Impeachment inquiry that nancy pelosi announced this week, could you talk to us about the scope of this inquiry . When we get to actual articles of impeachment, would you like it to focus on the ukraine allegations or would you like it to be broader in scope . How would you like to see this play out . Rep. Pocan we want to get this done expeditiously. I think that will be the focus. And that means taking a confession by the president this week to what happened in dealing with it very promptly. I think thats going to be the focus. So weve had adam schiff and jerry nadler into the meeting yesterday. Had a great conversation about next steps. And i think youre going to see the Intelligence Committee do its work with what happened this week, the president asking another Foreign Government to essentially get dirt on his political opponent. The fact that he withheld money from a country just days prior that congress had approved and the fact that now after weve seen the whistleblower reporter appears there could be a coverup within the white house on this. Its very serious allegations and i think that alone is what people are focused on right now and i think we want to deal with this as quickly as possible. Mr. Pocan, what does the time line for wrapping up this investigation and bringing articles of impeachment to the house floor look like for you . Weve heard from some of your democratic colleagues, max sib waters and barbara lee, your fellow progressive saying impeach now. It needs to happen now while you have momentum. Others are saying that this could take anywhere between six weeks to the end of 2019, perhaps heading into the 2020 Election Year. What does in your estimation, how long will this process take . You know, its going to depend on a number of things. I dont think the amount of time matters. What matter this the process and thoroughness. First and foremost, the whistleblower has to come before the committee. Thanks to them, saying the person was guilty of treason which is of course, punishable by death, we now have all sorts of concerns for the whistleblower on protections to make sure that they are in good safety. So first, you have to have that witness come. And as was the whistle blow reported a number of other names bringing the Vice President s name in. So i dont care about the amount of time its going to take or what it takes but whats important is that its thorough enough and if the white house starts to do what they did throughout the whole Mueller Report which is block any witnesses from being able to comfort, were going to move ahead. Were not going to play games anymore with this white house. Were not going to let them continue to stonewall and getting information to it. We have right now, essentially a smoking and that smoking gun is called donald trump. We have him saying he did the call and we have the notes from the call that show him that that he did something illegal. Whatever time that takes is what t takes. How confident are you that it will reach the point where rticles of impeachment are brought to the house floor and there will be a formal vote on impeachment and you guys do have 218 votes needed to advance that to the senate . If i were in vegas, i would bet there was going to be potential articles of impeachment. The president denied any interaction. Because the president did not admit to it, you need to have witnesses. In this case, he will streamline the process. He asked for a favor, a personal favor from a foreign overnment. He admits he withheld the funding that Congress Approved to a country just days prior. The president has been brazen and admitting his guilt. You will see a likely chance that you will have articles of impeachment. Scott just brought up the idea of timelines. The congressional progressive caucus with a statement back on september 10 supporting the impeachment inquiry. Can you remind folks what was happening . Rep. Pocan honestly, it has been ongoing since the Mueller Report. Not that many people have read it but it was clear that there were possible charges of obstruction. Some very, very serious. You would have information about him trying to get mr. Mueller fired during the process. The fact that the president has not cooperated has made that difficult. We do not have that situation. E have the president sharing notes that show he asked a government to interfere in the election. We know he withheld funding. Short of a i did it tattoo on his forehead, we have a lot of information to move forward. It is important that we have the Intelligence Committee do their due diligence. We will move forward faster and at the end of the day, the American Public gets this and it does not take a phd to understand what is in the whistleblowers report and if people here from the whistleblower and other people, it will be damming for the president. How many members do you have in the caucus . 