Stories. Lauren simonetti following markets in the newsroom. Blake burman at white house, Hillary Vaughn on capitol hill, and Edward Lawrence with more reporting from washington as well. Lauren, on this 2,000 point gain today we start with you. Lauren biggest point gain the dow has ever seen. Rallied into the final hour of trading. What caused this . Is this fact that donald trump wants to open the economy up by easter . Is it fact the senate is awfully close to spending a two trillion dollar stimulus or both . The dow up 11. 25 . The s p and nasdaq up 208 and 557 points respectively. Each had the second biggest point gains in history. A lot of investors today are saying this is the birth of a new bull market . Have we hit bottom or is this just a temporary bounce . Look, nobody knows the answer, but Credit Suisse looking at the broader market, they see by the end of the year, s p 2700, which is a 21 gain from yesterdays close. Take that with a grain of salt. The big tech stocks we lik
For those watching on pbs and around thelobe, welcome to a bbc news special edition of world news america. We are following the ongoing debate on the floor of the u. S. House of representatives. These are the live pictures. Lawmakers have been making the cases one b one, first a democrat, then a republican, backwards and forwards. 435 members, it takes a little bit of time. Many have invoked the constitution or the solemn oath that they took themselves as lawmakers. And of course we have heard some of the usual talking points from both parties and from the mspresident f. When they have all had a chance to speak, they will hold a vote two votes, actually. One, use of power. We will have the ll est from capill, but first, north america editor jon sopel has this report. Merciful god, we pause in your presence jon decber 18, 2019, a day that will go down in american history. A day that started at least with solemnity. Give them wisdom and discnment jon but very quickly moved om the sacred
America. I yield and tribulation, may god bless america. Iyield back. And tribulation, may god bless america. I yield back. That was the Republican House minority leader Kevin Mccarthy giving his speech about ten minutes long, so weve heard from the majority and minority leaders and now we expect to hear from the chairman of the Intelligence Committee under schiff, walking up to the podium and he will wrap up this debate on impeachment and we will get into the voting process. Madam speaker, my colleagues, after eight hours, let us colleagues, after eight hours, let us return to where we began with the articles themselves. Article one charges the president of the United States with abusing the power of his office by coercing an ally into cheating in a us election on his behalf. It charges the president of the United States, it charges. The house will be in order. The gentleman has a right to be heard. The gentleman shall suspend. The gentleman may resume. It charges the president of the
President who literally counter punched his way into an impeachment. That is what is the fascinating aspect of this. He prides himself on being a counterpunch, and he has been very successful as a real estate tycoon, and later as a politician. You might think that a president who has undergone a whole series of investigations in the Mueller Report on the issue of foreign intervention in the electoral process would be extremely careful about what they said to any foreign leader about the Democratic Electoral process, and yet there is president trump, after the Mueller Report has wrapped up, talking to the president of the ukraine suggesting there should be investigations as a favour. The call, a lot of republicans think, was suboptimal, it was not an ideal call that the president had. If he had expressed some contrition about the way he had handled himself, i wonder whether we would be going through all of this now. It was his total defiance, that it was a perfect call, there was nothin
It has been a day of high drama and declaration. 0n the floor of thousand representatives. What is at sta ke thousand representatives. What is at stake is Donald Trumps legacy. In all likelihood, he will be known as the president who was impeached. 0nly the president who was impeached. Only the third in american history. The president himself is called impeachment an ugly word. Impeachment is no less than accusing the elected president of the United States of what the constitution calls high crimes and misdemeanors. But a skilled life to the floor thousand representatives. This is the scene as people are debating this is what they have been debating. 0ne republican laying out their case in defence of the president and then a democrat accusing the president and back and forth on this of power and abuse of congress. It has been going on all day and by most estimates, there been about two more hours to go before they vote on those articles of impeachment in congress and will be 11 capitol