you. mean. this is state of the news live from thailand indonesia is desperation deepens as the death toll following last week s devastating earthquake and tsunami surges to more than twelve hundred people the wait for news of loved ones on the call the moments when disaster struck. when the ground started moving i went outside the ones in the whole street rose up and it was like a wave and we were swept away we ll hear from an aid worker about the difficulties of trying to get supplies to this devastated area also on the program the nobel
prize in physics goes to a woman for the first time in more than fifteen years donna strickland and two other scientists were all up for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics. i m from gail welcome to the program or sources in indonesia say the death toll from last week s earthquake and tsunami is now more than twelve hundred meanwhile survivors a growing anger at the government s response with aid slow to arrive people in
now, turning attention to the ron johnson letter if i may. yes. on august 31st, senator johnson is getting ready to travel to ukraine on september 5th with senator murphy. and he wanted johnson wanted the aid released, he calls the president, he actually sought permission to be the bearer of good news. right. the president said, i m not ready to lift the aid. and they had this senator johnson. he writes a ten page letter, very detailed. and he gives some remarkable deta detail. and i d like to read it, it s on page 6. i add this is senator johnson speaking, i asked him whether there was some kind of arrangement where ukraine would take some action and the hold would be lifted.
without hesitation senator johnson says, president trump immediately denied such an arrangement existed. and he started cursing. and he said no way, president trump said no way, i would never do that. who told you that? and senator johnson goes on to say that president trump s reaction here was a
whether you think that s good or bad and matches the abuse of powers is an open question. and then he goes through and argues he doesn t see what he calls a statutory crime. and we ll see that debate as well. there are people you re going to hear from who are going to say it s got to be an actual felony and then there are going to be other people pointing out the constitution doesn t require that. it has words like treason, bribery and high crimes. so we re going to get into the weeds here, but the big picture is keep your eye on which witnesses and exchanges are talking about the serious question of what s impeachable. the other noise you can try and tune out as with any hearing. mr. wiesman, your last words of advice as we settle in to watch the legal experts. i think it s very important to keep your eye on the facts and the law. and i think one of the things that the public is rightly upset about is the rule of law not being applied.
and so i think the quote you read is fun,
power of the office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring and injuring the national interest. or acts in ways that are grossly inconsistent with and undermine the separation of powers that is the foundation of our democratic system. now, these this question of whether president engaged in abuse of power came up before when this congress considered the impeachment of president nixon. and after action was taken, president nixon famously said if the president does it, it is not illegal. and this body rejected that because that s not so. that goes directly contrary to what the founders said. but president trump has said the same thing in responding to the prior investigation by department of justice and defending his conduct. here is what he said then i have an article, too, where i have to write to do whatever i want as president. that he has the right to do
whatever he wants as president. that is as wrong as when president nixon said a similar thing. that is no
to exclude from trial? therefore, from the american public evidence. i mean, we re prosecutors, we are used to evidence. that s how we measure our cases, measure our progress. and if senator mcconnell has decided in coordination with the white house that it s going to be run in a particular way to exclude facts and evidence and witnesses an documents what does that make the senate? it is just an amazing point for you to be making. america s history is being an advocate around the world for the i think it is fair to call that a banana court, a banana republic, a kangaroo court. we used to be a country that helped bring the rule of law to other countries. so impeachment wasn t designed to be a trial like in an article 3 court but it was designed to be a process and a high mined one in which facts mattered. right? the framers had this fascinating
trial. you could have put an impeachment trial in the judiciary. they didn t want to. theoretically, the house, the house had the other