Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On Threats To U.S. Political System 20240713

Topics include the impeachment inquiry, President Trumps use of social media, and the role of the courts. From the brookings institution, this is 90 minutes. Good afternoon. I would like to welcome you to our event on impeachment, foreign interference it has been several weeks since nancy pelosi launched the impeachment inquiry. Soon, we will be moving to public hearings. At the same time, as we head into the 2020 election, there is concern about foreign interference in our infrastructure. Theres been concern about sowing societal discord and spreading disinformation. You should have copies of the constitution at each of your seats. So if theres anything that comes up during the course of the conversation where you need to refer to that legal document, feel free to do so. [laughter] do so. To help us think about these issues we have for distinguished host to help us think about these issues we have for distinguished experts. Bill galston is a senior fellow at brookings, writes a column for the wall street journal and is the author of antipluralism, the populist threat to liberal democracy. Democracy. Molly reynolds is a senior fellow and government studies in brookings and is the author of exceptions to the rule and the politics that filibuster limitations in the u. S. Senate. Elaine is a senior fellow on government studies and director of our center for effective Public Management and author of primary politics about the nominating process in the united states. [inaudible] and editorinchief of the coauthor with Susan Hennessey of a forthcoming book entitled on making the presidency, donald trump swore on the most powerful office. I want to start with bill. Bill has paid a lot of attention to the Public Opinion aspects of impeachment and there were three recent National Surveys that came out and they basically all showed 49 of the America Public want trump impeached and removed from office. But then bill wrote a post a few of his ago talking about how support for removal drops into some of the swing states. Bill, where are we now and what should people be watching for . Funny you should ask. [laughter] let me take two or three minutes to summarize the state of Public Opinion on these questions. There is to begin a majority support for the congressional inquiry into the president s conduct and it is averaging in the low to mid 50s if you look at most of the surveys. As you said when it comes to actually impeaching and removing the president the country is split almost exactly down the middle with support and opposition both in the mid to high 40s depending on exactly which a survey that you look at. Interestingly, if you look at change in Public Opinion on this question most of it occurred in the first week to ten days after the initial revelation on september 21 23 and has been quite stable since then. Additional information that the america people have received has not moved them one way or the other very much. There are very sharp and intensifying partisan divisions on this question. I just took a look at the latest average of polls on this issue corrected for poll quality that is what 538. Com does and it showed 84 of democrats in favor of impeaching and moving the president but only 11 of republicans endorsing that decision and independence stood at 45. Demographically you see the expected racial ethnic and gender divisions. You know, white americans are opposed to impeaching and removing the president but africanamericans are strongly in favor of it and latinos are in favor but much less strongly than African Americans and many more women then men in favor of removing him from office. You mentioned geography, darrell. There was a very interesting New York Times Siena College poll that came out a week ago that took a look at the six key swing states and found that public sentiment in those states was opposed. The majority of those voters were opposed to impeaching and removing the president. That is important because those swing states will be the key to President Trumps either successful or failed bid for reelection in 2020. What should you look for in the weeks ahead . Number one. Look for some significant change in President Trumps job approval. Theres a common question that survey reachers servers ask. Do you approve or disapprove of the job the president asked is doing . And here hot off the press from nbc and wall street journal survey are the results. In july of 201945 of americans approved of the job that donald trump is doing as president. In september a week before the matter broke wide open 45 of americans approved of the job that donald trump was doing as president. As of last week according to nbc wall street journal yes, 45 of americans approved job the president was doing. There is a concept in investing known as the market discount which is a measure of how much the market has taken into account, good or bad news and what this tells me is that this news hasnt really changed expectations among American People. They already understood that he was fully capable of this conduct and they have drawn the expected conclusion from that. Second, opinion among the republican rank and file that has not changed much either and up a two Percentage Points but as i indicated from a very low base to a very low total of just 11 right now and many surveys havent in single digits. Third thing to look for is a break in the ranks of republican elected officials that is at the national level. As you probably saw on the vote to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry, not a single republican member of the house of representatives voted in favor, not one. Obviously, the critical battlegrounds will be the senate and here i note for the record and my colleagues may have a different view of the matter we have not heard a peep on this question from the five senators in the most softly contested races, not from Corey Gardner in colorado, tom tillis in North Carolina, not from Susan Collins in the main, not from Martha Mcnally in arizona and not from joni ernst in iowa. Not a peep. What about the very prominent Senior Republicans who have elected to retire in 2020 . Not a peep from pat roberts, not a peep from [inaudible] am not a peep from Lamar Alexander and nothing, as far as i know from Johnny Isakson either. It is possible there will be a huge shift in response to the public hearings and other information such that 20 republican senators, the number needed to remove the president from office would choose to vote in that direction but as of the current, as of right now, the signs are few and far between. Molly, looks like the house will move to public hearings and today we saw the release of the first two transcripts. We are likely to see more as tomorrow and the rest of the week on gold but tell us how these hearings will unfold in the house and what the rules will look like and how they will lay the groundwork for articles of impeachment. Where we are in the house is where ending the stage of gathering of evidence by the house and moving into a stage that will focus on presentation and consideration of that