Vetted for that but this is no no ordinary trial this is an impeachment of the president its a trial that as you said will be conducted on the floor of the United States senate presided over by the chief justice of the United StatesSupreme Court and the jurors in this case or 100 do elected members of the senate in other words theyre politicians and they have political interests at heart or at least many of them have expressed that they do when it comes to whether or not theyre approaching this impeachment trial with open minds i think the real question here for republicans especially is whether theyre going to actually look at the evidence and the reality is this is a factual record that is that is pretty well undisputed at this point the facts are what they are no matter what some on the far right tried to say otherwise and so for republican senators the test is will they go into this with open minds will they look at the facts as they are and will they make a judgment on the basis of that factual record in other words will they actually put their oath of office before partisan interests. Of the republicans going to bring up witnesses. You know thats an open question i think at the end of the day they well its been reported that there is some tension between people in the white house and some in the senate as to the nature of how they will pursue that trial i think many of the institutionalist in the senate would like a fairly narrow process where they review the facts and allow both sides to make their case and then vote i think there are others who would like to have a slightly more political bent to that conversation and highlight some of the inadequacies in the process as they see them i think from an institutional perspective and i say this maybe. Expressing my own bias as a former Senate Person i tend to view this the senate should should take this role seriously i think they will im hopeful that that remains a fairly straightforward process we do have some recent term president s with the clinton impeachment many members were involved in that and thats helpful frankly as i think that process was handled in a fairly mature and political way at least from a procedural perspective and im optimistic that can happen here as well david is reportedly a divide between the tunnel and president mcconnell wanting the likely senate trial oval typically totally wants it to be more of those to go with a vigorous defense of his defense which do you. So i i join my my friend alex as a as an institutional as a former Senate Committee counsel i i agree that process matters here in and a process that is that on earth the seriousness of the issues at stake which really go to the heart of the constitutional separation of powers and the question of whether this president abused. His office so i agree with alex that the process should be a tight one i think that the historical reference to the clinton impeachment trial is a useful one those were rules the word opted on a bipartisan basis and they allowed for due process and a dignified proceeding youre right larry that there is a tension as i understand it between the majority leader in the president and you know really from the trump perspective here clearly what they want to try to do with this proceeding is to make it into a 2020 spectacle and to really use it from a messaging perspective to hurt 2020 Democratic Candidates but i think that mcconnell will probably face a fairly significant amount of pressure from members of his caucus to hew to traditional precedent here and to conduct a proceeding that honors the seriousness of the issues at stake. Tests. On the house side that is certainly my assumption. Just given the. Partisan makeup of the house and the. Control and influence that the speaker wields over her caucus i would be very surprised if if she authorize moving forward on. Articles of impeachment. Portions of which would fail that would be a fairly damning incident if it happened in the house. So yeah i assume they will they will all move forward in the house david was this really do you think done trump. Well its really interesting larry if you look at the tracking polls on the question of the American People and whether they favor the president being impeached removed from office and by the way it really matters how you actually asked the question phrased the question but in broad and Broad Strokes its been fairly consistent over the past couple of months roughly just under 50 percent of the country favors the president being impeached and roughly the same does not it gets more interesting when you look at battleground states and where and where voters are especially in districts that in 2018 democrats flipped and are now House Democrat democrat house members even though in 2060 those district went for trouble so politically i think its still an open question but if you look at nixon and i think nixon is a useful historical analog to this if you look at the American People in polling back then in the seventys it was also fairly static and stagnant in terms of the number of americans who supported removing the president until about 5 months after the proceedings in the congress and thats when you saw the American People sentiment change so i think in terms of the senate trial thats going to be a real marker to see if that will prove to be the catalyst that actually moves more americans one way or the other although having said that. The country is so calcified in terms of its partisan leanings right now that there really is probably a very slim number of people