Transcripts For CNNW State Of The Union With Jake Tapper 20191215

With the president and his team. Will there be a big show or a quick trial . This thing will come to the senate and it will die quickly. Ill speak to senator rand paul next. Plus fighter in chief. As impeachment divides washington, 2020 democrats split over the best way to win over the country. Anyone who starts off saying we cant bring america together is just throwing in the towel. What kind of president do americans want in their corner . Democratic senator Sherrod Brown joins me to discuss. Hello, im jake tapper in washington where the state of the union is bracing for impact. President donald j. Trumps name will likely be added to a very short list in the history book this is week, but certainly not in the way he may have hoped, as the house of representatives considers to use the strongest rebuke the u. S. Constitution allows them, to make him just the third u. S. President to ever be impeached. The defiant president is watching the drama unfold from the white house as he plots his response in the senate trial. And overnight, he welcomed the news that one House Democrats who opposed impeachment, Jeff Van Drew of new jersey is expected to switch parties and become a republican. And the white house is confident the president will be acquitted in the senate. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham showed this weekend that he and his party have come a long way since bill clintons impeachment in 1998 when then congressman graham said this if the republican president would have done this, let me just say this, it would be a good test for us if a republican president had done these things, what a republican delegation would tell him to get out of town . I hope so. I would like to think they would have done that. Well, they have that opportunity right now. And in contrast yesterday, Lindsey Graham told cnn, quote, im not trying to be a fair juror here. This thing will come to the senate and it will die quickly, and i will do everything i can to make this die quickly. I am trying to give a pretty clear signal i have made up my mind. Joining me now is republican senator rand paul of kentucky. Senator, thanks for joining us as always. Good morning. You have said you do not think there will be any republican support for removing President Trump in a senate trial. You, of course, will be a juror in that trial. So are you still keeping an open mind about this or have you already decided you will acquit the president . You know, weve seen the evidence. Were going to hear the evidence repeated but we wont see any new evidence so i think all of america has seen this. What weve found is that this is a very partisan exercise. There will not neb republicans in the house in fact, a handful of democrats, that will vote against impeachment in the house. The senate i think all republicans will vote against the house and i think two democrats have a good chance of voting against impeachment also. So i think what weve seen is it is just a partisan agreement. This is a disagreement. People on the democrats side dont like trump, they dont like his demeanor, and i dont think it is a good day for our country. I think it is a sad day because i hope it doesnt evolve into every president in different parts of latin america, we impeach or throw president s into jail because we dont like their politics, i think that will dumb down and destroy the county. Youre going to swear an oath that says i solemnly swear that all things pertaining to the trial of the impeachment of donald j. Trump, will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws so help me god. It doesnt sound like that oath will mean very much if youve already made up your mind, sir. Well i would disagree. I would say that my oath is to the constitution. And i take that very seriously. So for example, you could interpret the constitution in different ways. I interpret the constitution that we should not be sending foreign aid to other countries. We should take care of what we were empowered to do in the constitution, and that is not borrowing money from china to send it to ukraine. And holding up 55 days for money going to ukraine and i say well we shouldnt do it in the first place and i think the money we give to other countries damages our national security. So just because i disagree with the democrats does that mean my position, i should be impeached for my position . So it gets to the hearst of this. This is a disagreement over policy, and this is sort of an extension of politics, but this isnt about the constitution or the president breaking the constitution. Foreign aid is always contingent upon behavior. In fact, the money we gave to him to give to ukraine, it says in the law he has to certificatcertify that they are less prone to corruption. So he was constructed by congress to do what he asked to be done. So youre saying that you think that President Trump was actually doing this because he was combatting corruption . This is of course a president well, yeah, there are all kind of accusations that burisma and hunter biden and the company, the founder of the company were corrupt. This is a man who Paul Manafort, campaign manager, former Campaign Adviser roger stone, rick gates, former sorge george papadopoulos, all have been convicted of federal crimes in addition last year, Trump University settled a 25 million fraud lawsuit, last month President Trump admitted misusing his own Charity Foundation fund and ordered to pay 2 million. You really think President Trump is concerned about rooting out corruption . I think most of what youve listed and most of the people indicted or convicted were alleged to have been part of some sort of huge russian conspiracy. But i think what we found out from the Inspector General report is that it was all based on a false premise that carter page this is the Trump Justice Department put all of these people