for to help ukraine defend itself against russia. so let s take that to dahlia. how important is it beyond the particulars that the case against the president involved protecting democracy itself? because to your point, there were people in the country who feel that whatever happened with russia, bob mueller did an exhaustive investigation and he didn t charge anyone for election conspiracy. there are people who feel that the russia stuff was ultimately overplayed at a criminal level when bob mueller didn t find a russia-u.s. criminal conspiracy. and now they re hearing, no, he s doing it with ukraine. you could forgive people for being skeptical. and yet the truth is it appears the president is trying to subvert democracy. if that s not impeachable, what is? that s why i think nancy pelosi when she reluctantly came to the conclusion she was going to have to announce an inquiry, she was careful to center this
those open hearings will be an opportunity for the american people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves, but also to learn first-hand about the facts of the president s misconduct. what you are about to see with your own eyes could be the most significant public investigative hearings since watergate. good morning. at this hour a select committee of the united states senate is about to begin public hearings on something called watergate. there goes the gavel, and the watergate hearings are underway. there goes the gavel. those hearings changed everything. the watergate committee hearings were widely watched, widely debated, widely discussed, and they lasted 51 days, leading, of course, to some of the most famous quotes in political and really american history. how did the president know
and when did he know it? are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? i was aware of listening devices, yes, sir. i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed the president himself would be killed by it. the presidency was killed by it, ultimately. 250 hours of those proceedings were broadcast live to america. 75% of the public told gallup they watched some of the hearings. damning testimony played out day after the day. the evidence in those hearings turned the tide of public opinion across the political spectrum. president nixon s approval rating plummeted as his
that is this for that. i think republicans don t even know how they re defending the president. there is a basic question: are they trying to argue that he did not solicit foreign interference in an american election? or are they trying to say, he did that, but it s okay that he did that? that s one of the things that presidents are allowed to do. right. did he demand a prescribribe to himself. that s abusing the office for the bribe, that s getting the investigation. and did that happen. or did it happen and you re going to say yes, but we don t want to remove him. so are they going to argue the facts or argue the law. but, in fact, they re arguing neither. i mean, i think both would be essentially per pos trous on their face. call it whatever you want. he was demanding interference in our election in exchange for aid which had been appropriated
the manager, i m confident that he will not let that team get off into extraneous details or try to argue about something that s not part of the most fact pattern that establishes the abuse of power of the president. did this trial, because it did touch on alleged abuses of power, did it also say anything about how you defend effectively against those? well, it was interesting. you know, they really the defense team tried to basically say this really isn t this big a deal. and i will tell you as a humorous note i will never forget oren hatch was my co-counsel, he was my k co-chairman. after the opening statement was over, he leaned over to me and said, this will be interesting. i don t think i ve ever heard lap dance in a senate hearing room before. there was allegations involving inproprieties of money exchanging hands and