gillian: thank you. up until recently, you were what i think is sort of fair to describe as slightly impeachment skeptic, but you say that in light of the recent revelations about the president s foreign policy towards ukraine, you re changing your tune a little bit, is that right? well, thank you, gillian. i m on two of the committees that are actively investigating the president. my reluctance before was to allow those investigations to go forward. if you are going to go to impeachment proceedings, you want to have the best evidence available. unfortunately, what has happened now is this deal with the ukraine has overtaken all of that. while the investigations are still going on, the transcripts of the president s conversations and then follow-up statements from the whistleblower and now we have another person coming
inquiry had violated precedent and denied president trump s due process rights. here with me to discuss, alan hirsch, lecturer of humanities and he s also the author of impeaching the president: past, present, and future. good morning. good morning. let s speak first about nancy pelosi urging them to stay focused on the president s actions surrounding ukraine, resisting the urge to broaden. she got a little bit of pushback there. you were initially an impeachment skeptic. do you think the democrats have handled the last several weeks well sfwh. i do. i think speaker pelosi has resisted impeachment and she should. it s a last resort. typically in a first term you want to avoid impeachment because voters can get their chance and it s obviously
escalation of fights and taunts between the president and speaker, democrats as a whole, perhaps the biggest question facing both is this, is there something the president could do or say that would push the democratic caucus over the edge? to help us answer that question, i m joined by two house democrats. there are different sides of this impeachment issue. congressman steph faulten of massachusetts, and a bid of an impeachment skeptic. i will start things off with a massachusetts democrat and 2020 candidate, congressman, why impeachment now? why is it now? what was the trigger for you that said, okay, now is the time? actually, i voted for moving forward with impeachment over a year ago. it s clear there s enough to have this debate. over 30 of the president s associates have been indicted by the mueller problem. his campaign chairman is in