what it really meant was someone who is abusing power. and so, in other words, you know, the president could declare that he s going to nuke canada tomorrow, but there s no law against nuking canada, but that would be a high crime and misdemeanor that certainly would be prosecuted. the problem with this whole high crimes and misdemeanor and the whole idea of impeachment is that, you know, if the economy was tanking and people were doing terrible and unemployment was high, i suspect the support for impeachment would probably be much greater. plus, we have this hyperpartisanship and we have such a mistrust of government on both parties, democrat and republican. and so, when people are given the choice of the status quo and let s stick to what we have to what is the unknown, they re going to stick to the status quo. mm-hmm. but rick, you have chairman nadler who s giving the white house december 6th as a deadline to decide whether or not the president s attorneys are going to take part
judiciary committee, they will have all of those people that the president has refused to allow to testify to come forth to now show that he s committed no crimes. but, sir, can the president really claim that he s done nothing wrong anymore? don t the facts far outweigh that kind of a defense? isn t it now about whether or not what he did rises to the level of impeachment? well, yes. i think the constitution s clear, bribery and treason are spelled out in the constitution. but here s what i was trying to say, alex, and that is that the senate is practicing politics over all else. and the white house, of course, is the same. and they don t realize that there is something called the politics of reciprocity, or the politics of identical harvest. what they re planting now will grow up later. and if i were a republican, i would start thinking, if i m not
doesn t need to impress them. but compared to the alternative, especially after the health scare he s had recently, it serves his interests to be out there. but it is not convincing at all. it s quite plain from the first three years of donald trump s presidency, he s not that much interested in the job itself, in the job of being president. his principal concern now that s why the key word in anne s previous answer was calculated his key concern now is himself and trying to position himself for what s going to be a very bad run of news in impeachment in the senate trial. i don t think anyone who is not already firmly in donald trump s camp is going to be persuaded that the guy who hangs out in the residence and tweets constantly rather than focus on the nuts and bolts of the presidency is suddenly doing that. can i ask both of you and john, i ll let you have a stab first at this answer what do you think is the most grievance
witnesses or if the president intends to have counsel present. the dilemma, of course, alex, is that the president, the white house, his allies, have said they don t believe this has been a legitimate process, and so it seems unlikely that they would want to engage. and yet, at the same time, they have also complained about not being a part of the process and afforded rights. so, he s in that middle ground of having to decide how much does he want to go all in on fighting impeachment, where impeachment is happening, or if he wants to sort of stay out of it and fight it more politically outside of capitol hill. alex? yeah, well, we have a little bit over 24 hours to decide which way he s going to turn in that one. kelly o donnell, thank you from west palm beach. john nichols is national affairs correspondent at the nation. john, with a welcome to you, i want to dig into what you did this week in washington as you spoke to members on the house judiciary committee. what are they telli
very much, he, the president, feels very much that he s been treated unfairly, and he thinks he is his own best defense and he wants to get out there and make that defense but is being told really pretty universally not to do so and to keep doing what he is doing, which is going out and being president. okay. let s get to what we expect with wednesday, john, because as i mentioned earlier, it is the judiciary committee s first public hearing. what do democrats hope to achieve? what are they expecting from that day? well, as kelly said in the setup piece, it s kind of an academic discussion. it s an attempt to lay out what are grounds for impeachment, explain what it means high crimes and misdemeanors, bribery, the things that are listed in the constitution. but i really think it s the beginning of the moment for jerry nadler to try to drive home the case with voters who