in the chair. she will make the announcement momentarily. as we talk about it, gloria made the proof, exclamation point, the republican party is loyal to donald trump. this is a moment of personal accomplishment. she says it s a sad day. but this has been a hard one for speaker pelosi. she was against this. now she has seen her party cast about a tough vote but the democrats sticking together here. she has a big decision to make. after the second vote, we will hear from the democratic leaders. presumably, she s ready to tell us who the managers will be when we go forward with the senate trial. pelosi will hand this off after the second vote to the senate. she has big decisions to make beforehand about how and who the house democrats will send over to the next stage of the senate. to your point, there is a lot of political peril in this for moderate democrats. only two defections among democrats.
one of them, congressman van drew of new jersey is likely about to become a republican. this reminds me that the effect of president trump on the republican party has been very, very strong both in terms of how much the republican party has become the trump party and how people like justin amosh have been chased out. impeachment politics are impossible to predict. you have congressman van drew from new jersey about to become a republican. you have justin amosh not because of impeachment but because of donald trump becoming an independent. we have no idea what s going to happen next. we have an idea what this vote is going to be. right now, it s 191 yea. they are not quite there yet. we have no idea what is going to happen. last time there was an impeachment, 21 years ago tomorrow, it ended up the house speaker, john made this point earlier, the house speaker newt gingrich ended up resigning because he was under fire. he was having an extramarital relationship at the same time he
trump should be removed from office. it s an extraordinary rebuke. think about how much democrats hated george w. bush. think about how much republicans hated barack obama. it didn t happen for either one of those. it s only happened three times. there have been 45 presidencies. it s a shockingly stark reminder of how divisive president trump is and how polarized our times are. dana, for all practical purposes, the president of the united states has now been indicted by the house of representatives, setting the stage for a full trial in the u.s. senate. that s right. one count to keep your metaphor going and another one coming. as much as the president is, as we speak, talking about the politics of this and as much as his campaign argues that this is politically beneficial to him in the upcoming election, the reality is that this is a
until we hear from nancy pelosi, senator santorium? this is a tragic day. you are right, donald trump will be judged, his presidency will be judged by the fact he was impeached. the people who voted to impeach him will be judged, too. i don t think this is going to reflect well on them any more than it reflected on the radical republicans who tried to get rid of andrew johnson. that s not johnson is somewhat in history not thought well of. but neither were the people that tried to impeach him. i think that s really the case. it was a very mrpolitical case the case of those going after johnson. look, i was involved in the impeachment of bill clinton. bill clinton had done what he did today, there isn t one me too person that wouldn t want him out of office. there was a different time that he got away with just sex. today he wouldn t get away with.
the date. it was not long ago that there was word there was a whistle-blower and then it just snowballed. the republicans today tried to convince the american public this is a political vendetta. an impeachment in search of a crime or in search of a high crime and misdemeanor. what you see today essentially is breaking down what it really means four votes away. to reject the notion you are above the law. what that means is no one is immune from the constitutional oversight that our founding fathers contemplated. they predicted you would need impeachment. that was a forgone conclusion to everyone, that you would have to have a check and balance. what today s vote has been about is whether or not the separation of power still stands, whether or not you can simply you can be co-equal branchs of government and whether you can certainly be if you can keep it. you see this vote right now. it s unfolding. you are a few away from capturing this. this is the essence of what democrac