evidence. Weve seen over the past several weeks a series of depositions conducted by the house Intelligence Committee, working with the House Foreign Affairs and oversight committees. That stage has been the subject of much public and angst and there has been a lot of questions about the fact that its been behind closed doors and is worth remembering that in particular the clinton impeachment the last comparison case that we had is that investigative work of gathering of the evidence was largely done by ken starr and came to the house of representatives in hundreds of boxes and dealing with a different set of circumstances and were nearing the end of that process. Two of the transcripts were released this morning and there is a list of individuals that these committees that have been ducking these depositions would like to hear from. Its increasingly unlikely they will get compliance from those individuals and the individuals they have yet to hear from who they would like to generally fall into the category of folks whose incentives are more closely aligned and we do have this series of witnesses who Committee Want to hear from whose incentives are not necessarily closely aligned so we are more willing to reach an agreement to cooperate. Once these series of depositions is complete as bill mentioned, we will move to one or more hearings and open hearings in the house Intelligence Committee. The resolution the house agreed to last week that set out some procedural parameters for where we go next provided for these hearings we dont know how many there will be but there will be one or more and a couple features of those that are worth noting they will start with a longer than usual periods of questioning with controlled by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the Ranking Member of 245 minutes aside and that is much longer than certainly the usual five minutes in longer than the extended periods already provided on the house rules. Both the chairman and Ranking Member can choose to yield back time to staff so we may see staff counsel conduct that initial time of questioning and once those hearings are complete the chairman of the house Intelligence Committee will again working with the chairs of the Foreign Affairs committee will write a report on the material gathered and that is the other investigative materials that have been collected by house committees will be transferred to the Judiciary Committee which has jurisdiction over president ial impeachment. The Judiciary Committee will then have its own series of hearings and will start with an initial presentation of evidence and the president s counsel elected to ask questions during that as well as members of the committee themselves and there may be the presentation of additional evidence and may be additional witnesses and these are all things that provided for again in the procedures the house adopted last week and we dont exactly know how they will shake out but the Judiciary Committee will have a longer questioning time where they will be the opportunity for more questions and perhaps the most interesting thing that we might see procedurally in the portion of this is this possibility that the Judiciary Committee chair will be able to prevent the president s counsel from exercising some of the Due Process Rights afforded to him under the new procedures if the president quotes, unlawfully refuses to make witnesses available or produce documents. Again we dont know what that means or what that will look like but it is clear that the house is prepared to additional obstruction on the part of these exec at a branch and that they are attempting to set up procedures that would allow them to exert leverage. Again, its hard to know exactly how that will shake out and i do think we will continue to see a lot of process oriented complaints about how this is unfolding from above begins and weve said that so far going back to the letter that the white House Counsel sent to the hill indicating that the president will not be cooperating with the impeachment inquiry. There is certainly a potential for a fair amount more of angst and we now have a better sense of what we might expect if that happened procedurally over the next several weeks. Elaine, youve written about impeachments what we need to know about the Andrew Johnson, richard nixon, the clinton impeachment efforts and how might they inform the Current Situation . Lets start with Andrew Johnson. That was the first impeachment. The interesting thing about that was how momentous the issues were. This was 1868 and the union had just won the civil war and get theres a question of what to do with the other states. We had abolished slavery we have not guaranteed the right for the full Citizenship Rights of africanamericans and these issues when you go back and read much of this which ive been doing these issues are momentous Andrew Johnson also was a kind of accidental president because he was became president when lincoln was assassinated and had been a democrat but had been a prounion democrat which means that lincoln thought okay, you could see this was part of lincolns reconstruction idea lets have a bipartisan ticket. However his Publican Party never liked him very much and it was there public and party that impeached a republican president over these big issues. One of the things that comes up in the polling in Public Opinion is a lot of americans would rather deal with the president through the election process then to the impeachment process. Andrew johnson beat conviction by one vote in the senate but the timing is interesting here. The articles of impeachment were voted on in may of 1868 and the row publican convention convened in chicago in may of 1868 and from a 2026. They unanimously nominated former general Ulysses S Grant on the first ballot. Basically, they knew they would get rid of this guy. The rePublican Party had no intention of re nominating him and he thought he might get nominated by the democrats and got less than ten votes on the democratic side we see Public Opinion and we dont have two convict him because the voters and his own party will but the nixon impeachment is a more or less a classic but in terms of the weightiness of the matter there was clearly obstruction of justice and what we tend to forget is that lots and lots of people went to jail it took a long time. It took until august of 19744 the smoking gun tape to finger the president himself. Nixon hung on and hung on until that date and then it was a matter of days. Nixon resigned and of course once the tapes came out the rePublican Party, goldwater, leading the delegation walked into the oval office and said we dont have the votes to prevent your impeachment for the votes to prevent your conviction in the senate. It was gone. I think we need to be aware of just how quickly things can change. Finally, the impeachment of bill clinton was looking like this one and that the Impeachment Vote was absolutely a partisan vote. In the senate, however, there were real begins who sided with the democrats and of course he was not convicted but acquitted. The interesting thing there which there were two articles of impeachment and one was on