100, give or take. When you put out this statement before the story broke, was there a vote taken . Can you say what the vote was . Rep. Pocan it is our normal process that we have. How does the process work . Rep. Pocan people in this town love process. People back at home like results. We raise something in a meeting and there is a motion and a second to approve it. We go to membership and we ask for input. One of the turning points on moving the Democratic Caucus for mpeachment that is being pointed to is the oped in the Washington Post by seven freshman democrats, members with military intelligence experience. I wonder your thoughts on the turning point and who should get credit for moving the Democratic Caucus towards supporting the impeachment inquiry. Rep. Pocan i do not know if i need assign credit anywhere but when the president admits he asked a Foreign Government to get dirt on a political appointment and he hands you the notes that confirm what he dmitted, that smoking gun is donald trump. That had a tremendous impact for people saying, you know, the process we have been going through in the Mueller Report is completely separate then someone roviding a confession. From the way you are describing it, we have clear evidence and from reading the transcript and the whistleblower complaint, it looks like a clearcut case. Once this gets out to the American Public, it will be filtered through different sources of information and it might not be received the same way. How do you make the message to the American People that this is what you have to do to protect the constitution . This is the best thing for the country right now. Rep. Pocan you are already seeing it in polling. In this case, you have, once again, someone trying to work with a Foreign Government to interfere in our elections. The president admits he did it. People are getting it quickly that the president likely did something wrong. The fact that the white house went into coverup mode because hey realized what he did was a violation of the oval office. People can read that simple report and see what is happening and when you add that to what happened in the Mueller Report, suddenly, fool me once, shame on you. Ool me twice, shame on me. Have you done any outreach to your republican colleagues . How can you reach out to your colleagues across the aisle and communicate your concern about the president s conduct . Reach out to republicans in the enate. Rep. Pocan the first and most mportant step, people who live in districts should contact their elected officials and express their support or opposition. The public does support this because theyre looking at a president outright admitting to breaking the law. We will have conversations with members who may be on the fence. Some people are in full 100 defense mode and i do not think you will get to them. If people reach out to their districts, we will be in a stronger position. Nancy pelosi warned all year that the American Public was not for impeachment. A recent poll this week seem to show a slight uptick in support among the American Public for impeachment. What do you attribute that to . Is that congress leading and informing the public and showing the public that this needs to happen . Or is it the developments of this week that we saw with the whistleblower . Rep. Pocan clearly, this whistleblower is having all of the impact. I do not think people care if members of congress are raising this issue one way or another. People are looking at it saying the whistleblower said he did something potentially illegal by asking a Foreign Government to get involved in elections. The president shared a transcript that said exactly what the whistleblower said. They held up funding for the country he was trying to get them to get dirt. There was a coverup and how they dealt with this in the white house. Anyone who has watched a csi episode can follow the very easy steps like that that this is omething that is wrong and the president broke the law. He thinks he is above the law by his very comments. That is why i think you are seeing the support for impeachment. Congressman, one concern brought up by your republican colleagues, this whistleblower is a part of the Intelligence Community. Does that hinder a future president if that president has to worry that somebody in the Intelligence Community might read a transcript of a phone call and think they crossed the line and they have to answer questions to congress and the American Public . Rep. Pocan that is why we have a whistleblower law, for this very reason. He said it is on multiple eoples reports. It is not like we are hearing about a single phone call. I think there will be more that comes out as this process happens. It will be even more clear. I completely support whistleblower laws. Anyone he was president , the first thing i would recommend, dont break the law. Congressman, this week, we have focused a lot on this process and what it means and how you are going to communicate ith your colleagues. There were other things underway before this came out, looking at drug pricing, and i was wondering what you think this process means for getting anything done. Can you start with drug pricing . Speaker pelosi introduced a bill that would be the democratic proposal for addressing the prices for prescription drugs in the u. S. How do you reconcile those . How do you work with the white house to make these proposals become a law. Rep. Pocan i would assume the hite house is looking for some wins. A few of the areas we have had some agreement on, at least the general conversations about trying to do something is around rescription drugs. You could argue trade would also fall into that category. The president , hopefully, will be looking for some wins. On prescription drugs, this has been one of the Top Priorities for democrats. When that is likely voted on in the next month or two, it is omething the white house and hopefully the Senate Republicans will be looking at closely. We have been very clear about what changes we need. There is a clear path to getting 390 plus votes. Paul ryan is not the speaker anymore. Nancy pelosi is. There are lots of opportunities