And one that once again will work with the president to get things done for you and your family, then join with us in rejecting this baseless impeachment. Thats whats wonderful about this system of ours. We are a government of, by and for the people. Always remember we work for you, not the other way around. Now i will say this stronger and with more conviction than i have ever said it before. In this time of great trial and tribulation, may god bless america. I yield back. [ applause ] gentleman from california is recognized. House will be in order. Gentleman from california. Madam speaker, i recognize myself for the remainder of our time. Gentleman is recognized. Madam speaker, my colleagues, after eight hours, let us return to where we began with the articles themselves. Article one charges the president of the United States with abusing the power of his office by coerce an ally into cheating in a u. S. Election on his behalf. It charges the president of the United States it charges the house will be in order. The gentleman has a right to be heard. It charges the president the gentleman shall suspend. The gentleman may resume. It charges the president of the United States with abusing his power by withholding official acts, by withholding a white house meeting that the president of ukraine desperately sought, to establish the support of his most important benefactor, the United States, by Withholding Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a nation at war in order to get that nation to intervene in our election by smearing his opponent. That is the charge in article one. What is the defense from my colleagues . I have listened carefully to my colleagues for the last eight hours. I have to say, its been hard for me to follow. But it amounts, i think, when you cut through it all, when you cut through all the sound and
fury, sig pnifying nothing, wha it amounts to is, why should we care . Why should we care about what the president did to ukraine . First of all, we should care about our allies. We should care about ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a democracy. We used to care about democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to putin and russia. [ applause ] we used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. Why should we care about ukraine . Of course, its about more than ukraine. Its about us. Its about our National Security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When russia remakes the map of europe for the First Time Since world war ii by military force
and ukraine fights back, its our fight, too. And when the president sacrifices our interests, our National Security for his election, he is sacrificing our country for his personal gain. That is the meaning of article one. Article two charges the president of the United States with obstructing the congress, with denying the congress any witness, any document, by telling all of his administration people, you will not appear. You will ignore and coequal branch of government. What is the defense to this . It is, why should we care . He is the president of our party. Why should we care if he ignores this congress . Well, i remind my friends that he will not be the last president. There will be another president. And you may be one day although you may not act like
it, you may one day be in the majority. You will want to hold a president accountable. What will you say when that president says, you were a paper tiger, you have no oversight, i can ignore your subpoenas, what will you say . What will you argue . No, no, that was different. Then we were in the minority. Then it was a republican president. Will that be your argument . Is that how little faith you have in our democracy and our constitution . Is that how poorly you defend and uphold that constitution . Finally, let me ask this question. That overrides it all. Why should we care about any of this . And i will bring you to one conversation that came to light. Because its not the most important conversation, but in many ways it is the most revealing. It took place on september 14 in ukraine when ambassador volker
sat down with the top adviser to zelensky. He did what he should do. He supported the rule of law and he said, you, president you should not investigate the last president for political reasons. You should not engage in political investigations. You know what he said . Oh, you mean like you want us to do with the bidens and clintons . In that abrupt, brutal retort we see why we should care. Because what he was saying is, you, america, have forgotten what it means to uphold the rule of law. You have forgotten what it means to say that no one is above the law. We are a struggling democracy. But even we know better than that. [ applause ] what is at risk here what is
at risk here is the very idea of america. That idea holds that we are a nation of laws, not of men. We are a nation that believes in the rule of law. When we say we uphold the constitution, we are not talking about a piece of parchment. We are talking about a beautiful architecture in which ambition is set against ambition, in which no branch of government can dominate another. That is what it means to uphold the constitution. If you ignore it, if you say the president may refuse to comply, may refuse lawful process, may coerce an ally, may cheat in an election because he is the president of our party, you do not uphold our constitution. You do not uphold your oath of office. Well, i will tell you this. I will uphold mine. I will vote to impeach donald