perjury and on obstruction of justice but the fact of the matter is nobody considered this a constitutional issue. They were not rising to the high level of crimes and misdemeanors but added to the substance of it was the fact that Newt Gingrich who was speaker of the house when the articles were voted in the fall of 1998 resigned on january 3, 1999 because he was having an affair with a woman 23 years younger than himself while he was no marriage. Asked what . That took the air out of the republican balloon, so to speak. We then went to then congressman Bob Livingston was the acting speaker and was fully intended to run for speaker until guess what he was revealed to have been engaged in an extramarital affair and three other members of the housework. [laughter] all of a sudden this issue simply went away and bill clinton was not convicted but acquitted and actually went on to have fairly high Approval Ratings and do something no one excited to do which was to pick up democratic seats in the 1998 midterm election. Each one of these things tells us a little bit about what is coming. We can certainly cross marital infidelity off the list of impeachable offenses. That one weve got but we may also they both established as molly talked about there are precedents is now. President says in the house and president in the senate and we know that the chief justice of the Supreme Court essentially turns the senate into a judicial body when this trial begins. As we do have some president and interesting politics and legal precedent. Then, youve coauthored a traffic article entitled trump is running out of defenses last week you had another one, trumps tantrums wont make impeachment go away. Over the weekend President Trump tweeted 75 times about impeachment so it seems to be on his mind to some extent. [laughter] right now hes fixated on covering the identity of the whistleblower so how should we evaluate what turf is doing in regard to impeachment . I want to answer this question with reference to the poll data that b bill started with. You cant entirely understand strategy of the president s impeachment defense without eference to that poll data ultimately the defense. Of test dent has kind driven four distinct defenses. Kind of an indiscernible mirage of all four or three of four the four. Sometimes discretely. The following. Denial. T is the second is character assassination. Process complaints and the fourth is prerogative. Check those individually. I think each has mostly failed to the fifth and real defense. So the first one is just denial facts, right . When the president started out quid pro sort of no quo, you know, the call was iterations of s kind of factual claims, all of which, i suppose, that the call perfect, is matter of opinion. Quid pro quo no and the sort of the factual defenses have all basically be untrue, and they away rtainly fading against the impressive quantity who have come forward and testified. The second one which, darrell, ou alluded to just before, particularly directed at the whistleblower but is also scum never the human the individuals who have given testimony, and his is a defense that has in general, i think, worked route well for the president. Past, hes managed to make a lot of people believe problem fundamental with the russia investigation found in the russia nvestigation were a bunch of texts between an f. B. I. Agent lawyer, right . Into, you e jim comey know, a villain in the eyes of a very large number of people, and this is actually a pretty substantial tool in his arsenal, me thats interesting to it does not seem to be working context. So the whistleblower has, of not been outed, and the is an interesting feature. And when fox news and some of president s defenders went after Lieutenant Colonel vindman last week, even liz cheney had to kind of repudiate that and unacceptable. There that a dynamic the sort of attack the ttackers thing is working a little bit less well than it has in the past. Objections. S process and they are spending a lot of time on this. Nd this is, i think, a reasonably effective strategy people who to already dont want to believe it and want Something Else to talk see a lot of nt evidence that its persuasive to margins, and the evidence of that is the data that bill cited about the degree are not people who precommitted by approval of the president S Performance to be impeachment e process, relatively few of them put off by shifty of undue claims secrecy. Will k those complaints fade further in relevance as more and more of the transcripts released and more and more of the hearings take place in reasonable time for people to ask questions and raise their concern. And that brings me to the final, and i think the real defense which is, you know, an assertion this is all a fine thing for the president to do, and, ou know, when the president says i have the absolute right ukrainians to investigate corruption. What hes really saying is i are to you say that this is unacceptable. That is i think the real defense. The president , the pproval the support for the impeachment process kind of pproaches the president s disapproval numbers, i think we et the actual test of that defense, which is whether as some escribes, that 40 other , in some polls its as low as 38 and in some polls its his as 44 or 45, but whether that low 40s average stays. I think, acceptance, of this latter defense. That it is fine, if trump does things. If you start seeing cracks in surest sign the that the president s defense is that rking, as long as number holds, the president s defense ultimate strategy, which is to hold nough base support that it is politically impossible or dangerous for republican elected him, ials to break with will be an effective defense trategy irrespective of how ridiculous the arguments may all of you. Or so bill, if i can ask you to a on your prophet hat for minute and basically respond to en, just in terms of, you see how the polling looks now. E know historically what the polling looks like to what we saw with nixon and clinton. Forward, what is the the currentof is dynamic likely to stay pretty consistent . Make a e invited me to fool of myself on national television. [laughter] didnt work for you, i would refuse to answer the question. [laughter] there is no executive privilege on this panel. Peon. M talking about judgment for what its worth that what comes out during hearingsc phase of the would have to add quite to the publics baseline knowledge in order to needle significantly. Extent will the merican people be glued to television for the public hearings the way elaine and i were in our graduate student during the watergate hearings . There is one question, right . Are americans interested enough, do enough of them believe that hey can gain Additional Information and insight from the public face of the hearings to tune in and reserve judgment . I dont know the answer to that question but that would be one really interesting indicator. That is to say, ratings for the hearings an whether they start high, whether they start high and go down sharply, low and r they start never budge. For. S one thing that look it is possible, i suppose, that shaking as earth the smoking