moments of these impeachment proceedings essentially that there was a quid pro quo get over it but also you know the former National Security adviser to the former National Security advisor john bolton secretary of state mike pompei would they have a better chance of talking to these people if they didnt send the articles of impeachment to a republican dominated senate which sets the rules for a trial based on what. Well based on what weve experienced thus far unless they go to court and which is a long drawn out process issue subpoenas go to go to court to have them in force even if you prevail in the District Court you then get an appeal. All of that takes a lot of time in court the Court Process does not move quickly generally. And so i dont see that as a really viable alternative but someone who might have a change of heart so money might decide to defy the president some of them have already the witnesses who already testified but if i had to put money on it if the thing goes into trial i think its going to be quick. You know give him a fair trial and lets get on with the other business at hand you know the republicans are not going to let this thing expand into areas that they were they really dont want to go. Mr bounce thank you very much if you analysis we do appreciate his specially your your expertise that is alan baron were going to talk to another guest now were bringing in Karen Greenberg shes the director of the center on National Security at Fordham University school of law and shes joining us live from new york very good to have you with us on algis there on this historic day thank you very much for staying with us and were looking at the vote on the 2nd article of impeachment that is obstruction of congress and interestingly weve had a few. Just one more i think democrats voting against this article i think we had 2 democrats voting against the 1st awful of abuse of power but weve had 3 voting against peaching the president for obstruction of congress. Yeah i still think that this is a very strong win for nancy pelosi those numbers are very low again we still have to wait for the 2nd vote to be completed as far as i can tell but the president has already been impeached on one count and he will be most likely impeached on this 2nd count and there are a number of takeaways from today and to have the run up to this vote happened the 1st is that we have a real divide in in this country about what the powers of the president are in art and what they should and shouldnt be what we heard repeatedly today was something along the lines of if the president did it its legal much like Richard Nixon said president nixon said who was up for impeachment but then reside there is a real sense that balance of powers is not something that the republicans today wanted to embrace and that goes to their embrace of a kind of president ial power that is not tethered and so although this is a win for those who wanted impeachment the nature of the debate the values that were ticky lated the questions that were and werent raised very are very troubling for how this country goes forward whatever path they take in terms of bringing this to the senate and the screen but just to update our viewers it looks like the 2nd article of impeachment on instruction of congress has also been poz so 221 voting in favor of. Impeaching the president for obstruction of congress with 165 voting against and as you were saying you know this is its it is a victory for the Democratic HouseHouse Speaker nancy pelosi who was actually unlike some who are more on the left of the democratic the Democratic Party i mean she was always reluctant to take up all the impeachment. Yeah i mean nancy pelosi has kept a very even hand on this since the beginning utterances of impeachment she was always of the mindset that she wasnt going to impeach him lest there was actually something that the president did that she felt was in peach of all what pushed her over the line initially was bribery was this idea of a quid pro quo that the president would get dirt would withhold aid to ukraine into ukrainians agreed to investigate his opponent his president ial candidate opponent joe biden and that was where she saw it as she had no choice however she has been remarkably on sure ill about this she kept a very even hand and she has worked with the members of her party and you see the results of it here in terms of the coherence the cohesiveness of the debate today and also of the way they voted so i think this is a real a testament testament to her political skills but despite that you know we have the republicans saying that this is a political vendetta and of the democrats have wanted to remove the president from office and the president himself will say that theyve wanted to remove him from office before he was even there. Yeah and thats why the behavior of nancy pelosi is so incredibly important she pushed back continually she didnt want to impeach the matter who pushed her no matter what they said and she pushed back for you know well over a year and that is what makes it so it sort of undermines what the republican line is which is that it was just a vendetta and i mean the unwillingness to engage the behavior the is is striking if you compare it to prior impeachment hearings that have gone on if you look at the clinton impeachment for example or nixon run up to impeachment what you see are people in the party say yes this was wrong but it doesnt rise to impeachment you dont see that today you saw there isnt there is no there there