legal analyst throughout the morning. >> we'll start with chief congressional correspondent mike emmanuel so set the stage for us >> julie, bill good morning to you. what's striking is the speed of this impeachment from the start until today. this all started with a july 25 phone call between president trump and ukraine's president. on august 12, a whistleblower came forward. then on september 24, speaker nancy pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry going forward to look into that phone call, so when you consider the average congressional recess throughout the course of the fall this has really happened at warp speed. here we are a week before christmas day and house lawmakers are considering articles of impeachment against president trump for abuse of power and on instruction of congress. the other striking thing is the solidarity on both sides. the vast majority of house democrats lining up behind their leader, house speaker nancy pelosi. the magic number is 216 votes, and at last count it appears