gun tapes would emerge. On it. Nt bet obviously, no one can rule out that possibility. For what its worth is that the extraordinary partisan n polarization thats occurred in generation is going to the response of the American People taken as a whole to thetional information xtent that that Additional Information contradicts their overall world view and their president. Ew of the we tend to forget opinion about nixon, you know. Support for his impeachment and removal, which began at 19 in at 57 at thended but that y of 1974, was during a period when the Political Parties were much less polarized than they are now. Two critical argument a third hment, between and 40 of the republicans in the house Judiciary Committee them. For i would bet money against that n todays house Judiciary Committee. My overunder number of republicans supporting any in the of impeachment house is zero. And im ready to be corrected by real congressional expert, but record, thats my estimate. So the long and the short of it i can imagine a big change but i think the odds are against it. Molly, if the house votes to impeach trump as many people xpect, the articles of impeachment will go to the senate. So tell us how that part of the will work, and then also, what is your sense in leader majority mcconnell and how hell lead the process in the senate . I think when we think about the stage of the process, move from the house to the senate its important to delineate the things that we we and the things that dont know and there is a fair amount that i would put in both these categories. We know that the Current Senate conducting an impeachment trial are phrased in terms, in terms of the senate needing to have one. Senates impeachment rules are littered with the word shall have particular times for things to happen. Senatealso know that the can waive or alter those rules formally to m require 2 3 votes but they have he ability to change specific parts of them or set specific arts of them aside with fewer votes than that. Know that just as the constitution doesnt of ifically prescribe a lot what is to happen in the house around an impeachment inquiry, voted last house week to approve certain impeachment r the inquiry they were not required o do so upped the constitution or the rules of the house. O as thats the case, constitution similarly does not require certain aspects of an trial, much beyond, you know, chief justice must to take senators have an oath at the start, and required to convict. Senate under the current impeachment rules the chief justice, john roberts, will be presiding, and will rule on questions of evidence and on motions. Subject to appeals from the full senate like most in the hat happen senate. So there are some things we know. What we dont know is a lot of of how exactly this ill play out, and, too, bill points that he was making about the real rise in polarization, with ince the late 1990s the clinton impeachment there are some important parts of what appened during the clinton impeachment trial that were made by the senate on a unanimous basis. Basically, in january of was tryingthe senate to decide how they were going to senatorsith the trial, lott and dash le sat all the senators down and said were figure out how to do this in a way thats respectful f the senate and the senates traditions, and they sort of hey came to a unanimous agreement on some of the very specific procedural questions. The idea of that happening in Current Senate is pretty me to fathom. So there is a lot a lot of that will remain to be filled in. On this question of majority mcconnell specifically, i think, also to a point that bill earlier about some of these republican senators weve yet to ear from so both senators who are in close reelection races and some Senate Republicans who are retiring, i they stand tohere e perhaps most influential absent some big change that vote for folks to conviction, is kind of behind the scenes, before the start ment trial would negotiations with leader cconnell about what is important to them to a process it like, what does what does the trial need to look like in the senate for them to senate is he fulfilling its responsibilities as part of this process, and i dont have i think there are number of ways that that could play out and i dont know how exactly it will, but, again, to extent that i think we may see some of these kinds of that bill mentioned earlier, play a big role in what happens. In this process of working with mcconnell and then minority working with leader schumer to figure out what will the very detailed look ed parts of this like. So you mentioned the crucial ole of the courts in the nixon impeachment. So we, of course, remember the involving the release of the white house tapes and they ruled that the tapes hould be released and that produced the smoking gun tapes. Now, there are current lawsuits involving the principle of executive privilege. A numberhere have been of Administration Officials who have refused to testify before the house. Unrelated to the impeachment, but we just had a new york that ruled that trump must release eight years of tax returns. Is, on question i have the trump impeachment, how do you see the role of the court unfolding . Either, one, on the impeachment front, or is it not going to say, lace within, lets the next one or two months, and relevant, or t be what is your expectation in terms of the role of the courts years election . Thats a great question. Of course, difference is that, you know, trump has already admitted to doing, to the phone call. He thinks its perfect. Ben is absolutely right. This will be fought on the appropriateness of that phone people think er its appropriate or not. With nixon, it was a long getting to nixon and the courts were critical. The Supreme Court having as big an impact on this impeachment trial as it did on nixon trial. However, there is another court involved and thats the southern new york, as gerald mentioned, they just today, had rulings that they should release trump has to release his tax returns. The reason i think thats important is it goes back to the answered. Ill what, if anything, would break loose the public . Okay . And, of course, one of the most the ly guarded secrets of Trump Campaign and presidency actual financial status. Nobody in new york, where i years, nobody in new york city can figure out where this guys money comes from. Really, honestly, no one can. Finances, in fact, surprising, ing that could be the sort of thing some of this e Public Opinion. It would also, if you go back about a crime, right . Crimes always need motives. To be a motive for wrongdoing. Nd if you look at trumps history with russia, and, of course, this ukraine thing is a bigger history with russia, you know, on the one hand you could say, yes, have the right to change American Foreign policy, and bring it in a different direction. Other hand, this has been such a strange way of going changing american policy that we have all been wondering some years now whether or not there is something going on russia. Tween trump and and one of the things that could reak that loose is the tax returns finally coming to light. Molly mentioned the role of chief Justice