A country thats not take you but you have levels of clogs that look like this to the president of the solid ground. 0 and historic week in washington d. C. President donald trump impeached so what happens now and up from special. This week donald trump became the 3rd president in u. S. History to be impeached by the house of representatives democrats in congress voted through 2 articles of impeachment one of which charges that the president abused his power and pressured the government of ukraine to assist with his Reelection Campaign by investigating a political rival and the 2nd which accuses him of obstruction of Congress Next stop is a trial in the senate in the new year where the president is sure to be acquitted by a republican majority so how bad is this for trump and will it hurt or maybe help his chances for reelection in 2020 joining me to debate this are harlan hill a republican political consultant and Advisory Board member to the trump 2020 Campaign Tiffany cross liberal commentator and cofounder of the news website the b d c and john mikhail constitutional lawyer and law professor at Georgetown University thank you all for joining me on this special episode of upfront hauler lets start with you the house of representatives voted to impeach donald trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress thats both pretty damning and some might say pretty humiliating for a 1st term president its a big deal to be impeached hes one of only 3 president s. But in context of the current political atmosphere i dont think its at all surprising. You had elements of the Democratic Party declaring on Inauguration Day that they had every intention of impeaching this president this was a foregone conclusion it was a foregone conclusion tiffani now i think certainly there probably were some people who recognize some questionable things happening on the campaign trail however if it were a foregone conclusion my goodness trump must of been there coconspirator because he time and again proved that he was worthy of impeachment by continually repeating impeachable acts and so i dont think that we should be looking at this through the prism of republican versus democrat these are patriots versus people who are going against the constitution and its laughable to people who defend this president time and again if this is not impeachable what is lets bring joan. Collins says it was a foregone conclusion tiffany says its about patriots versus people who are not defending the constitution trump in a rover on the hinged run to the left of this week to nancy pelosi called it a crusade impeachment is a crusade and then unprecedented unconstitutional abuse of power by democratic lawmakers elsewhere hes called it a hoax hes called it illegal as a constitutional law professor what do you make of such claims about the process itself. I thought the president s letter was quite surprising and i dont believe its going to. Speak well of him from a Historical Perspective he seemed to be wanting to write from that perspective so that in the future we could look back on this event and reach the verdict that he hoped but it was really an unhinged letter as you described it quite surprising to me that his lawyers or the people around him his advisors led him to the lawyers will cut out the writing chrysalis admit that but on the substance and this is something that will come up trumps state of mind all day long and another day on the substance is it illegal illegitimate the way the democrats have done this no its not that the constitution vests Broad Authority in the house to impeach and in the senate to try and preachments there are imaginable circumstances where there could be review of those procedures but under very unusual circumstances and nothing like we have here on the substance of the impeachment many would argue its an open and shut case from the rough transcript of his phone call with the ukrainian president from the witnesses who have testified under oath in public many of the members of his own administration for what trump himself openly says is tiffany mentioned is it any wonder to you all the more than i think 800 law professors and 1500 historians have said based on the evidence he should be along partisan lines people believe that i mean i read the transcript and i didnt find that it was offensive at all but you know people can draw different conclusions and i can then i will ultimately i think that this will go to the voters in 2020 and hes going to win in a landslide ok and so you guys can try to litigate this all you want here in washington but we travel countries come back from ohio and were going to do it come to the politics of it just on the substance you say you read the cool its all politics on lines but people who testified in congress are not partisans you know literally members of it only get a straight who is calling these witnesses i mean who is calling the witnesses so it is another day whether well many of many are you know well george w. Bush on for the oh my god oh if were going to get back into that i mean there are so many neo cons and never try. Or is that a permit that permit this administration how can you be really doesnt question although i mean i was good at that could you could never trump or if you work for trump there are so many number trampers in this administration it is i would say about lots of people by my fortunately many of the people who are making early decisions in this white house were counter to the president s intentions i mean holland just very quickly kind of clarified the trump says it was a perfect phone call do you agree with him on that yeah ok there are some republicans who say it was the perfect phone call but also that he shouldnt be impeached for it he may not be in the right language but it doesnt rise to the level of removing a president from of his wife were going to have lengthy impeach this president for thats what we impeach a president for when you look at this is that the conservation of our democracy where very young democracy when you look