there is nothing wrong there is nothing chargeable and thats actually different that what we heard even several weeks ago so what republicans have done is done very heels in pushed aside a lot of the facts and argued this as if it was a vendetta which is very interesting because what this is about as much as the actions of President Trump in the past and what he did was also about the upcoming election and making sure that this doesnt happen again and that there is a stop sign a stop like a some kind of penalty and punishment for this kind of behavior the what are the chances of that basically foreign influence on a u. S. Election yes but what are the chances of any kind of repercussions for the president again given that his Party Controls the senate. Its very unlikely that hes going to be convicted in the in the senate i dont know anybody who would in their right mind predict that but this is an important moment as i said at the very outset this debate if you listen to it was about what the role of the president is under the constitution and whether there is such a thing as as as balance of powers are you allowed to check the president in his exercise of powers impeaching him in the house is a check it is a sign that this is not ok now does that mean he has to be removed from office no lets take it one step at a time but there is a vote to say no there has to be a way in which we present evidence we debate it we talk about it and we think about can we do we allow congress to question the president and if every time that comes up you say well thats not fair because he was elected then what youre actually saying is the impeachment clause of the constitution is null and void and its not and so and thats one of the bothersome thinks about today was you are allowed to have the process and its important to have a process and its important to have it there and thats why the Founding Fathers put it there and thats why no matter what happens Going Forward this is a remarkably significant moment in gives americans a chance to take a breath to think about whats happened and to think about how they want to go forward greenberg thank you very much for that for now thats Karen Greenberg well lets take you live now to battle creek michigan lets listen to what the president to say once. Was and now you she wants to run again would not be. Oh we love the. You think the democrats are screwed up where all that happens will not be honest by guy. Or look based on the f. B. I. Report if youre so what happened with the i. G. Where they came out with the f. B. I. Based on that you know a lot i never stopped you but now think of what they did think of what they did think of how dishonest it all was they should need be allowed to have an impeachment because it was based on dishonesty it was based on the legality she won out and they paid for a fake r. C. A. They gave money to foreigners to ride a fake the r. C. A. Totally disproven totally fake the f. B. I. Then took that faked r. C. A. And they used it in the pfizer court to get approval to spy on my campaign. And if we were democrats they would have been jailed 2 years ago. Its a disgrace think of what they did so they uses fake cia and they brought it before this big deal court its a big deal the pfizer good and they said this stuff and they lied about it because comey is another beauty did i do a great job what i fired is a. Lot of great. Oh no the plans now when i did a great thing that was like throwing a rock i dont hornets nest did that place explode and then we learned about lisa jenner wonderful lover the destruction i love you lisa i love you more than anybody in the world i love you more than anybody in the world causes problems with the wife but we wont talk about. Those tapes did work well now how about those statements right then they say it all fair to say i really like the report but how does the inspector generals still so were listening there to u. S. President donald trump addressing his supporters at a rally in battle creek michigan and lets take you back to the house of representatives now where House Speaker nancy pelosi has been speaking following the 2nd voyage. The vote on the 2nd record of impeachment obstruction of congress and their tune members have voted for impeachment lets listen. To that objection the motion to reconsider article 2 is laid on the table. For stare at that section 7 House Resolution 758 the House Resolution 758 the house stands adjourned to 9 am tomorrow. So there we have it the u. S. House of representatives is adjourned to 9 am on thursday after a historic day in washington d. C. Where the house of representatives has voted on 2 articles of impeachment against donald trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress Voting in favor of impeaching the u. S. President those articles of impeachment we expected those articles of impeachment will be sent to the senate for a trial again that we expect sometime in january but all of that is still still to be decided what will happen with those articles of impeachment lets bring our guest Karen Greenberg back she is the director of the center on National Security at Fordham University school of law and she is joining us live from new york so as we have had those historic votes in the house of representatives on the screen which is now adjourned you have the u. S. President in battle creek michigan saying that they shouldnt have even been allowed to heaven pietschmann because it was based on lies. Thank you mr greenberg can you can you hear me i can