and from a political perspective alone, the president should want some wins. It is the right thing for us to Work Together on these issues. Are you still hopeful on some kind of agreement or compromise on gun control . That had been the story, gun violence and the Mass Shootings had been the story of the summer. The impeachment process has overtaken that. Do you see any chance that something on guns gets done this fall . Rep. Pocan i am hopeful for a lot of reasons. I think i saw six Senate Republicans were supportive of the background check bill. What i am hoping does not happen is that we have to wait for yet another mass shooting to trigger members of congress to realize that we have an obligation to deal with this issue. I am so tired of after a mass shooting, having a moment of silence and not a moment of action. It is beyond past due for us to deal with it. When you have public support at 90 and congress cannot get it done, we have some explaining to do back home. We passed that and many other bills onto the senate. We passed 237 bills prior to the break. It is time for Mitch Mcconnell to bring them back to the senate floor. It is long overdue to get some action. Your work on the House Appropriations committee, we saw Congress Work to pass this six week continuing resolution. Congress is about to go on a twoweek recess. Will there be enough time when you get back to come up with all the funding bills needed to stave off a Government Shutdown come november 21 . Rep. Pocan i would hope so. One of the most things i am disappointed in was the nability to do the ppropriations process in a normal way. Not passing continuing resolutions. E did the right thing on the house side. All 12 bills out of the appropriations committee. The senate did not do squat until september and that has been our biggest problem. In the time that is remaining, hopefully, they will get all their stuff done and they are able to get to a place where we can get this done. I am looking forward to a time when we get back to the way it is supposed to work. That is the process, where everyone can put amendments up. We did that in the house this time. Having these shortterm continuing resolutions is not good for this country. It is not a democratic or republican issue. It is showing what is wrong with how washington operates. Less than 10 minutes on newsmakers. We have seen a shift in the ideology of the Democratic Party and you and i have spoken about how the American People maybe are even open to progressive ideas and people in washington realize. Medicare for all, free college and higher education, is this a test case . Are we proving the case by giving those ideas a moment in the spotlight . Rep. Pocan i would disagree with one aspect of what you said that these ideas are arleft. When you look at medicare for all, the support is 60 plus. So many of these issues i would call progressive issues really come from the center of where the people are at. The Political Class and the working class are two very different things. When you look at the polling on so many of the issues you see the Democratic Candidates talking about, it is at the center of where the American People are at. Think it is a good thing. It puts us in a good place to win the white house in 2020. Our real job is to act on those values. I do not believe you have endorsed yet in the 2020 president ial race but tell me your timeline for that. Do you expect to endorse and when will you do that . Can i get your reaction to some of your democratic colleagues who are joe biden supporters or surrogates who say joe biden is the only candidate on the Democratic Party who can win some of the swing states like north carolina, florida and ennsylvania . Rep. Pocan i think i will endorse. Last time, we were trying to help all the candidate. This time, i see more of those issues talked about. I am not sure what my timeline will be. I will continue talking to all the candidates. I would argue the states we need to win our states like wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, ohio or iowa. You better be addressing some of those core economic issues. Whether or not they have a good family supporting job. And that means talking about trade. And that is something the president has fumbled because he is trying to do tariffs by tweeting. Focus on those Kitchen Table issues that people talk about. They are worried about health care, paying for their mortgage or rent, can i take a family acation . Congressman, you are a former abor union member . Rep. Pocan i still am, yes. I wonder what your thoughts are on the gm strike over the past two weeks about the uaw members impacting part of wisconsin. And what it means for the strength of labor unions headed nto the 2020 election. Rep. Pocan labor support among the public, the support for unions is at its highest ever. Among the millennials, it is very high. People think you should have a voice in your workplace. I grew up in kenosha, wisconsin. E made javelins and pacers and gremlins. No one makes a car anymore in kenosha. When you have a union, not only do you have a sane workplace and you have will have higher wages and better benefits. The problem is that there have been attacks on labor. Scott walker destroyed nions. E did it for political purposes. We are at a third of the unionization rate of places like canada. It adds to the quality of life by lifting everyones wages. I am strongly supportive of people who are striking and i thought it was terrible than they tried to take away health care from