at it from the world stage people would look at us with a you guys are baby youre not old enough our democracy has never before been tested like this so if youre saying it is ok for the president of the United States the birth of help from a foreign power to investigate your political opponent i have to question your state of mind should i have quite all your patriotism is it ok to do that. Well not necessarily that he was soliciting them for help in the election maybe tacitly thats what it was but he didnt explicitly say that he didnt express that is ok what he did and thats a no no no im not im not going to see that he did do that so when he said china forget ukraine china should stop investigation into the bidens because what happened in china just about that but only if someones committed a crime and you want to get to the bottom of the demo was he really would you want to set a precedent and i think we should investigate hillary. And the democrats running for office also we should investigate all of this although shes done wrong all of that but not necessarily and for all that its not just to just to deal with the point to do the principle here just to consistency so the democrat candidate next to Bernie Sanders is with Warren Joe Biden youre ok with them saying iran would like you did investigate. Youre ok with that im going to make the point that you all are perfectly fine with. Congress investigating the press in the United States in an Election Year youre not. Fine because joe biden is running for office for that anyone to investigate him for any wrongdoing or for anyone to investigate Hillary Clinton in the argument a Foreign Government should investigate him say so the president if their Foreign Government wants to pursue an investigation thats fine so you just answer my question to denounce or sure are you ok with Bernie Sanders or joe biden next year asking the iranian government to investigate dont junius business dealings youre going to have some theres been some crime then go investigate it youre ok with that yet couldnt find it a democrat say and ill investigate it was the rest of us and then you see i dont i really answer the question what if theres been wrongdoing if they want to call for it fine ok john you didnt sign the letter from professes a few days ago saying that there is a case for impeachment. You know at the time it was circulated i didnt have a chance to read all the materials that have been published on the question and i wanted to do that before drawing a conclusion i just to be clear im persuaded that the president committed impeachable acts at this point i had some reservations about the letter as well because its not clear to me that focusing single this episode as opposed to the broad sweep of conduct that the president has been gauged in is is the right way to go on this tiffany whats your position on the idea that for example some people say why not put the a monument schools divided nation of you know Foreign Governments paying trump or Campaign Finance violations or kids in cages a lot of attacks on President Trump but when it came push came to shove the House Democrats with 2 very narrow articles related to ukraine is a very peculiar to me that for some reason ukraine resonate with the American People but it was something that with simple that it got and i know you know you have people on the other side who say well this isnt resonating with the American People but what American People are you talking to i talk to people all the time im from ohio very familiar with from supporters and actual you know people who support the constitution and the country and i think that there are a lot of people who support this and so i think nancy pelosi may have erred when she thought the American People have to be with this well when theyre going to do a scene a big store i think when theres been a continuing dumbing down of the American Election and not not everybody consuming the minutiae of politics like we are i think there are things that people when it supported him also say this was one of the most complex issues they could have gone after the president to impeach him on going after his businesses would have been so much easier for just speaking politically in adaptively this is absolutely the wrong one to have gone with no question were going to be the country to me just clarify one thing for audience what you know because one thing thats often very confusing for people is the constitution talks about impeaching the president for treason bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors the president said again this week there was no crime let alone a crime but thats not why crimes refers to you dont actually you dont actually have to have. It is a criminal offense to be impeached am i right in saying that its correct so its very clear from the history of the scholars whove looked at this very closely that criminal conduct is neither necessary nor sufficient to constitute impeachable conduct under the constitution lets talk about the senate trial because thats where this goes next in the new year the senate controlled by the Republican Party unlike the house tiffany what is the point of all this if the impeachment is just going to be rejected in the senate anyways does not make this all a big waste of time i dont think so i think it is important for the American People to see the evidence laid out before them i think its unfortunate that you dont have an Impartial SenateMajority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has said openly that hes coordinating with the white house i think those are all important things for people to consume i realized that something is what has gone wrong in our democracy and this is not ok for whatever happens in the senate it should still be questioned by by voters come 2020 to 20. 