nancy pelosi after this vote is taken, this one-sided vote is taken, who holds up the impeachments as under the house rules, the professor lawrence had hold ups you can get mcconnell to do what he can do in the senate. what do you make of all of the. it is a nasty lesson in how not to do impeachment. it s an example of raw power being exercised in the constitution, the sole power in the house of representatives, she seized power that i think belonged to the house, all 435, 431 a few absentees, she seized power on september 24. she unilaterally, without a debate in the house, and the house is supposed to be a deliberative body, that s really what the rules are designed for clearly, procee
have not thought about. from the very moment that the majority party in this house won the inevitability that we would be here today was only a matter of what date they would schedule it. nothing else. in fact, how it even began to look even further on september 24, the speaker announced and in peak impeachment inquiry before even seeing the call transcript we are going to hear so much about today. it s not about what this body can do in its constitutional oath, there s been a lot of constitutional and founders thrown around and will be all day today but there s one thing i will mention all along is the founders were very concerned about a partisan impeachment in which politics of the majority view of their strength can do what they want to do regardless of any facts. in fact, i ve said it before and i will say it again, i do not believe no matter what was said today and has been said, this is not a solemn occasion. when you go looking for something three years and especially this year
legal analyst throughout the morning. we ll start with chief congressional correspondent mike emmanuel so set the stage for us julie, bill good morning to you. what s striking is the speed of this impeachment from the start until today. this all started with a july 25 phone call between president trump and ukraine s president. on august 12, a whistleblower came forward. then on september 24, speaker nancy pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry going forward to look into that phone call, so when you consider the average congressional recess throughout the course of the fall this has really happened at warp speed. here we are a week before christmas day and house lawmakers are considering articles of impeachment against president trump for abuse of power and on instruction of congress. the other striking thing is the solidarity on both sides. the vast majority of house democrats lining up behind their leader, house speaker nancy pelosi. the magic number is 216 votes, and at last cou
vision of a republic is under threat from the white house pair that s why today as speaker of the house i solemnly and sadly open a debate on the impeachment of the president of united states. it s tragic the president s reckless actions makes impeachment necessary. he gave us no choice be the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections, the basis of our democracy. dana: republican congressman doug collins calling of the democrats. from the moment the majority party won the house, the inevitability that we would be here today is only a matter what date they would schedule it. nothing else. in fact, they began to even look further than september 24, the speaker announced in impeachment hearing. they do not care about anything except getting the time done and the calendar. they do not care about facts,
this for a fact, but john bolton was very opposed to that. somebody can get up to speed very quickly. you have to be on track with what the president is thinking of where his head is on foreign affairs. that is the point that i made earlier, the idea that the u.n. meeting is coming up and iran is at the forefront. it s the 74th session of the u.n. general assembly. it s september 17-30. bret, the first day of high level general debate will be on september 24. that is not far off in distance. no, within two weeks. so a lot will be happening. think of all the world issues this president is dealing with. you re dealing with a situation in iran, north korea, venezuela, which we haven t talked about as much as we did weeks ago. the situation in syria has not improved. you have yemen and saudis and uae and what they re doing