people because they were on strike. Since then, they realized the foolishness of that. We all need to stand together. If you do not stand together, people will take us individually apart. Last question to anne edgerton. Great to talk with you, thank you so much for your time. I know you are about to head home to district. I was wondering what your messages for them about what congress will be doing for the rest of the year and what they should be looking for going into the Election Year and how you explain to them about what is going on in washington. Rep. Pocan this is the part of the job that people forget. It is not just coming to washington in voting on motions. It is connecting with people back home and making sure you are delivering their values to washington. I have a town hall in every county in my district planned. I will talk about what we have done in congress and what we have to do in the few remaining months. It gets harder to be productive in a president ial Election Year. I look forward to hear about what people want to talk about that come and what they want me to do in washington. We will have to end it there. Cochair of the congressional progressive caucus. Now we continue with the roundtable portion of our onversation. I want to start with what you are hearing from congressman pocan in your reporting on capitol hill with a message the democrats are pushing with the ukraine phone call. Some statement that jumped out to me, calling it a smoking gun. Your thoughts on the message . And coverup too. They believe this was a coverup by the white house to conceal this conversation between President Trump and the ukraine president. The thing i am hearing most from democrats is that they believe this is an open and shut ase. It is something unlike the Mueller Report and the Russian Investigation. This is something that can be easily explained to the American Public. The public understands it. The american president talking to a foreign leader to try to conspire to dig up dirt against a political rival. It is very simple to explain. The Russian Investigation and the Mueller Report were very complicated. They also think this is happening in life, realtime in real time. Voters will be able to grasp it and it will help them make this case to the American Public to rally them behind the impeachment process. One thing that is different, the president s actions as president. This is not something he was doing as a candidate or a businessman. This was the president representing the United States of america talking to a foreign leader. This is going to affect the 2020 lection. Hile i do agree with the congressman, and nancy pelosi said the same thing, that this is a bit easier to explain to people, i am not sure that we have talked about how messy it is for the Democratic Party. Joe biden will be dragged into this. Allegations will be made by the president , already have een. If this is their nominee, that can get complicated. I know the congressman did not want to talk specific timelines. It seems like he thinks they will be drawn up at some point. Are you getting a sense from your reporting about timing . Nancy pelosi has said they will not impeach this inute. They will have some investigation into this ukraine matter and the focus will be on ukraine and at some point, the Intelligence Committee and adam schiff are leading this effort. It shifted from the judiciary committee, which has been probing, obstruction of justice and the russian report and the Mueller Report. It shifted to adam schiffs department. Adam schiff, i will just say, is a much closer ally to nancy pelosi. They are both california democrats. Pelosi appointed him to that osition. Looking at all these relationships, it is all interesting. Nancy pelosi, i believe, has much closer coordination and control over this investigation with adam schiff taking the ead. On the timeframe here, as we are looking at other deadlines coming up, government funding deadline, the continuing resolution going until november 21, is there a chance these two things, perhaps articles of impeachment drawn up happening around the same time . I do not think november will be a boring month. We can get a situation where there is a Government Shutdown looming when funding runs out and once you get past that, you are getting into december. A lot of this will depend on the president and whether or not he ants to make a stand to demand funds for his border wall, which is the reason the government shut down end of last year and the beginning of this year. On the negotiation process, and any other deadlines we should be looking at coming up. I think november will be a busy month. One thing that democrats are going to insist on is that the President Trump not be allowed to shift or reallocate some of the pentagon money, army corps of engineers money over to his border wall. They may try to insert language. They were unsuccessful this ime. They will continue to try to block using the power of the purse. They do control onehalf of ongress. That will be something to watch for. We appreciate you joining us for newsmakers this week. Newsmakers this week. Thank you very much. Thank you. Tonight on q a, as the house launches a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, hear from james banner and one of the historians who worked on the report, commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee back in 1974 on the impeachment inquiry into president nixon. John doer thought of the utility of a report like this and turned to his friend