00 points out that Mitch Mcconnell did go on fox news and say were coordinating with the white house on this he said hes not an impartial jury the senate is supposed to act like jurors you also have. Republicans saying we dont want any witnesses to stand trial now its done we should be done in the house what do you say to people who say the senate trial looks rigged you know i dont think there should be a trial lets just vote. Like lets put this on a fast track lets get this done with this is all this has been all ethical conservatives are going into the constitution to defend the constitution in that part of the company as well as lets put it of lets go like dragging this out because its a waste of time were not going to remove the president so anything short of just ending this is for show and so republicans could pretend like you know were going to put everybody through the paces whatever its a complete waste of time going to put a radio in the same republican body that impeach bill clinton insisted everyone i was im not going to fine with this im not going to defend impeaching president bill clinton i think its absurd but when you have Lindsey Graham for example as a prominent if im not sure im certainly not going to fail as a graham. But he was saying in the late ninetys a lot of the stuff you say we need to witness is we need people of open minds beautiful trial and now hes saying im not a federal i want to get this over with you. Im not sure if you thought but you see what the real thing lets get a delegate lets get it done because im going to youre going to see im not going to fit his apocryphally urn consistency because i think bill clinton had been impeached in the 1st place consistent is what im trying to be you have. Trouble can be impeached in the house the Lower Chamber but for the president to be removed requires a 2 thirds super majority in the senate which is currently controlled by tribes politics did the founders joan want to make impeachment really difficult really hold really red is that was the point they did they did and i think its a point to add to our other conversation is that theres a strong presumption against impeaching government officials and certainly against him preaching the president and it takes a lot to overcome that presumption so going back to a point that was made earlier i dont think this was a foregone conclusion nancy pelosi for example made fairly clear that she was reluctant to go forward than pietschmann i think the events the recent events with respect to ukraine tip the balance so there is a presumption against impeachment the founders did want to make it hard to impeach a government officials and certainly with the president who has tremendous power and who has someone elected by the the American People theres an Even Stronger presumption arguably than the case for example of a federal judge just deal with that point about nancy pelosi many on the left would argue was dragged kicking and screaming towards impeachment. It was a foregone conclusion theyre going to so shes get on with it and get get it done with i think that there where theres a especially radical element of her party that was pushing for this for a long time and its you know that it will do not always articulately she came very late absolutely at least one of likely i mean i think that this was all the product of a massive political miscalculation that they thought while they were deciding who the nominee of the Democratic Party was going to be they were going to distract and try to tear him down a notch and make him run as an impeached president and in fact what the result is is record fund raising for the president a lot of it said i just got back from a truck probably in hershey pennsylvania there were 15000 people inside. There were like 4000 people in the snow i mean like everywhere i go people are so excited for this President Joe Biden cant even even fill like a school johnnies so i do want to come up to that point in shortly just one last question on the senate issue to view pointing out that the republicans dont want to have a kind of. Drug haul and so you would say all done just have a vote get on with it is the problem here that its all very well criticizing republicans for having made up their minds and votes because those democrats havent made up their minds and votes either so it is democrats sitting there going oh you know donald trump i want to i want to i want to quit him yeah i would actually refute that i think there are democrats who havent made up their mind theyve been pretty vocal about a shooting from of the welfare of the 2 but the little girl just just pointed out to our public many arent on the republican side are people who are you know wavering on what theyre going to do so i think the difference is though between these 2 parties thats really not the Republican Party anymore right like this is like the trump sycophant when they were in evidence by harlan comments about how awesome his rallies are and so that has anything to do with governing. And im not sure if that would be a isolated you look at you know what the Republican Party is doing when you had minority leader. Kevin mccarthy on 60 minutes talking about the transcript of the phone call he hadnt even fretted and when you ask people what have you read the report have you read the transcript on the republican side time and again they say no we havent even read it we dont want to see evidence you see a pattern of behavior where they say you know what this never this crime that you commit it never happened and then they go to well it happened so what this is been consistent through out the presidency so again if you are a supporter of democracy if you are supporter of patriotism then certainly you should want access is the examined in congress a coequal branch of government so this is perfectly representative of the climate that is so unhealthy in that time shes just basically implied that im not a patriot and im working against the country and that im a sycophant ok. Directly and i believe in that. Is truly truly unfortunate i have not attacked you personally in the way that you have i dont particularly think. This perfectly illustrates the problem in this town perfectly instead of having a conversation and we can win a lot