into prison it is not it turns out that the fbi hid information that carter page all along was telling another part of the government, the cia that doesnt absolve Paul Manafort of money laundering. Let me no, no. The whole investigation, the start of this, general flynn was not guilty of anything to do with russians. General flynn was guilty of not reciting his conversation the way he should have im asking about President Trump and corruption and i just listed a number of close. Associates of President Trump who are either in prison or facing it is based on opinion. These are sentences. Its based on foreign aid. These are criminal sentences. This is on foreign aid his opinion on foreign aid is similar to mine. Mine is a little more exacting. But the president has had doubts on foreign aid. He said the europeans should pay more. He withheld it. In fact, the law allows any president could withhold aid until the end of the fiscal year under the act and ukraine was cleared on the benchmark it needed to meet in terms of getting the aid that was passed. According to the president , i dont know that he had accepted that they had been cleared because he was holding up their aid. I just wanted to know, do you really think president is concerned about corruption . Just a yes or no . Yes, i do think that ukraine i think ukraine has been one of the corruptest countries on earth. That is not what i asked. All of the governments of ukraine has been corrupt and yes, i do think that foreign aid does not cure corruption, i think it aids and abets corruption. And if you look at studies, you actually find that the more corrupt nations get more money, because we think well somehow make them better. So they steal the money. But youre not answering the question. They stole 20, 30 billion. Sure, im answering the question. Youre saying youre concerned about corruption. Okay. But lets be clear here i think the president was too. If you listen to the president s speeches throughout his campaign and administration hes been against corruption in foreign aid. Every time i talk to the president hes talking about how countries are taking from us and not doing as weve asked them to do and not being good allies and so this is a common theme senator . And this is a political point and the democrats are trying to impeach him for politics they disagree with. So just to be clear, this precedent that you are prepared to set, you could be okay with a president say Elizabeth Warren asking a Foreign Government to investigate her Top Republican rival as long as there was some sort of allegation about that republican rival having some sort of connection to allegations of corruption . That is going to be okay for you. I think yall misreport this. Its the facts. Well, its not. I mean what you said is completely untrue. The president no, no, no, no. He didnt call let me finish. He didnt call up the president of ukraine and said investigate my rival. He said investigate joe biden. He said investigate a certain person. Let me finish. Here is the thing. You guys are not being honest with the facts here. He does not call up and say investigate my rival. He said investigate a person. So lets say im the republican and joe biden is his rival. Let me finish. Let me finish my sentence. If im a republican sheriff and my democratic opponents son is caught stealing from a liquor store, am i supposed to say oh, im allowed to investigate corruption unless that person is related to someone who might run against me . You cant make rules that way. It is either corruption or not corruption. In this case there were allegations of corruption and they involved joe biden and his son. And the American People, when they hear that hunter biden made 50,000 a month, they smell corruption. And i think it was wrong and i think he used his office to enrich his son and most americans agree with us but you said he said investigate joe biden. The word corruption does not appear in the transcript. I know you wan to talk about afghanistan who worked for a Company Called burisma, which had been investigated for years for corruption. There is still allegations of corruption against burisma he didnt say investigate burisma. The oligarch. See, he didnt say, go investigate burisma or all the corrupt companies in your country. He said investigate joe and hunter biden. There is no secret about that. But i know you want to talk about afghanistan and we agreed about that for this interview. Do you want to talk about afghanistan or not because absolutely. I mean, the whole thing, as we should talk about important things instead of wasting our time on partisanship. I dont know that impeaching the president of the United States is a waste of time, in terms of discussing it. It has nothing to do with the facts. I want to get your view because i know you want to talk about it on the stunning report from the Washington Post from afghanistan that found u. S. Officials misled the American People by publicly saying that they were making progress in afghanistan even though they knew they were not. We are three years in the Trump Presidency and there are more Service Members in afghanistan and the middle east now when donald trump took office. Do you think your Foreign Policy is more in line with Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders than with donald trump at the end of the day . Not with what he says, but what he does . I think our american soldiers deserve better. And it has been republican and democratic administrations. George bush, president obama. President obama put 100,000 troops into afghanistan and donald trump has pledged to bring some out, but hasnt necessarily followed through with it. I think we should leave afghanistan. Thats my point of view. And i think our soldiers deserve to know what the mission is. And if our generals behind the scenes or colonels behind the scenes are admitting that there is no mission, and we cannot make