Roberts in presiding over the senate trial. Ben, i know youre a long time observer of the court. Roberts will ink be like as a presiding officer of this trial . Really interesting question. Obody seeks to be on the Supreme Court or seeks to be the hief justice so that he can preside at the senate at an impeachment trial of the president. And, you know, if youre john roberts and in a really trying polarized environment to keep insulated omewhat from the political fray, having into the senate and sit there while, you know, people is a food at each other kind of a mortification of the not that im sure he is looking forward to. Also confident that in know, dignified institutionalist kind of hat would want to do impeccably, so remember, this is when he flubbed a word in Barack Obamas he went to the white house the next day to do of office a second time, to make sure they gotten every word of it correct. Actually a bit of a challenge. How do you preside at a senate ugly and will be as bitter as this one in an environment thats quite toxic involving, lets face it, a toxic personality, and stain the institution that you represent. And heres the other thing. So ill rehnquist, his pred in the clinton impeachment found, lucked into a quite novel to this problem, which was that the then majority leader, i minority trent lott and quite to everyones surprise went into a back room and came up with a detailed list and answers to all questions that they each and nted to their caucuses the result was that the entire trial proceeded on the basis of consent. All the questions were kind of resolved that way. I think you can pretty safely say, and the result was that rehnquist presided but really anything, which was, i think, fine with him. In his of sat there robes and looked dignified and that was the end of it. Think we can pretty safely predict that that is not going to happen here, and that the two sides are not going to agree on a great deal, and that means roberts at least in the first instance will have to rulings. Lot of and so i think that actually makes the problem worse, that deciding the ally answers to a bunch of questions poly, t, i believe, correct me if im wrong, but i think the rule is, the presiding officer rules and then can be overruled by a vote of the you could really imagine a situation in which of upsets d everybody, and there are serial serial rulings and rulings to votes to overall these judgments, but i think it ill be a difficult situation for the chief justice. Judging also, again, with respect to the imagine, you can really the president tweeting vile at every ruling that goes so i dont think thats sort of an attractive moment, if you imagine those an attractive not moment for comedy between the ranches or for, you know, sort of relationship between the executive branch and the courts institutionally so i think its its an interesting question and we will learn a great deal about john roberts his, you know, very famous he tical savvy by how navigates the situation. So bill, looking to the how do you think this impeachment effort will affect the 2020 election . Impeachment compare to other issues such as the state of the economy, cultural issues, the trade war, and International Affairs . Prediction. All for thanks, boss. Let me just, in no particular on the one hand, when you listen to the reports from the ield about what the Democratic Candidates are hearing as they states, theye early are all saying that they are not getting a lot of questions about impeachment. Getting a lot of questions about healthcare and a of h on guns and a bunch other things that democratic primary voters are passionate bout, but they have sounded surprised that they havent questions or ore impeachment. On so is it possible that even has ademocrats this issue somewhat lower priority and will have less of an influence on the outcome of the election than inside the beltway suppose . I mean, were focused on this extent thats not people of the american as a whole. But we should keep an essential in mind, and that is, if the president is impeached by house but not removed by the first hell be the president in American History to with ning for reelection that sequence of events in the back drop. Richard nixon was in his second term. Bill clinton was in his second term. Wasnt going anywhere. Couldnt get nominated. Exactly. Has ou know, now, there been a lively analytical debate surprising people taking sides on the question of whether the impeachment but onconviction of bill clinton turned out to be a decisive isadvantage for al gore in the year 2000, because gore was in effect running for bill term, although he refused to admit that fact 20year n continue our debate about this. And some people argue that but affair, gore on would have been would have elected fairly easily. Others, including a lot of modelers, say ce the division in the popular vote was almost exactly what would predicted in the absence of that, and so the one contemporary example rom which we might draw some lessons. Yields no clear it is also the case that a uming, assuming even relatively slow timetable, the over by ial will be early february early to mid february. I cant see it stretching out a that. Nger than certainly by the end of february. Hich means that there will be between eight and nine months the trial andd of the actual vote. Not only times for passions to cool. Hey wont cool, but they will simply be displaced on to other contention, areas of and thats another reason to not turn outit may to be decisive. Point with k to the you know. Gan, donald trump is what the late tom wolfe would have called a in full. And forhe is for better worse is so much a matter of inspection and public knowledge, that i wonder how this cataclysmic event to that. To add and it is possible that house lines, ant along party Senate Acquittal on party lines, peoples e a lot of wont. But my hunch is it poly, how do you think impeachment will affect the Senate Elections . Very w mcconnell has a narrow majority at this point, and as several people have a number ofhere are vulnerable republicans who are up. A few vulnerable democrats as well. Do you think it will be decisive one way or another . Its a good question. Agree with nd to folksi will also remind of theingly the outcomes senate and house elections in president ial years are , thelated with the state president ial race. In 2016 is the First Time Since we started electing centers their worst no states where the went tol College Votes a candidate of one party. To say peoples voting behavior is correlated and they dont what isckets, a lot of happening at the president ial level will filter down to be senate. That is not to say there are some races where this could matter. The worth remembering senators up for reelection in some of these close republican states, they have different theoaches to navigating political challenges that are presented to them. Has attracted the right in North Carolina and you have folks like collins in maine who has stacked out a more moderate voting record to bolster her credentials. It will be difficult for some of to navigate these waters. What is going to happen for them is about what happens in the president