And what that means for the future and the globalization of populist sense of. Counting the cost on aljazeera. And historic week in washington d. C. President donald trump impeached so what happens now and up from special. This week donald trump became the 3rd president in u. S. History to be impeached by the house of representatives democrats in congress voted through 2 articles of impeachment one of which charges that the president abused his power and pressured the government of ukraine to assist with his Reelection Campaign by investigating a political rival and the 2nd which accuses him of obstruction of Congress Next up is a trial in the senate in the new year where the president is sure to be acquitted by a republican majority so how bad is this for trump and win it or maybe help his chances for reelection in 2020 joining me to debate this a hall in the hill a republican political consultant an Advisory Board member to the trump 2020 Campaign Tiffany cross liberal commentator and cofounder of the news website the b d c and john mikhail constitutional lawyer and law professor at Georgetown University thank you all for joining me on this special episode of upfront hauler lets start with you the house of representatives voted to impeach donald trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress thats both pretty damning and some might say pretty humiliating for a 1st term president its a big deal to be impeached hes one of only 3 president s its historic but in context of the current political atmosphere i dont think its at all surprising. You had elements of the Democratic Party declaring on and non here each day that they had every intention of impeaching this president this was a foregone conclusion it was a foregone conclusion to. Now i think certainly there probably were some people who recognized some questionable things happening on the campaign trail however if it were a foregone conclusion my goodness trump must of been there coconspirator because he time and again proved that he was worthy of impeachment by continually repeating impeachable acts and so i dont think that we should be looking at this through the prism of republican versus democrat these are patriots versus people who are going against the constitution and its laughable to people who defend this president time and again if this is not impeachable what is lets bring joan. Collins says it was a foregone conclusion tiffany says its about patriots versus people who are not defending the constitution in a rover on the hinged run to the left to this week to nancy pelosi called it a crusade impeachment is a crusade and unprecedented unconstitutional abuse of power by democrat lawmakers elsewhere hes called it a hoax hes called it illegal as a constitutional law professor what do you make of such claims about the process itself. I thought the president s letter was quite surprising and i dont believe its going to. Speak well of him from a Historical Perspective he seemed to be wanting to write from that perspective so that in the future we could look back on this event and reach the verdict that he hoped but it was really an on his letter as you described it quite surprising to me that his lawyers or the people around him as advisors led him to the lawyers were cut out of the writing chrysalis admit that but on the substance and this is something that will come up trumps state of mind all day long and another day or on the substance is it illegal illegitimate the way the democrats have done this no its not that the constitution vests Broad Authority in the house to impeach and in the senate to try and preachments there are imaginable circumstances where there could be review of those procedures but under very unusual circumstances and nothing like we have here on the substance of the impeachment many would argue its an open and shut case from the rough transcript of his phone call with the ukrainian president from the witnesses who have testified under oath in public many of the members of his own administration for what trump himself openly says is tiffany mentioned is it any wonder to you all the more than i think 800 law professors and 1500 historians have said based on the evidence he should be along partisan lines people believe that i mean i read the transcript and i didnt find that it was offensive at all but you know people can draw different conclusions and i can then i will ultimately i think that this will go to the voters in 2020 and hes going to win in a landslide ok and so you guys can try to litigate this all you want here in washington but we travel countries come back from ohio and were going to do it come to the politics of it just on the substance you say you read the cool its all politics on lines but people who testified in congress are not partisans you know literally members of it only get a straight who is calling these witnesses i mean who is calling the witnesses so it is an ok well many of many are you know well george w. Bush on the phone all right guys you know if were going to get back into that i mean there are so many neo cons and never try. Or is that a permit that permit this administration how can you be really doesnt question all that i mean i was good at how could you have never trump or if you work for trump there are so many never trampers in this administration it is i would say about lots of people by my fortunately many of the people who are making early decisions in this white house were counter to the president s intentions i mean holland just very quickly to the trump says it was a perfect phone call do you agree with him on that yeah ok there are some republicans who say it was a perfect phone call but also that he shouldnt be impeached for it he may not be in the right language but it doesnt rise to the level of removing a president from of his wife we are going to have lengthy impeach