and clearly not yet. you know, when congress comes back as the impeachment inquiry goes on, we will see what effect these pressures have. that is the difference now. there is an impeachment inquiry in that wonderful first segment you had with that great reporter panel. right in the way of tonight. they re really good. but, you know, you ask, well, what s different about this time? and what s different about this time is that we are on the path to impeachment. and anybody who has talked to nancy pelosi in the last few days realizes there is something has clicked with her. something is different with her. and it s not just about politics this time. tim, your role here is to throw in a warning. you just wrote a piece about when impeachment runs up against a broken congress. cut to the chase and tell us what happens when that happens. well, look.
you know, obviously, you can make an argument, brian, that congress was broken long before donald trump came down his golden escalator, and it will be broken long after he is out of office. oh, yeah. but also, you can also make the argument for congress to be fully executing its duties under the constitution, impeachment is what they should be doing. it s what they should be pursuing. what you re beginning to see, not as much with republican lawmakers, but certainly with some of these moderate democratic lawmakers, they are responding to their constituents. people are always asking what will move people ultimately with trump, and what is it that can compel a lawmaker of his own party certainly, but even a moderate democratic lawmaker who ran in 2018 promising to pursue bipartisanship, not get caught up in impeachment and opposition to the incumbent president and his party, what can be done to move these people. and ultimately it s nothing that
happens in washington. it s no bill that passes or doesn t pass in congress. it s no power play in the halls of congress. it s their constituents rising up and demanding action. and that s what you ve begun to see over the last several weeks in a lot of these districts around the country, a lot of these states around the country. and if that clip from iowa earlier today is any indication, that pressure is going to continue to ratchet up on republican lawmakers in the weeks ahead. gene, you will concede that today was one of those what just happened days. oh, about five times, brian. and on social media, there was no shortage of people saying that, right there, the thing he just said is an article of impeachment. and yet we didn t see that response from the democrats. now that is interesting. because i would have thought there would have been a quicker, more definitive, more vocal, more public response from the democratic leadership to the fact that millions of people witnessed
and as we bring day 987 of this trump administration to a close8 yet again tonight we are in brand-new territory, all of us. that is because today in broad daylight, with cameras rolling and a helicopter waiting for him, the president said something out loud roundly believed to be impeachable.lo here is california democrat member of congress ted lieu. there is more than enough evidence right now to draft articles of impeachment. here is berkeley law professor orin kerr. what if a president committed an impeachable offense on tv from the south lawn and no one in his party cared? i worry we may be about to find out. here is how the always proper pe new york times puts it. quite simply tonight in their headline on the web, trump publicly urges china to investigate the bidens. and that is indeed what we heard the president say.
mr. president, what exactly did you hope zelensky would do?a well, i would think if they were honest about it they d start a major investigation into the bidens. it s a very simple answer. they should investigate the bidens, because how does a company that s newly formed and all these companies and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened to china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. [ inaudible question ] i haven t, but it s certainly something we can start thinking about. so that right there, trump s call for the chinese to investigate the bidens comes as he is facing impeachment charges for pushing the ukrainians to ie investigate the bidens while withholding military aid from the ukrainians passed by bi congress. as that investigation moves