who are undecided on this question in terms of being open it to one to shift in one way or the other and alex says closes divided the country is thats the way the teaching is and that would lead to think well have a very close election with possibly. Not getting the popular vote but getting the legs vice versa. And one of the things weve seen in this history of close elections is obviously the division between the popular vote in the Electoral College ultimate margin and therefore the victor one of the things i think is fascinating here is when you talk about National Polls theyre very interesting barometers of Overall National view and opinion they couldnt be less relevant from a president ial 2020 perspective and when you do start to look at places like wisconsin where just a few months ago the president was underwater against everybody running was underwater on impeachment now those numbers are reversed and the president is beating all comers at the end of the day we the president can be 0 in places like california and if he is above 50 percent plus one in places like wisconsin hes going to get handily reelected the mere fact that there is this purported debate going on where the president wants a longer more dramatic trial in the senate tells you that someone believes that the way this is ultimately played works to his electoral advantage why i dont think any president ever starts their their presidency wanting to be impeached at this point in the process i actually think there are many and maybe the president himself who views the politics of this as actually favoring him as its worked through the. Yes the last thing ill say on that is whether the senate trial is going to move the dynamic the house almost by its structure is dramatic and exciting the senate tends to be pretty boring i expect the senate trial to be incredibly boring for most people to watch on television 100 people sitting in their chairs unable to speak and passing notes 6 hours a day is not the most riveting thing to watch on television in this day and age so i think that even fewer people will be moved and motivated if they werent moved and motivated by some of the very dramatic testimony and questioning that went on in the house side david since we have an Electoral College our National Polls immaterial if you only poll of 5 states or 6 states that account you get a better indication of whats happening. I grew that you want to look at a state by state poll in terms of really assessing how this plays out and the 2020 context and you know alex talked about wisconsin if you look at the real clear polling average for that state joe bidens beating the president right now by 2. 7 points so. Democrats are still up in those battleground states i look at arizona as a really interesting state larry if you want to talk about state specific polls and thats state keep in mind this is a state that is that is so red its gone for every republican president since the fiftys i think and certainly donald trump took it by double digits but but he is now in a dead heat with not only joe biden but mary pete put a judge and so i think thats also instructive for for the Shifting Sands if you will in terms of how i think tenuous this president s path has certainly always been for reelection given as weve all noted he failed to win the popular vote in 2016 but even more so today i mean hes coming now off of a 2800 cycle that saw democrats take back the house hes seen a number of his key demographics who voted for him in 2016 a suburban women as a great example who flipped in favor of democrats in 2018 and he always knew he had an incredibly narrow path but now a state like arizona a deep red state like arizona that is in play with both joe biden people to judge in striking distance if i were the white house if i were trying to Reelection Campaign a warm bills would be going off right now for me david thanks and its true that they gave having you with us thank you larry a little more politicking after the break. Rush and like this. You know world of big partisan. And conspiracies its time to wait to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever. We need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. And shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. Aeroflot russian and lights. Seem wrong wrong just dont hold. Me. To shape our disdain become educated and engaged because the trail. Once and many find themselves worlds apart. She still look for common ground. Each simulating civilization would be able to run using a kind of fracture for its resources. Hundreds of millions of runs through all of Human History almost all. Beings with our kinds of experiences down to simulated ones. And conditional we should think were probably one of the simulated ones. Welcome back to politicking donald trump is facing 2 articles of impeachment one for abuse of power the other for obstruction of congress on the scope of these charges too broad too narrow are just right for analysis were joined by former u. S. Representative Elizabeth Holtzman 4th term democratic congresswoman from new york she was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that investigated the world president nixon in the watergate scandal and did vote to impeach him shes also the author of the book the case for impeaching trump she joins us from new york elizabeth. The fact that theyve held to 2 articles. Both involving the ukraine. Well. The problem is that actually donald trump isnt gauge another kind that could be called impeachable but the congress didnt really investigate