of. People about listen we all we all we all make mistakes with. Some people but i think people who should try to minimize them so the idea of donald trump because she is the living modern american he is the leader of the working class party and this kind of im going to get in here. Yeah no. Because its not he was so i mean going to talk to 16 year old. Kids teeth a full night out i dont look at people going to college to go back to where they came here i am going to its happened the things i learned about this pragmatically and no candidate is perfect but for the 1st time in generations there is a man standing up and hes giving voice to people in the heartland of america that ive said all these trade deals are sending my jobs overseas and weve got to really get completely true thats already. Got i look at this pragmatically and im not saying follow seems to have nothing to do with trade deals do they youre trying to tie this back to the other theory youve made a very strong point the rebuttal to that you personally attacked you and i and im just checking you against personal attacks by your here supporting on. The world a cry again for its not a solution as i said im also politically pragmatic and im voting for the guy and im supporting the guy that i think is going to do the best job for the American People so lets so lets talk about what are those attacks ideal ok lets talk about whos going to do the best job youve alluded a couple of times to you think this is working in favor of the president this entire impeachment process the big question for politicians and pundits hanging over this process constitutional legality aside is is this going to hurt or help Donald Trumps reelection chances in november 2020 what do you all think different i think its incredibly challenging to penetrate this wolf a layer of ignorance. I think he could do i think it is very true when they think its somebody on 5th avenue and not have any. You know there was a News Organization here in america thats weeded out a video of his supporters who were threatening Mass Violence against the country if he were impeached somebody said i have a 357 magnum that says he wont be impeached these are the people that support this president and so i think when you look at it through that lens of course those people are going to stick with him heres what we know chops the base has not grown in since 2016 he has only lost people theres nobody who looks at the past 2 years and say you know what that truck guy hes on to something i think im going to put 5 and get in his camp it is true if you look at the base no matter which everybody said it was going to be historically speaking when you had under johnson impeached like an 868 nixon jumped before he could actually be impeached by the full house in 97 for quit bill clinton obviously in the late 1990 s. Does history tell us anything about how damaging it is for president and for their party when theyre huge. I think we only have a few data points as you mentioned and they point in Different Directions so johnson i think was clearly hurt by his impeachment he didnt rebound he lost the next election grant president grant was elected he was damaged goods he was not likely to rebound clinton on the other hand president clinton his popularity actually rose as a result of his and all the democrats lost the white house at the end of his presidency that then of his presidency but that was 2 years later he was already into his 2nd term so its hard to tell i think you know given the reality of the way our constitutional system is designed this strategic question about whats likely to happen really is going to come down to the Voter Perceptions in a small number of states the swing states especially the upper midwest states like colorado virginia perhaps but especially wisconsin michigan yes pennsylvania and thats really the key question i do not know what the answer is to that question i think we none of us will know until we get closer to the election all and just in terms of being good for trump i hear this often that it would be it might be good for trump trump himself doesnt seem to think its good for him we talked about the kind of slightly deranged letter he sent nancy pelosi which you said was a political letter i think you tweeted 123 times the other day and we know he tweets a lot when he stressed hes angry is upset he doesnt seem to be acting like a man whos completely calm about this whole process is he you know him but i absolutely actually hes in great spirits last week was a great week for him here what is it was so angry. He i dont i would say that hes necessarily angry but hes under hes under constant attack and so why are you surprised that hes fighting back but i want to own address this point i believe the president one of the by products of this has been record fundraising hes doing really well and its galvanize his supporters his supporters are even more dug in than they were before tiffany you cant deny that. I dont have 50 percent 54 percent to 46 percent is a bunch of different polls about him. If the country support impeaching and removing him which is kind of by historical standards but still its a reflection of all his point this is a polarized country yeah i can actually completely agree with harlots point that again his base life way isnt going anywhere i completely disagree that hes somehow expanded his base and i want to say on the next years election listen we have a lot of issues around this election our own u. S. Intelligence agencies have said has already tried to influence the election by attacking some of the outlets or Campaign Workers on different campaigns and different Media Outlets so i dont know that this is going to be a free and Fair Election we hope it is thats what this guy we hope it is so this is about we hope it is but this is something that we should definitely be aware of and hes already kind of dangled out there a 3rd term and we know by the evidence of. Pain is not hes obviously a joke what he says hes the president of United States he should