afghanistan into some Great American democracy, that we need to come home. Weve needed to come home for more than a decade and i dont want to see one more life lost and ill work with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or donald trump on trying to make that happen. But, really, politics and the impeachment is getting in the way of this. It used to be there was bipartisan support between libertarianleaning republicans and democrats like bernie or others like jeff murdol. They hate President Trump so much they criticize him for trying to leave syria or afghanistan instead of using this as an opportunity to Work Together to get something done for the country. Thank you, senator rand paul of kentucky, joining us from Bowling Green this morning. Thank you. House democrats set to deliver a historic rebuke to the president and then the next day they hand him a huge victory. Plus do democratic voters want a lover or a fighter . Sherrod brown joins me next. Im finding it hard to stay on top of things a faster laptop could help. Plus, tech support to stay worry free. 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I want to talk about the deal and lets start with the trial in the senate. Democrats are up in arms over republican senator Lindsey Graham saying yesterday, quote, im not trying to pretend to be a fair juror but several of the your fellow democrats, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, based on what theyve seen, would vote to convict donald trump. Are those Democratic Senators making the same mistake that linds Lindsey Graham is making . I wont speak for others. But i share the outrage by mcconnell as the leader of the republican the majority leader in the senate saying were going to get this over with. We know hes not going to be convicted. In fact he said im working directly with the white house. This is we take an oath when we ive never been in this position. Moef of us havent. We take an oath saying at the beginning of the trial that well look at the evidence. I have very strong feelings about this president. I supported impeachment. He did things that Richard Nixon never did. He solicited a bribe from a foreign leader. But i dont know if it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and to the level of conviction and removal until i see the evidence, i hear the prosecution, which is the house managers, until i hear the president s defense. Then you make the decision based on the evidence. And for the leader of the u. S. Senate Mitch Mcconnell to say hes coordinating with the white house to make sure hes not convicted and removed is i just it really is part of this see no evil, hear no evil. Thats why im so disappointing in my colleagues and this see no evil, hear no evil attitude that they dont want to look at anything that might disagree with their world view of republicanism and this president. Let me ask you a question. If we could step away for one second from what President Trump is alleged to have done and what we know he did and also to note there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of joe biden and ukrainian prosecutors said there is no evidence of wrongdoing by hunter biden. But with regards to the deal that hunter biden got, frankly, senator, it stinks. It stinks that someone gets to sit on a board just because of his family connection. Should there be a law preventing people from receiving jobs based on their family connections . I dont disagree. I dont know how you write a law to do that exact exactly. But your assessment is pretty much right there. I think that that we as a nation need to look more at what we do in our Foreign Policy on things like that, and i would certainly consider that. Lets turn to the president s deal to replace nafta, the usmca, Speaker Pelosi announced last week that the democrats had come to terms with the president. A house vote is expected this week. You originally opposed the deal. But after securing a number of Worker Protections you now say it is, quote, the first trade agreement ive ever voted for. How did you get that . Im stunned that it is good enough for somebody like you who is a big union guy to vote for and does President Trump deserve some credit . I have never as you point out, ive never voted for a trade agreement, because every trade agreement thats been presented to congress is all about corporate interest and all about investor protections, and corporate special interest protections, never about workers. When President Trump put out his nafta revision, it was the same template. It was a procorporate deal that helped Washington Special interest. I worked with Speaker Pelosi and with the Labor Movement and with senator widen of oregon on the bro brown widen language which simply said these agreements should be about workers, and this will mean that workers in the United States with our trading partners will see their standard of living increase, and begin to slow down the movement from corporations shutting down production in our country and moving overseas. But it doesnt fix that because frankly President Trumps tax bill where if you shut down production in lordstown, ohio, youre paying a 21 and you move to mexico and you pay 10. 