that they were stymied so these articles represent sorrow action by congress in terms of investigating misconduct and abuse of power by the president but they also reference the fact that these abuses of power one is. The abuse with regard to ukraine trying to influence a foreign country bully a foreign country into interfering in our election and the 2nd trying to obstruct congresss investigation of that. Theres a pattern of this of interference with investigations and theres a pattern of this kind of abuse of power that existed before so i think that the articles while theyre narrowly focused do bring in at least the moller investigation the russia struction of justice and the obstruction of the moeller investigation and of the impeachment inquiry when they were trying to investigate them. For example the House Judiciary Committee called on me again the president s counsel who was a key witness in the moeller investigation began refused to testify so thats brought in by implication into the article so the articles while theyre very narrowly focused do allude to other serious misconduct by the president and their loan pages nor. Well thats pretty sure its its about right for what theyre suggesting they could have included more material but basically by alluding to these other abuses of power i think the committee did the House Judiciary Committee basically did about the right thing theyre going to parents know that im. I believe so i think theyre substantial grounds is overwhelming evidence that both of these articles are warranted. And i think theyll pass the house of representatives going to the senate is a different story but heres just to go back to the watergate impeachment nixon impeachment there were 3 articles cover up abuse of power and obstruction of congress so there are 2 of these articles that really resonate with watergate in the sense that Richard Nixon tried to obstruct the committees investigation into his abuses of power during watergate that was an article of impeachment then so theres a historical precedent for that secondly abuse of power watergate was about the president s using the power of his office to cover up a his effort hours campaigns effort to influence the his president ial reelection thats really what this is about abuse of power to try to influence the outcome of the 2020 president ial election by donald trump so we have precedent for both i think the constitutional scholars made a very clear case that theres a constitutional back up for these articles and the factual. Predicate for them well there were 12 witnesses who testified you should understand that nixon bailed for all of this because they had him on tape. Well they had the key take a. Listen to the key tape the socalled smoking gun tape was not released before the committee voted the committee voted for articles of impeachment without the smoking gun tape and we had a bipartisan consensus overwhelming bipartisan bipartisan consensus for impeachment the smoking gun tape came out that that point all the republicans said even those who hadnt voted for impeachment that they would vote for impeachment and then impeachment became inevitable send me go to jail me that he went to the white house to push for a tell the president he got to resign and go where the told me that was difficult to do but it had to be done do you see any republican senator tom ing forward to trim the we go war they did the nixon. Know and i think the sad thing is that it was not an easy vote for the republicans and the southern democrats on the House Judiciary Committee to vote for impeachment it was an act of courage political courage by the way none of them was voted out for that so at the time though it took a lot of guts to do it. And they did the right thing today for some reason even though the evidence is overwhelming and were talking about conduct thats not abstract its conduct that interferes with our free elections at the basis of our democracy whats america without an electing an oppressive and without free elections whats our democracy its not its meaningless so we have serious issues and no republican seems to be joining thats a very sad thing to me because it suggests that the pressure on them is just overwhelming i dont know what it is but republicans and southern democrats came for the last time and did what was the right thing to do and i hope. That will happen again but im very disillusioned and kind discouraged by what i see the president said quote this is the light is didnt teach you is in the history of our country by far. Our enemies by light impeachment is serious you know to take impeachment unless theres serious evidence unless its a constitutional basis unless its precedent this is really serious what the president did its not a joke its not trivial its not light whatever that means the president tried to get a foreign country to undermine our free elections to interfere in our elections on his behalf that is not acceptable it we cant have Foreign Governments coming in and interfering in our elections particularly when thats done by a president who uses the power of his office the power of his office supposed to be used for the American People not for his own personal well being publicans or testified for him said the attorney do me a favor is said hundreds of thousands of times in america its not meant to incite quid pro quo its just a common average can you do me a favor and thats who all is hinges on does not know or doesnt the he do me a favor though has to be read in context or understood in the context of all