trump. I yield back. [ applause ] our time for general debate has expired. Pursuant to house pursuant to House Resolution 767, the previous question is ordered on the resolution as amended. The question of adoption of the resolution is amended, shall be divided between the two articles. The question now occurs on the adoption of article one. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. The ayes have it. Speaker, the ayes and nays on that vote. Those favoring a vote will rise. A sufficient number have risen, they are ordered. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This will be a 15minute vote. So now the moment of reckoning has begun for the president of the United States. A moment of reckoning, the first article of impeachment against the president of the United States, abuse of power. They are voting on that right now. As you know, there are normally 435 members of the house of representatives. Right now there are 431. Four vacancies. As soon as that number gets up to 216, thats the magic number. A simple majority in the house of representatives. The president of the United States on article one abuse of
power will be impeached. Its a moment of immense gravity, solemnity and history. This is the third time in the history of the republic this happened, 1868 against andrew johnson. Most americans if they know that about him, thats all they know is that he was impeached. The last time was in 1998, almost 21 years to the day as of tomorrow. And now donald john trump, the 45th president of the United States will join that group of president s who have been impeached. President s about whom the house of representatives is saying this person should not be president. We want to remove him from office. They have 15 minutes to vote. This should go relatively quickly. The democrats clearly have the majority. You can see 125 democrats have voted in favor of this first article of impeachment, abuse of power. It probably wont be very long
until they get to 216. They have known throughout the day that they had the votes, the democratic leadership. Today has been about rules and procedures. It has been about democrats making the case. It has been about republicans attempting to rebut the case. It has been harsh. It has been partisan. The outcome has been pre preordained. That doesnt take away from the emotion of this moment. Even though this is less suspensus suspenseful than the clinton impeachment because we knew what the outcome would be and times are more partisan than they were in 1998, believe it or not. You feel the weight of this moment right now. It certainly is a historic moment that we are all watching, have been watching for ten or 12 hours. As jake noted, almost two americas, two parties, two views. The democrats have the facts on
their side about what the president did, what the conduct was. The republicans didnt really try to rebut that. A few did try to make the case it wasnt impeachment. Very few. Most of it was just complaining about the process. This is this will go on to the senate. It will go to the voters, assuming the votes stay like we think. However this ends up to the point being, this is history. This is an indelible stain on the record, the legacy of donald trump. We covered the Clinton White house when this happened. Clinton was president at the time. This country had an operating surplus. The last time the United States government ran an operating surplus, a booming economy like we have a great economy now. What is the first sentence when people talk about clinton . He was impeached. That will be the case for donald trump no matter how this turns out. It will be a tremendous stain, irrespective how this turns out. Thats why he has been so crazed about what is going on
and tweeting and writing that sixpage letter yesterday. Also, he knows as we all do that this is one Act Of Congress that you cant undo with another president or take it back or im going to revise this piece of legislation. This is here for history now. This is part of history. It doesnt go away. Not only by the way for donald trump but the republicans. You can see by the votes, for the republicans who are with him and the democrats who are against. They will be judged by the voters for their votes today. You can see, its 153 yea, 98 nay. The magic number 216. In minutes, we will see what happens. As we said, we know whats going to happen. This was a Long Time Coming for this president. You heard hoyer talk about the fact that in july, for instance, the majority of democrats
werent here in terms thinking this president should be impeached. Then you have the ukraine incident, obviously. These vulnerable democrats, get together and say, this was it rose to the level of an impeachment inquiry. We saw over the last many weeks of people who were in the president s administration, people he appointed come forward and say that his actions were inappropriate. Legal scholars say this rose to the level of impeachment. This is what the constitution had in mind when they outlined high crimes and misdemeanors in the constitution. Every single democrat, almost, said essentially, no president is above the law. You saw val demings. That will continue. Dana bash is over in statuary
hall. 163 right now in favor. 108 opposed to this first article of impeachment abuse of power. Yeah. As this is happening, early this morning when we were talking, i told you that there was a palpable sense that things felt different here. Now as this vote is happening, im just maybe 10, 15 feet from the house floor. The air is heavy. It just feels different. The moment is has taken over despite the fact that everybody saw this coming for several weeks, despite the fact that the arguments we heard throughout the day, the debate on the floor were very, very familiar. Now is the moment. We are watching it happen. We are watching history unfold. You can feel that not just as us observers of that history, but the people who are casting these votes know that this is going to