now yes right so as i was saying we the house has now adjourned but the president is continuing to speak hes. Addressing supporters at a rally in battle creek michigan and he is in you know hes in his element here amongst his supporters and he was saying that well it doesnt even feel you like hes being impeached. Yeah thats actually very interesting its going to take him some time to absorb whats happened and to figure out what his next move will be in addition to saying he didnt feel like he was impeached he also said that he was disputing the facts and what they did and that there was a made up dossier really going back to the election itself to the collection of evidence itself and so im not i would guess that were going to get a lot of different kind of things that hes going to dispute in terms of factual evidence he didnt go near the selenski phone call he didnt touch on that as far as i heard he may do that later but you can be sure that this is something that will eventually sink in to the president and his advisors will talk to him about what he should say and shouldnt say because it he will dispute the facts and he may be successful in that in terms of affecting Public Opinion which is why its going to be very important to have to go forward with this its why this vote is extremely important and and were going to see him in freefall for a little while and i think this is the beginning of it no matter whether that crowd likes it or not but the will has free fall will lead to his downfall though because again the polls a divided despite what weve heard in the impingement proceedings despite the evidence the witnesses that the democrats produced who said that you know they heard the conversation between President Trump and the ukrainian president for a lot of the lenski where President Trump asked the ukrainian president you know to investigate a political rival in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that was already put aside by the u. S. Congress and despite all of that i mean his support is a steadfast. Correct and that that is another stage which is youre talking about will he be removed and he may not be removed and that will you know before the election and then the election will take this forward but theres a lot of things that arent are accounted for in whats going to happen next november when this country votes for whos going to be its next president its still its i wouldnt i think you need to reflect we all need to reflect on this moment impeachment before we talk about this next day which is remove all because impeachment in and of itself is a way of saying this behavior of a stablish ing a quid pro quo that even the people you appointed attested to you know taking an oath and attested to is not ok and this house has said it and yes the house is led by democrats and yes there is a lot of partisan rancor on both sides but there is also an issue of what is the president allowed to do is he constrained by the rule of law and if he is are there remedies that can take and the 1st step in that remedy is impeachment and that has now happened and so i think before we talk about what happens next whether what happens with removal whether theres not election this impeachment has happened and part of what is very important here in addition to whatever it means for donald trump himself is what it means for the integrity of the next election right because what was going on here was a quid pro quo that was asking for interference with the next election and that is something that can can harm a country in ways that are unfathomable and so thats the other part of of whats so significant about what just happened tonight and what about the integrity of the Republican Party who of course like everyone else were expecting these votes and favor of impeachment but do you think that now that its happened that they wont take a moment that they might take stock that their leader has been impeached only the 3rd u. S. President. You know thats a question that it doesnt look like thats going to be the case it looks like the Republican Party has become the trump party that there is very little daylight between people who identify as be republicans and voters republicans and those who identify with trump and its taken a very strong turn in and in a different direction than what weve seen in the past from lets say the time of eisenhower on and so i look at the presidency in this country in the United States has beginning stronger and stronger over the course of the 21st century and a little bit before but bush assumed a tremendous powers in the name of war after 911 obama kept many of those powers and trump is exercising or trying to exercise a new level of power and and well see what happens in terms of the Republican Party but they too seem to have made the calculation that they want in on this power and that they have in essence a different view of the constitution and the rights it grants to a president and the right to grants to the other branches to tether that presidency and so this is a step forward for the constitution working at least at this moment in time and its hard to say what will happen in the future but i think its very important to to accept whats happened here and this greenberg thank you so much for your analysis Karen Greenberg live in new york thank you. Well i mean as a problem and this is the news hour live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes on this vote the yeas are 230 the nays are 197 present is one article one is adopted. Dont try