so based on that town hall, do you still stand by your support for both articles of impeachment? oh yes. listen, i knew this decision was going to be controversial when i came out for an inquiry. we knew from the beginning this was going to be a tough call, but you have to do what you re trained to do and you have to take this seriously and make a decision sometimes on things that s a hard call, not based on polling and political calculus. and meanwhile moderate democratic congressman jeff van drew of new jersey who has imposed impeachment now plans to become a member of the republican party. leanne caldwell is with us. a first to you, because that was a pretty raucous gathering, that town hall meeting. she s had a number of town hall
meetings. she knows this is tough for her. she s a former cia officer. she said she was trained to make tough decisions and this is a tough decision politically and she s making it whatever the costs are to her politically. reporter: yeah. that s right, andrea. she s just finishing up a gaggle with reporters right now right behind me. she had a town hall. she s talking to reporters so she s making herself very available on the eve of this impeachment vote. just hours after she came out announcing her support for both articles of impeachment. but in the town hall it was packed. there were 500 seats for voters. while she had a lot of support here, she got standing ovations. that was really mixed in with boos and people jeering her. there were protesters, pro-trump protesters throughout especially when she started talking about
you know it s going to happen. the house will vote articles of impeachment, the senate will probably acquit. it s already baked in so it s just not interesting. our apologies. mike whitmer from grand rapids michigan. is that part of the problem for democrats going into this that they don t know they have the votes in the senate, that there s going to be an acquittal? we have seen support for impeachment rise dramatically since july as these revelations about the president s efforts to pressure ukraine became public. but it s not going to move much further. we re living in a 50-50 country and the country is deeply divided. nobody really is going to budge on that. then you see these numbers. vulnerable members like alyssa slotkin, to her credit this is her fifth town hall since she announced in september that she supported the opening of an impeachment investigation.
her. first of all, a lot of the signs looked as though they were professionally made. i don t know if they came from trump campaign headquarters but the impeach slotkin saigns were all the same. she did start talking about the trade issue and the upcoming new nafta vote that affects a lot of people in her district. she was questioned about that, why it took so long to get there and about health care. these are the kitchen table issues that drove her into politics. reporter: absolutely. she said while impeachment is front and center right now, there s a host of other issues congress is currently working on. she told that extremely personal story about her mother, who died
representing president trump once that trial gets underway. ashley, you were writing this weekend about the legislative agenda and how the holiday legislative tableau has emboldened trump. he has suggested that house speaker nancy pelosi is embarrassed by the impeachment inquiry. he said he believes the trial in the republican controlled senate where he s expected to be acquitted of the house charges could be beneficial to him and he sees impeachment as perhaps the best episode, the grand finale of a reality show presidency in the words of one long-term confidante who talked with trump. the president is conflicted on this. in part you see that with what he s saying about what he wants to see from a senate trial. on the one hand he has been convinced by mcconnell and other republicans that he wants a short trial. he understands it s not necessarily good for him. on the other hand, he ll talk about wanting a long trial tor