the other testimony we heard about what Rudy Giuliani was saying about what mike well vanny was saying his chief of staff about what others understood who spoke with the president what the president wanted and he said that in this conversation with the president of ukraine was. Do an investigation into the bidens thats his political opponent hes using the power of the presidency to get a foreign country to do that investigation that investigation is a political investigation and its for his personal benefit so the do me the favor is not a favor for the American People its a favor for him personally and thats the grab them in of this problem and that of course we have from giuliani and others who spoke with him and others who spoke to the president that the president wanted ukraine to announce that they were investigating the bidens and announced some crazy kaka maimie idea that russia wasnt involved in interfering in the u. S. Election but ukraine was and using the power of the presidency for that purpose to get them to interfere in our election in 2020 is a misuse of power its an abuse of power and it threatens our democracy in a very fundamental way i guess President Trump once the American People is think that this is meaningless its trivial its just a footnote everybody does it everybody does it is not an excuse i was da just because other people do it youre arrested for murder you get prosecuted for murder doesnt matter how many other people do it so its not illegal its actually asking for her Foreign Government to help you in an election is a violation of the election laws and might mulvaney his chief of staff said oh yeah we did hold up we did hold up a meeting for. The ukrainian president. Get over it course its politics its not politics obviously politics in the broad sense president s views about Foreign Affairs and so forth play a role of course they have to but using the power of the presidency to get yourself elected by forcing a foreign country to intervene in an election thats a no no and you know some people like trump some day are going to worry about that because what happens if china comes in and interferes against trump people going to want that really we want to have our own election system lets have our vote our folk count and by by that concerning that system you do the deal of college. Well id like to see that away with but i dont think thats going to happen in my lifetime i mean there are too many interests that are really involved in and it will hurt rural areas and help the more populous parts of the country so i dont think well get the support for a constitutional amendment to change it and then National Polls then. Hes doing what dont mean the thing you got a poll 6 day its. Correct and in a way thats thats a big problem its also a problem in the senate if you look at the every state gets 2 senators whether they have 600000 people or 40000000 people that creates a problem too so you have kind of disparity that existed at the time of the frame that the constitution was framed the country was a largely rural country but were not largely rural a country anymore and so the system is kind of getting out of whack and thats unfortunate. How we corrected though i dont know do you miss being in the homes well i can this is a very historic moment and an course that raises memories for me too because i was there having to write an Opening Statement i was there having to actually cast a vote to impeach the president the United States and i just want to say larry everybody thinks that democrats are doing this because they get pleasure in it let me tell you when i had to cast that vote to impeach Richard Nixon much as i disagreed with his policies much as i didnt like his presidency i that was one of the worst things i ever had to do one of the most sober minutes moments in my life i didnt want to have to vote to impeach a president my president he was my president i didnt want to see those things about him and i dont think anybody takes pleasure in seeing the abuses of power that donald trump is engaged in because democrats and should be and millions of americans think that his conduct threatens our democracy nobody wants to see a president threat north in washington elizabeth thanks for your time as always thank you larry and happy holidays to you same deal with sinners thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my Facebook Page or treat me of kings things and dont forget to use the politicking hash tag and thats all for this edition of politicking. Aeroflot russian and lights. In a world of big partisan movie lot and conspiracy its time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bad and shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. Aeroflot russian and lights. You. Know im. Going to. The u. K. General election with a predicted large majority this would be the biggest majority for the tories since the days of Margaret Thatcher and labors worst showing in about 80 years it would seem getting breaks it done did the trick this is a big win for bojo is it for the u. K. Blue way the conservative party sweeps through its biggest majority in the u. K. Parliament for 3 decades to forget for labor in the polls our live coverage from westminster returned to the list of the most. In the world at least 71 soldier killed in a militant attack on an army base in here posting a deep crisis for French Foreign policy in its former colony also a. Deadly protests across india over a new migration law which makes it easier for millions to become citizens in the country but excludes