not be on the Program Going on about what about the argument even from many liberals who are worried about how the impeachment play in the election you say. The Senate Acquits hold and says get on with the vote we know the outcome and then trying goes into election saying i was acquitted does not hurt the democrats i think it does hurt because people are not concealing the minutia when that is not at all what happened its the same journey would you criticize the democrats for rushing through this no i wouldnt and this sounds terrible im going to be just going to have a look at the minutia its not just the democrats to explain but yes yes it is the job of the democrats to explain however when you look at the american electorate its just not what americans are focused on and i think you know trying to cover this administration is like trying to catch confetti and i think that was very much intentional he creates chaos and so you have all these 8000 things every day like you said he tweeted 123 times and you have a Mainstream Media that has failed in covering these things so when you go to the average person you can look at some of these like this anthropological experiences that the media has obsession with Trump Supporters and you watch these people try to clumsily talk to policy or try to regurgitate. The talking points are tell you what the impeachment is about and they cant do it so people say you should never blame voters but i do think voters have to take responsibility in this the marketplace and Pay Attention and that is not happening and if you want to come back and brief because want to bring john in the democrats made a big calculation using this ukraine thing we touched on this earlier they should have you something that people could actually understand they havent been paying attention it makes no sense where you people are focused on jobs you know am i better off i want to say i want to talk some news poll shows 54 percent americans are removing the response you. Know im not im not im not going to the president i mean thats fine i mean i dont think that these polls are deliberately wrong and i think theyre deliberately misreading people i just dont think they were accurately capturing the electorate anymore were just not and thats evidenced by many of the flawed polls that we saw in 2016 to 26 the National Poll was almost spot on you know they were not that nationally impeachment wise in terms of the politics of impeachment oh were going to see this normalize now its going to become a common feature holland and tiffany have both agreed on the polarization in this country both sides agree the countrys polarized do nothing impeachable become a tool just going off to president s you dont like the republicans are going to said you did it to us were going to do it to you now with the democrats in the white house i think thats a serious risk and i think the country would be worse off if that actually is what happens impeachment should be an extreme remedy thats only used in the rarest of circumstances nonetheless when conduct rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor which you believe it does in this case has to do i do i believe that the president as far as you know the record currently shows and i think the trial in the senate is actually important i disagree with harlan in the sense that its important for there to be a real process in the senate the evidence that we currently have it seems to me suggests that the president use the powers of the United States government and his unique position in the United States government as the person in whom all of the Foreign Policy policy powers or most of the Foreign Policy powers are vested in interacting with Foreign Governments and turning that to private advantage of prior. Again thats a very serious. Action that he took and you know this is the consequence of the story. In the senate trial one thing that just reminded me we talk about the politics of the president ial election if he loses the election what you want you want to you want his opponents to remove him an election thats all i want i dont want to ruin im saying that im saying that you want them to if they going to get rid of him they should do it by the get you know im going to do they win next year popular vote college hell leave quietly and go happily and accept the result worse spite of. Him saying that what you believe when he did he say he wouldnt leave office he had tapped Mike Huckabee according to him to look at oh my god you say to me you cant hurt me and we may be ok i try to get out in the night in real life and im going to time but im not you know that traveling with people thats so sad without at least sad times that im going to have to live with that it is so sad paul and john thank you all for taking part in this debate we appreciate it and thats our show up from will be back next week. Think stories generate sounds snoozer headlines these protests are saying down the system and down with all of the parts with different angles from different perspectives just because we came to prison theres a me right stopped at the gate separate the spin from the facts the western media jumps on stories we all taking down the misinformation from the journalism its about telling the stories of those human beings on the ground with the listening post are now just 0. Point 37 mine people have been killed to the. United states privatized public. Suzi deal with saudi arabia with the from the saudis and other arabs to britain being to help the us bombs do too long from start this meeting saddam is the interest. On al jazeera. Long. Cold this is aljazeera. However im the star and this is the news hour live from coming up in the next 60 minutes indias leader and ministers meet to discuss the violent protests that have spiraled into one of the biggest crises yet for this government. A former university electras sentenced to death for blasphemy and pakistan are the facebook parts. Argentina approves an emergency financial package but will it be the shocks on the on its economy