about a handful of republicans whose views on impeachment remain unclear. sometimes you look to the moderates and think they ll behave differently. if the president has got a defense, this would be the moment for him to present it. all these hearings down in the basement. they haven t presented any direct evidence to show the president was involved in any crime. calling witnesses for the republicans is simply opening a pandora s box. this is new day with alisyn camerota and john berman. good morning, everyone. welcome to your new day. tuesday, december 17th, 8:00 in the east. what is expected to be an unruly meeting of the house rules committee uh-oh, irony. i think it was mostly just a pawn. the house unruly committee. i like that. that s what we ll call that. in just under three hours, they ll get under way. democrats will present how they want tomorrow s full house vote on impeachment to play out and republicans are expected to push back.
for a long time, i didn t know if to call han han. master solo. it s han, right? i ve been mispronouncing that my whole life. those kids are sorely disappointed. i love it. thanks for joining us. i m christine romans. i m dave briggs. here s new day. this is the official start to what you re going to see on the house floor. the white house and president trump s top allies are concerned about a handful of republican smarts whose views on impeachment remain unclear. sometimes you look to the moderates and think that they re going to behave differently but in the end they usually end up going with the president. if the president s got a defense this would be the moment for him to present it. all these hearings in the basement, they haven t presented in direct evidence to show that the president was involved in any crime. calling witnesses for the republicans is simply opening up a pandora s box. this is new day with alisyn
calling witnesses, that means we have a short trial. so this isn t quite like a stream of consciousness of where the president feels aggrieved, but it s awfully close. again, this is clearly what the president thinks. another telltale sign in there, not just the signatures but the numerous exclamation points. ali. hans, while all of this is going on, we re also hearing more from the president s personal attorney, rudy giuliani, about his recent trip to ukraine. reporter: rudy giuliani isn t admitting the role he played in the ousting of marie yovanovitch, the ambassador, the former ambassador, he s bragging about it. he s boasting about it. he saw her as an obstacle to be removed because he wanted to get to the bottom of the entire corruption scandal. you know, among the other things the president mentions in this he mentions the russia collusion hoax. among the other things he mentions in this letter, the climate paris accords, the co2 conversations on that. he mentions how well
it s a challenging spot. both sides would like to bring in potentially more witnesses. democrats would love to try to force pompeo and mulvaney to testify, even though they would use legal tools to stop that. republicans would love to bring in joe and hunter biden. it s either/or. either this trial is huge or takes a long time or it s narrow and tight. right now, mcconnell has indicated he prefers the latter, focused. what if the president pushes for calling witnesses? is there a sense that there will be a pushback? will the republicans coalesce behind this quicker strategy or not? i would be surprised to see a public clash between the president and mitch mcconnell. president trump very much trusts mcconnell and sees him as someone he can rely on as a strong ally in the senate. while we may hear some noise on twitter from the president and some of his allies about wanting
have been an intense chapter but one that probably ultimately doesn t change the entire landscape. so, jeff, instead of calling witnesses to either defend or refute the charges that have been made against this president, it seems that the senate wants to rush through this so, what, hopefully voters will forget all about it come next fall? well, a couple of different answers to that question. number one, i don t think that s 100% clear yet. i was in the oval office with the president yesterday when we asked for his reaction to the vote in the committee. and he went on to say we went on to ask him how he felt about a long trial versus a short one and he said i ll do whatever i want. he said he saw some value in having a longer trial because he d like to put on witnesses like the whistle-blower. but he also specifically mentioned he had seen what senator graham had said and was taking all of that into account as well. so we ll see. but broadly i think it s correct to say that certai