create a commission on their own? my colleague nbc s leigh ann caldwell joins me from capitol hill. and jake sherman from punchbowl news joins me this morning. thank you very much for being here. we think this vote could happen as early as next week. is that your expectation, and how do you think this is going to go down? hey, kristen, it could happen as early as next week. senate majority leader chuck schumer put it on the senate calendar. it doesn t mean everything is locked in stone yet so it could slide. again, early next week is possible. of course, we know it needs the support of 60 senators. that means at least ten republicans need to sign on to this. and it seems like a very high bar to reach at this point. our colleague, julie sirkin, did an amazing job compiling what all 50 republican senators have said about the commission, and most of them are outright opposed, regardless of what it looks like.
many seem to suggest it does. it doesn t mean everything and anything, it doesn t necessarily mean this. what does it mean. there are four criteria. we know what treason means because it s defined in the constitution. bribery, we know it when we see it. when you pay a government official corruptly to perform an illegal act or an act that is motivated by money, but it can t operate when you are the president of the united states and your conditioning or withholding money in order to make sure that a country isn t corrupt and you re asking them to investigate. that just doesn t fit any definition of bribery. common-law, statutory, however you define the constitution, it just doesn t fit. what they are trying to do is what the kgb, what they said to
it doesn t mean everything and anything, it doesn t necessarily mean this. what does it mean. there are four criteria. we know what treason means because it s defined in the constitution. bribery, we know it when we see it. when you pay a government official corruptly to perform an illegal act or an act that is motivated by money, but it can t operate when you are the president of the united states and your conditioning or withholding money in order to make sure that a country isn t corrupt and you re asking them to investigate. that just doesn t fit any definition of bribery. common-law, statutory, however you define the constitution, it just doesn t fit. what they are trying to do is what the kgb, what they said to stalin the dictator, i m not
represents a native american issue. but nobody talks about the mexicans that came over here, legally at the at the titime be rules were different the trail of tears was a forced death march. that s true. but again, and that was forced by american citizens at the time. the indians were american citizens, they just were not recognized legally, but they were here originally. that occurred at a period of time in our history which, you know, we have ups and downs of what we do, what we do well wharwell, what we do bad. that was a bad thing. there are a lot of things done because of where this country is today. it doesn t mean everything was done good. that s an example of something that was done badly or inappropriately and probably should not occurred. it should not have occurred.
gates is now a criminal and cooperating with the federal government. and rick dearborn was so over his head in that job he didn t know which end was up. you just described the first two years of the trump administration. yes. and that is isn t that worrying? well of course it is. and that is the thesis of the book. the thesis of the book is there was a way for this to go better. it doesn t mean everything has gone wrong and everything hasn t gone wrong and i m not we re still alive. but i don t subscribe to the oh, my god, this is the how many times have we said either i ve watched you say this on this program or other programs on other networks, this is the inflection point, this is when the whole thing falls apart. i don t have enough fingers and toes how many times it has been said. so i don t subscribe to that. but i do say this. the first six months to a year of this administration was just so disorganized, so back of the envelope. and i think 75% of that is due