ial race. Case, corywere the gardner and Susan Collins would be toast. Collins, that of is why we have seen her, not on the impeachment question, but do other things to differentiate herself. Colorado has been wasding blue since gardner elected six years ago. The democrats path is not impossible. Likealso have to do things have written on threats to the integrity of the election in terms of databases, using societaldia to sew discord, spending disinformation. What are the greatest threats you worry about heading into 2020 . Dale and i have a book coming out soon on this topic. , i look at this in two ways. On the question of the count itself, and protecting the information, day theres been a lot of movement in the states, more than half of the states have paper ballots. Riskhave protocols for limiting audits, which can be done after the election. Heyve been working hard congress appropriated 380 million, too late for the 2018 election. A lot of states have that money and after a lot of delay, they appropriated more money for the cycle. Beene one hand, theres progress since 2016 on the count itself. What is more problematic is the generic issue of disinformation and digital voter suppression. Russians, the iranians, everybody in this mix have gotten more sophisticated. Platforms like facebook have not been able to catch up with this and have not filled anybody with confidence they can control this or we doubt the bad actors. Justlaud twitter for getting out of the political ad business, which they did. Arehe disinformation, we constantly playing catchup. On drugo we worked addiction. The minute you find out a loophole, the minute you find out where drugs are getting in, they go to another place. Its constant. This is what we are facing when it comes to disinformation. The one i the one hope i have is the voters would get sophisticated and skeptical about the stuff they see online. I dont know there is any way to judge that at this point. It is frankly, given how quickly campaigns move, our only hope. I dont have much hope the disinformation part of election interference can be countered by means. , the normal legal it moves too quickly. It comes and it disappears. Bem hoping the voters will skeptical. One last question. Tomorrow the roger stone trial begins. You have noted some of the redactions we saw were based on evidence prosecutors wanted to present in the stone trial. Thathere any surprises would change the current political dynamic . Asked the you have question, the answer is no. Surprises are unlikely to change the dynamic. There are things we are going to learn in the presentation of evidence. There are redactions in the Mueller Report that appeared to relate to be roger stone trial. That involved the president informationeceiving about wikileaks. There is a scene in which hes in a car driving to the airport. Pendingld about a wikileaks release. Most of the sentences around this are read acted, because of the roger stone case. We are going to learn some interesting stuff about, not the hacking of the emails, but the interactions between Trump Campaign folks and wikileaks folks about the distributions of those emails directly or indirectly. Will it makes a difference . Surely not. Concerned who are about this, as bill described, this discount has already been paid. People know what they think of information and handling and wikileaks and the emails in the 2016 election. I dont think short of roger stone saying yes, i did it. I colluded. I dont think its going to change the way people think. Tolets open the floor questions. Right up front there is a gentleman. Theres a microphone coming. Thank you. My name is peter. I would like somebody to address how the courts can be used to play this thing out. Twother words, youve had decisions of threejudge panels. The losing side will appeal to be full circuit and would probably appeal to the Supreme Court. Case took 90 days from start to finish. What iting i wonder would be in this instance. Go ahead. Ive got bad news for you. Litigation is slow. It is not a process that is realtimeo mediate political disputes between the legislature and executive branch. It will not play that role efficiently. Thats the bad news. News, it might have a useful role anyway. The reason is twofold. This process is dragging on. Not addressing it efficiently doesnt mean not addressing it at all. It is really important to arealish some law in this so it is not possible in the as theto be as defiant Current Administration is being of congressional subpoenas. In the way some of you are old enough to remember when the presidency was more the way the president and congress resolved issues was not through litigation. It was through the combination of threats of litigation and legislative consent to a nominee or an appropriations request were some leverage within the normal four corners of the separation of powers. Immense numbers of these disputes got resolved every president ial term without lobbing. Thin executive branch looks of these questions that are dimly related to one another. Ands resolved by the push pull of politics. That does not work anymore. Negotiateays we wont over it at all. That forces you to go to court. One thing about court is that it does make law. If you find out don mcgahn ,annot simply refuse to show up which is, i will do a prediction. The courts are not going to say its fine. There is a judicial finding on that, it is harder for the next person to do that. It is important for that reason. Whichis this other thing is that unlike an Appellate Court to which you have an appeal. You litigate it in District Court and then you appeal at the second circuit. The Supreme Court, you dont have a right. They have discretionary review. Everybodys assuming the Supreme Court is going to hear all of these cases. Im confident that will not happen. The larger posture of the Supreme Court is likely to be let the Appellate Court to be the final word. Which will rise to be Supreme Court . Prediction level of i wont get into. [laughter] of me give you an example one that is the other direction. Im not sure if i were a justice i would be interested in hearing one of over the president s tax returns. Some meaningful division in the courts where there is a question that requires you get involved. The bad news is it is going to be slow. It will accelerate. Agree with the diagnosis of the difficulty on the part of congress using the for advancingans oversight goals in the short term. That before this episode. That one of add is the major consequences of the shift in the focus to what happened with the ukrainians is that it opened a different and new set of witnesses from whom congress had been able to get information because they do not have the same incentives as don mcgahn does to align himself with the president. Agree on the i macro level. Narrativef advancing of where we have ended up, some of these court fights are less than important if we did not have this new set of facts. There is aing gentleman with a question. I have a comment and a question. The comment is al gore lost the election because he ran away from eight years of peace and prosperity. Assume i am donald trump and im looking at