security professionals. democrats and republicans who expressed concern with the president s wrongdoing. and said, this undermines american national security. that s a basis for the impeachment inquirinquiry. what the president has done is said, unlike the madisonian vision of democracy where there are checks and balances, separate and coequal branches of government, i alone can determine what the representatives of the people see. in connection with a legitimate investigation. at the same time, this is a president that attacks everybody, to distract. attacks everybody who won t bend the knee to donald j. trump. attack john mccain. a war hero. attack mitt romney, 2012 republican nominee.
we had more than 200 national security professionals. democrats and republicans. who expressed concern with the president s wrongdoing. and said this undermines american national security. and that s a basis for the impeachment inquiry. but what the president has done is said unlike the madisonian vision of democracy with checks and balances, separate and co-equal branches of government. i, alone, can determine what the representatives of the people see. in connection with a legitimate investigation. and at the same time, is the president that attacks everybody. to distract. attacks everybody who won t bend the knee to donald j. trump. attack john mccain. a war hero.
you know, it is really dangerous and mika, you and i for the past three years have had a debate on whether america s institutions will be sufficient to check donald trump in a way where we ll be strong or even stronger from this challenge on the other side, and i ve always said, our institution will check him, madisonian democracy will check him. i m not a big believer of going in and talking about constitutional conventions or changing this part of the government or that part of the government. i will say three years in that the one area where our system obviously needs to be checked has to do with the appointing of an attorney general, and i was saying this before barr became the attorney general, i think there has to be a higher forgive the pun, a higher bar to becoming attorney general of the united states. maybe it s a two-thirds vote in
and most importantly, and this is the key in autocracieautocra democracies that move to autocracies, the key is the attacking of the press, the attacks of an independent judiciary, and the attacking of the intel agencies. you know, willie, there s a reason why assad is now parroting donald trump and talking about fake news. there s a reason why other dictators across the planet when they get caught in human rights violations parrot donald trump and talk about fake news, why erdogan is doing the same thing. they re all reading from the same play book, and of course we have a madisonian democracy that i still believe keeps us strong and will protect us as a nation, but every day donald trump and the attorney general of the united states now and so many of
what is this you speak of? hold on, let me get my constitution that i ve been, like, shoving up people s noses for the past 20 years. that s what i m carrying the constitution of the united states. i believe what it says. certainly the constitution s out. by the way, mitt romney, here s a great example. the president of the united states says article two gives me the power to do whatever i want to do, that s actually that s what putin would say. that s what erdogan would say. i m calling ann. why wouldn t mitt get up and say, you know, that s actually not only ignorant, that s dangerous and does violence to madisonian let me ask you. i would think mitt romney is going to vote in the senate on impeachment? i think he ll vote to acquit. why? what does it profit a man if he gains the world but loses i had own soul? but here s the thing about mitt, he s already got the world zblaend knows the difference between right and wrong. and it s the same thing with woody. the thing