this president for this what we impeach a president for when you look at this is that the conservation of our democracy where very young democracy when you look at it from the world stage people look at africa you guys are baby youre not old enough our democracy has never before been tested like this so if youre saying it is ok for the president of the United States the birth of help from a foreign power to investigate your political opponent i have to question your state of mind youve got to fight all your patriotism is it ok to do that. Well not necessarily that he was soliciting them for help in the election maybe tacitly thats what it was but he didnt explicitly say that he didnt express that is ok what he did and thats a no no no im not im not going to see that he did do that so when he said china forget ukraine showing the should start investigation into the bidens because what happened in china just about that but only if someones committed a crime and you want to get to the bottom of the debate was he really would you want to set a precedent and i think we should investigate hillary. And the democrats running for office also we should investigate all of this although shes done wrong all of that but not necessarily and for all that i just i just it just to do with a point to do the principle here just a consistency so the democrat candidate next to Bernie Sanders this with warren joe biden youre ok with them saying iran would like you did investigate. Youre ok with that im going to make the point that you all are perfectly fine with. Congress investigating the press in the United States in an Election Year youre not. Fine because joe biden is running for office for that anyone to investigate him for any wrongdoing or for anyone to investigate Hillary Clinton in the argument a Foreign Government should investigate him say so the president if their Foreign Government wants to pursue an investigation thats fine so you just answer my question to denounce are sure youre ok with Bernie Sanders or joe biden next year asking the iranian government to investigate dont junius business dealings youre going to have some if theres been some crime then go and investigate it youre ok with that yeah going to find it a democrat say and ill investigate it was the rest of us and then you see i dont i really answer the question as if theres been wrongdoing if they want to call for it fine ok john you didnt sign the letter from professes a few days ago saying that there is a case for impeachment. You know at the time it was circulated i didnt have a chance to read all the materials that have been published on the question and i wanted to do that before drawing a conclusion i just to be clear im persuaded that the president committed impeachable acts at this point i had some reservations about the letter as well because its not clear to me that focusing single this episode as opposed to the broad sweep of conduct that the president has been gauged in is either is is is the right way to go on this tiffany whats your position on the idea that for example some people say why not put the a monument schools divided nation of you know Foreign Governments paying trump or Campaign Finance violations or kids in cages a lot of attacks on President Trump but when it came push came to shove the House Democrats with 2 very narrow articles related to ukraine is a very peculiar to me that for some reason ukraine resonate with the American People but it was something that was simple that it got and i know you know you have people on the other thought i would say well this isnt resonating with the American People but what American People are you talking to i talk to people all the time im from ohio very familiar with from supporters and actual you know people who support the constitution and the country and i think that there are a lot of people who support this and so i think nancy pelosi may have erred when she thought the American People have to be with this well when theyre going to do a scene a big store i think when theres been a continuing dumbing down of the American Election and not not everybody consuming the minutiae of politics like we are i think there are things that people when it supported him also say this was one of the most complex issues they could have gone after the president to impeach him on going after his businesses would have been so much easier for just speaking politically in addictively this is absolutely the wrong one to have gone with no question were going to be the country to me just clarify one thing for our audience what you know because one thing thats often very confusing for people is the constitution talks about impeaching the president for treason bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors the president said again this week there was no crime let alone a high crime but thats not why crimes refers to you dont actually you dont actually have to go. It is a criminal offense to be impeached am i right in saying that correct so its very clear from the history of the scholars whove looked at this very closely that criminal conduct is neither necessary nor sufficient to constitute impeachable conduct under the constitution lets talk about the senate trial because thats where this goes next in the new year the senate controlled by the Republican Party unlike the house tiffany what is the point of all this if the impeachment is just going to be rejected in the senate anyways doesnt that make this all a big waste of time i dont think so i think it is important for the American People to see the evidence laid out before them i think its unfortunate that you dont have an Impartial SenateMajority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has said openly that hes coordinating with the white house i think those are all important things for people to consume i realize that something is what has gone wrong in our democracy and this is not ok for whatever happens in the senate it should still be questioned by by voters come 22020. 