this and i know nothing has happened that has affected my base or popularity and approval rating. Enablesx months of this me to attack the democrats. Im going to be acquitted in the senate. I can attack the democrats for wasting the Congress Time on impeachment when they could be working on helping me build the wall, doing all the things a lot of Americans Care about. Can you comment on that . I would comment on that. Fear. Ve stated my worst the fear that has led me on numerous occasions to write thought about why i full impeachment process would be a mistake. I have not changed my view. , what the net political effect is going to be, i cant tell you. I am afraid that democrats who good for theml be are foolish. The information about attitudes in the swing states has only fortified me. Esther trump says there was no pressure on him. What is the possible reaction for ukraine in this process by practicing relationships with a Strategic Partner and what could possibly go wrong . Become an influencer in u. S. Politics . What could go wrong. Many things. [laughter] lots of us have a view on this question. Let me offer a few thoughts at random. What we have learned the past couple of weeks suggests theres an important piece of what we call the back story. President trumps antipathy to of the that was born , aided andn 2016 abetted by some of his aides such as his former campaign manager, trying to shift the blame from russia to ukraine for efforts to undermine mr. Trumps campaign. This, ukraines new president has found himself in an almost impossible situation with the white house. Thats the bad news. The good news and we saw this at work in a practical way in september is the congress of the united states, democrats and republicans, is much more sympathetic to ukraine and less sympathetic to russia than the president. They made it clear to the white house having authorized the military assistance for ukraine and appropriated the funds that the white house had better release those funds to ukraine. It took a few days of bipartisan outrage to get 400 million released. In the battle for public a very, ukraine enjoys significant advantage over russia. Most americans are aware russia sees crimea and russian backed forces have initiated an assault against the unity and integrity of ukraine and theres not a lot of sympathy for the russian side of the story. Zelensky is smart, he will make sure theres a steady stream of senior officials talking with republicans and and not worry about the white house. I dont think there is anything he can do to overcome President Trumps antipathy. I say that with regret. Also near the back. Might the presiding justice have the authority to rule the vote is confidential . Is the required number to convict two thirds of the senate or those present . The second question, i believe it is two thirds of those present. The senate itself. Proceduresfew senate apply. On the question, could the chief the vote wouldat that was articulated during the year and i mentioned the chief justice, questions have to be put before the chief justice. He does not get to decide what the questions he rules on and emotions are. The question of whether the vote under the existing rules, many of the deliberations will be secret. That is the default position. The voteion of whether itself could be secret runs into one of the few questions prescribed in the constitution itself, which allows 1 5 of the senate to force a vote. Recorded vote. I dont see a possibility putting aside things if it was secret it would be a different story. I have one small thing to add which is senator Arlen Specter didnt vote yes or no but not proven and so you can imagine some senators are voting on a variety of things and then chief justice will have to decide how to account for that vote. At the end of the day i dont think that the ultimate outcome is going to come down on this and of course there is the question bill brought up some weeks ago in the wall street journal piece which is if it is a vote to convict or acquit sales would there be a censure vote for which its 50 plus one as opposed to an Impeachment Vote so the other question is then would they move from that vote to a censure vote and the reason i think that is important to keep in mind is weve talked about of public politics and opinion but there is another issue here which is congress has to decide who they want to lay down some markers about how president s can behave. Do they want to give up this much and let this president s behavior on this issue establish a precedent for future president s and that is a bigger issue that isnt likely to be an issue that the public will give much guidance on. And yet i think it is the kind of issue that would result in a profile in courage here or there in the senate and unexpected votes. As i remarked a couple of days ago there is a reason why high profile of courage is such a great book such a short book. [laughter] you can see we have been back and forth on this a lot. [laughter] near the back. Im the ceo of the developed and end they would like to know how you see the role of active intelligence. The role of Artificial Intelligence. Im not sure i see the relevance of that in terms of how the election is going to play out. In terms of disinformation and ai it did play a role in disseminating false narratives and i would expect a continuation of that strategy going forward, but its hard to prove the election is caused by things like that. I dont think the 2016 e. Election was decided on things like that or that the 2020 will be decided on that basis either. Let me add my Worst Nightmare to that answer. Many of you have probably been following the development of what are called deep fakes which is an application Artificial Intelligence to especially video recording such that it becomes increasingly easy to manufacture videos of public figures saying things that they never said andt becomes harder and harder to detect. My nightmare about 2020 is that there will be a proliferation of such video interventions into the president ial campaign and as the old saying goes, the lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed. Is a microphone coming up right from behind you. My name is valerie and im a student at washington, Communications Public relations nature along with college double major. I have a question specifically for mr. Bell. He mentioned the dynamic can change with the ratings changing in Television Journalism. We hear a lot about fake news right now and we have Television Journalism judged on all sides. How can we apply the media video theories of the reliability or credibility of the information to the public or the use of the drama is that which would swing them one way or the other way towards the impeachment in that 45 . Thank you for the question. The microphone was a little fuzzy. Im not sure that i heard the full question. Could you just in one or two sentences restate the heart of the question . I know you prepared a question that see if you can speak straight into the microphone so that i can hear it. Im not as young as you are. What im asking is will the public, that 45 opinion, with Television Journalism and the video series