be not just Donald Trumps legacy but part of their legislative legacy as elected officials. Dana, after this first vote, there will be a second vote on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of congress. Thats right. We expect it to happen rather quickly. All of the debate happened before the vote started. Because you see, there are a lot of people on the house floor, as you mentioned. The vote is happening rather quickly. Once this first article abuse of power is done, then obstruction of congress will begin. Again, that will probably happen rather quickly because theyre all in there understanding how critical it is. It is interesting that you see them mill around. There have been times where in big, important votes people sit in seats. Thats not happening right now. You can bet that throughout the day, i was in the chamber, there were people members not all members were there all day. But there were a good number of
members sitting and listening. You know who was there most of the day sitting on the floor . House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in various seats, moving around, talking to members, listening to the speeches, talking to staff. It was note worthy to see that she barely left the floor. Right now, 182 yea in favor, 125 nay. Jake, should move quickly. One of the things that strikes me as i look at the board there with 183 yea votes is one, The Independent is justin amosh. He was a republican until several months ago. Essentially, because of donald trump as president , he felt like he no longer had a home in the Republican Party. President trump is right now in Kellogg Center in battle creek, michigan, having a rally. That is justin amoshs congressional district. I look at that and i look at the two democrats who voted nay. 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 whats going to happen next. We have an idea what this vote is going to be. Right now, its 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 SpeakerNewt Gingrich ended up resigning because he was under fire. He was having an extramarital relationship at the same time he
was leading the impeachment against the president for lying about the same thing. The next speaker resigned. Then hastert became speaker. Lets look right now, 196 in favor, 135 opposed. 216 needed to impeach. There are only 20 votes away. Whats impressive for the democrats is even those democrats in Trump Districts, they are going along as history unfolds. We will see two democrats vote no. Thats not a surprise. They said so from the beginning. Amosh, who the democrats will point to, the one member of the house who has no allegiance to either party is joining the democrats to impeach. What you are seeing this is why this will carry to 2020. Two remarkable displays of party loyalty. The republicans are sticking with their president , many of them privately, if you have private conversations, even some of the republicans on the floor today saying what they were saying, more so in the senate, republicans who privately mutter
about this president. There are 31 democrats. There were 90 republicans from districts back when clinton was impeached. They voted for impeachment. Few of them lost their seats. We dont know whats going to happen. To your point about the Atrump Affe Trump affect. Will the president be reele reelected . A great number of House Republicans retired. A number of more now, 20 plus now we were at 20 and counting, are retiring heading into the next election cycle there are people in the Republican Party who may vote with the president but they are leaving. There are seven votes away needed to impeach. I think looking at this this evening, we can say this is the moment when it became very clear that the House Republicans are the party of trump. Period. The debate we saw all day, they
said they gave him a free pass. There was nothing wrong with what he did. Everything the democrats did was because it was political. They hated the president. They will be unanimous here. That is exactly what donald trump is going to talk about. His united Republican Party. They are now his party. 209 votes in favor of this first article of impeachment. 210 right now six votes away from 216. Now only five. Consequences for donald trump. He has been a president even in private business, somebody Who Hadnt Faced consequences. We have seen people in and around his orbit face consequences. He has been teflon don. That ends today with this impeachment, with this stain on his legacy. Someone described it as a tin can tied around his leg for the rest of his life and trail him. That is whats going to happen. He is in michigan tonight trying
to rally his supporters. Telling his supporters that it doesnt feel like he is being impeached. He is going to be impeached. The question Going Forward for him is where do the majority of americans fall on this . Do the majority see him as a victim, somebody who was a victim of a partisan process . Do they see him as somebody who has gone too far, who actually isnt worthy of being reelected president . These republicans have linked themselves and their political futures to donald trump. Yes. One of the things that so interesting about whats going to happen now is, you talked about how President T