00 points out that Mitch Mcconnell did go on fox news and say were coordinating with the white house on this he said hes not an impartial jury the senate is supposed to act like jurors you also have. Republicans saying we dont want any witnesses stand trial now its done we should be done in the house what do you say to people who say the senate trial looks rigged you know i dont think there should be a trial lets just vote. Like lets put this on a fast track lets get this done with this is all this has been all the political conservatives are going into the constitution to defend the constitution in that part of the company as well as lets put it of lets go like enough dragging this out because its a waste of time were not going to remove the president so anything short of just ending this is for show and so republicans could pretend like you know were going to put everybody through the paces whatever its a complete waste of time i think its a penalty given the same republican body that impeach bill clinton insisted every one of those im not going to defend with this im not going to defend impeaching president bill clinton i think its absurd but when you have Lindsey Graham for example as a prominent if im not sure im certainly not going to families graham. But he was saying in the late ninetys a lot of the stuff you say we need to witness is we need people of open minds beautiful trial and now hes saying im not a federal i want to get this over with you. Im not sure if you thought but you see what the real thing lets get a delegate lets get it done because youre going to youre going to see im not going to finance a proxy ern consistency because i think bill clinton had been impeached in the 1st place consistent is what im trying to be. Trump can be impeached in the house the Lower Chamber but for the president to be removed requires a 2 thirds super majority in the senate which is currently controlled by tribes politics did the founders joan want to make impeachment really difficult really hold really rare is that was the point they did they did and i think its a point to add to our other conversation is that theres a strong presumption against impeaching government officials and certainly against him preaching the president and it takes a lot to overcome that presumption so going back to a point that was made earlier i dont think this was a foregone conclusion nancy pelosi for example made fairly clear that she was reluctant to go forward than pietschmann i think the events the recent events with respect to ukraine tip the balance so there is a presumption against impeachment the founders did want to make it hard to impeach a government officials and certainly with the president who has tremendous power and who has someone elected by the the American People theres an Even Stronger presumption arguably than the case for example of a federal judge just deal with that point about nancy pelosi many on the left would argue was dragged kicking and screaming towards impeachment you say it was a foregone conclusion the reason thats so shes get on with it and get get it done with i think that there where theres a especially radical element of her party that was pushing for this for a long time and its you know that it will do not always particularly she can relate to really at least one of likely i mean i think that this was all the product of a massive political miscalculation that they thought while they were deciding who the nominee of the Democratic Party was going to be they were going to distract and try to tear him down a notch and make him run as an impeached president and in fact what the result is is record fund raising for the president a lot of it said i just got back from a truck probably in hershey pennsylvania there were 15000 people inside. Theyre like 4000 people in the snow i mean like everywhere i go people are so excited for this President Joe Biden can even even fill like ok school. I do want to come up to that point in shortly just one last question on the senate issue to view pointing out that the republicans dont want to have a kind of. Drug haul and so you would say all done just have a vote get on with it is the problem here that its all very well criticizing republicans for having made up their minds and votes but its not as democrats have made up their minds in the votes either so that those democrats sitting there going oh you know donald trump i want to i want to i want to quit him yeah i would actually refute that i think there are democrats who havent made up their mind theyve been pretty vocal about a shooting from of the welfare of the 2 but the little girl just as part of our public in the audience on the republican side are people who are you know wavering on what theyre going to do so i think the difference is though between these 2 parties thats really not the Republican Party anymore right like this is like the trump sycophant when they were in evidence by harlan comments about how awesome his rallies are and so that has anything to do with governing. And im not sure that i mean the way i see the if you look at you know what the Republican Party is doing when you had minority leader. Kevin mccarthy on 60 minutes talking about the transcript of the phone call he hadnt even fretted and when you ask people what have you read the report have you read the transcript on the republican side time and again they say no we havent even read it we dont want to see evidence you see a pattern of behavior where they say you know what this never this crime that you commit it never happened and then they go to well it happened so what this is been consistent out from the presidency so again if you are a supporter of democracy if you are supporter of patriotism then