will not swing the vote or change, while the use of the drama and pessimism thats already in society towards trusting television, trusting News Networks will that be something that swings the vote especially with President Trump saying everything about fake news . Obviously im not sure, but here are a couple of sobering thoughts. First of all, there was a survey result i saw last week and if i were back in my office i could come up with the accurate citation for you. As i said i found it deeply disturbing. Americans were asked do you think with President Trump has done is unusual or do most politicians behave this way. Six out of ten said most behave this way and this pervasive cynicism about the conduct is one of the things that you are shoring up the president s approval because a lot of people who think that he is quote unquote guilty as charged think it is business as usual or doesnt rise to the level of something the president should be removed from office for. The second sort of discouraging note is that people have divided up based on news outlets they find trustworthy and credible and that maps on the partisan preferences into so disturbingly, few americans over the next year will turn to sources they dont agree with for Additional Information but this suggests to me they are much more likely to be reinforced in the current view than they are to have them changed. The only thing that can change that is something that occurs in a neutral medium like cspan which is trusted across the board and that would have to be simply watching public hearings and saying i didnt know that it was this bad. Are you just sucking up to them because they are broadcasting . Ive been on a four times in the past week. Sucking up to them isnt something i feel necessary. Right here is a question. Theres a microphone coming. It was mentioned earlier Party Divides our deeper now than they were in the past. However if we listen to the news recently especially with the crisis going on between the kurdish and the turks, we have seen people from both sides of the political spectrum agree that the actions were deplorab deplorable. Do you think that this could lead to possible cross party teamwork during the impeachment . No. Thank you. [laughter] you ask yes or no and get a yes or no answer. Partisanship isnt perfect even perfect partisanship is not perfect. It is however remarkably pervasive and the striking thing about the withdrawal announcement is that it came in the midst of the ukraine matter and defended the president s base including the key members of both houses of congress and it affected their relationship with the ongoing scandal not at all. You actually picked an example that we have a kind of beardslee control cast of. So if this were a situation where okay they have to defend him over here but then he pierces the bubble from the air goes out of the balloon and it has a kind of cross pollination effect with willingness to consider the impeachment process seriously, surely what has happened over the last three weeks would have been the place we solve that and we didnt see it at all. I think we have time for one more question if you can get the microphone over to him. Its said to vote not to impeach the president. What in your view will be the longterm impact and consequence on the rePublican Party and its popularity and on the Democratic Party . That is a great closing question here. I think that very shortly after that we will have an answer because we will have an election. The vote which is more than likely at this point not to convict him, then i think actual they will turn to the 2020 elections and we will see if there is damage to the democrats or if things simply go on. This is a preceden president ths unique in many aspects but one particularly relevant. Hes never passed 50 approval. There is a lopsided aspect of this because of course california is skewered in the whole country because its gotten so big and favorable to the democrats and trump is so hostile to california he doesnt even want to get money for the wildfires out there so this is an odd situation. But the fact of the matter is we will see in 2020 if there is a democrat elected, i do believe the democrats will take the house and then i think that there will be a selfexamination and the rePublican Party. They have their highest levels of support and trump has the highest level of approval among people 65 and older. They have consistently not done well in the younger portion of the population with the people in the middle kind of splitting 50 50. So, if in fact this plays out and trump loses and the democrats take the senate, then i think there is a turning point in the rePublican Party, but bear this in mind, the Political Parties dont tend to die. They just tend to kind of morphed into Something Else. So i think there will be a rePublican Party around, it will just probably look different if this happens. This sounds like a good question for all of us. And let me just offer some concluding reflections. I think what is at stake is the future of the rePublican Party but more than the future of the rePublican Party, heres something for all of us to think about. The American Republic is now in its 230th year. In the first 184 years of our existence, we had one incident of impeachment. In the last 46 years, we have had three. Is this telling us something . My fear is that it is. We have had an unusual number of president s elected during this period with less than a majority of the popular vote. Weve had two president s that have taken office with less than a plurality of the popular vote and when you pile that on top of the extraordinary increase in polarization that occurred during this period, i think that it would be over the top to talk about a legitimation crisis but this is pointing to deep systemic problems that all americans, republicans, democrats and independents and the leaders thereof are going to have to think about very seriously in the years ahead. Im not sure how long we can go on this way without risking serious damage to the entire constitutional order, not just one political party. On that note, i want to thank bill and elaine, mal molly and n for sharing your views and thank you for your quick questions. Ask [applause] [inaudible conversations]. Networksthe cspan live next week as the house Intelligence Committee holds the first public impeachment hearings. Adam schiff will hear from three state department officials. Starting on wednesday. And deputylor assistant secretary of state george kent will testify. On friday at 11 00 eastern on cspan2, former ambassador to the ukraine will appear before the committee. And the head of the hearings will read witness testimony from deposition. Announcer former president bill clinton spoke in detroit at the funeral for former michigan congressman john conyers who died at the end of october. Mr. Conyers served in the house of representatives from 1965 until 2017, making in the longestserving africanamerican member of congress and the sixth longestserving member in u. S. History. John conyers was 90 years old. I will bring to the mic at this time, our friend, one who we love dear. Our 42nd president of these