5 so the president has continued his procorporate trade policy through the tax system and other ways. But this agreement, because weve got this these labor standards that will lift workers up, makes sense. Lets turn to the 2020 race. You said it would be, quote, a terrible mistake for a nominee to support medicare for all, because it would scare off voters in places like ohio, where youre from, and give President Trump a political advantage on health care. So are you saying that you dont think democrats can beat trump with a nominee who supports medicare for all like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren . Well, i think were going to beat trump. I think were going to beat him in ohio. So i think in this health care, all of the democrats on that platform, all of the democrats in the debate want to get to universal health care coverage. Some at different speeds or at different in different paths. But the fact is that all democrats want universal health care and President Trump doesnt. First through congress when mccain cast the tiebreaking vote to stop the appeal and now through a Northern District court in texas is trying to take away the protections for seniors and take away the Consumer Protections for preexisting conditions so the debate about democrats want universal coverage, and republicans and president and entire Republican Party is opposed to it and opposed to those Consumer Protections for preexisting conditions. 2 Million People in my state have a preexisting condition. This is a direct threat what the president is doing to their health care coverage. Thats what the debate should be about. That is what i will work in ohio to make that debate about, no matter who the democratic nominee is. Senator Sherrod Brown, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. The book again worth checking out. We appreciate it today. Good. Thanks very much. Next well talk to one moderate republican who said President Trumps call with ukraine was inappropriate so has the president learned his lesson. Congressman will hurd of texas is next. Hey, our workers comp insurance is expiring. Should i just renew it . Yeah, sure. Hey there, Small Business owner. Pie insurance here with some sweet advice to stop you from overpaying on workers comp. Try pie instead and save up to 30 . Thirty percent . Really . Sure get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. That is easy. So, need another reminder . No, im good. Reminder for what . Oh. Ho ho, yeah need workers comp insurance . Get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie. Com. Welcome back to cnns state of the union, im jake tapper. Earlier this year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment must be bipartisan, but not a single republican in the house has said he or she will vote aye on sunday. Joining me someone who will cast a vote is will hurd of texas. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. Youve said youre going to vote against the articles of impeachment. Are you not worried at all that your vote will essentially be seen as giving a green light for every president in the future to use their power to ask foreign leaders, pressure foreign leaders to investigate political rivals . No, i dont believe thats what the message thats being sent. You could vote against impeachment and still disagree with some of the policies or the behavior. As you said in the leadup, this is such a monumental vote. Using this process of impeachment is one of the most serious things that the house of representatives can do. And even speaking pelosi said it should be bipartisan and the only thing bipartisan about this process is the opposition of impeachment and were going to have at least two democrats voting against this. And my fear is that you weaponize impeachment for political gains in the future just like now we have budget debates that become weaponized, voting for Supreme Court justices become weaponized and for me, my standard for impeachment has always been a violation of the law. We have 435 folks in the house 100 senators, and that means you have 535 different opinions. And ive sat through hundreds of hours of depositions and hearings and didnt see bribery or extortion. I would have liked to have hear from Rudy Giuliani. I would have liked to hear from other folks. But it is the responsibility of the leaders of the house, Speaker Pelosi, to press for the third branch of government, the judicial branch, to compel action. If it is not bribery, what was it . President trump clearly was asking a foreign leader to investigate joe biden, who is by definition one of his political rivals. He, according to gordon sondland, it was a quid pro quo and those investigations needed to be announced in order for the ukrainians to get a white house meeting. Youve said this behavior is inappropriate. How do you send a signal to a president or any future president s you cant do this . Because otherwise potentially you have president buttigieg demanding that china investigate Jared Kushners family for their comments about visas. It just it opens up a huge pandoras box, im sure you see that. Look, i dont disagree with the premise. But there are other tools in our tool kit. There are ways to prevent legislation that the president wants. There are ways for funding for operations, but i would also question the issue of that the funding was based on the announcements of this of an investigation. Because mr. Yermak, who is the Senior Adviser to the ukrainian president , questioned ambassador sondlands how he remembered one of those meetings. And ultimately one of the things that we never saw when adam schiff presented the call records, that included mayor giuliani and Ranking Member nunes and some reporters, you never saw Rudy Giuliani calling officials within the ukrainian regime. I asked every person that came before the hearings, who did Rudy Giuliani speak to . Because if he was one that was supposed to be delivering the bribe, we ultimately never saw it. Well, he and ultimately, i know this depate about abuse of power, i wish we were talking more about what we have seen and what was revealed by Inspector General horowitz and the department of justice on his ig report about how the four fisa warrants, you know, was involved. And ill get to that in a second. But you just talked about andrey yermak. Publicly, ukrainian leaders are saying there was no pressure. However, it has been pointed out that they rely on President Trump and the trump administration. There was evidence presented to your committee august 10th, yermak privately texted, it will be logical to do after we receive a confirmation of the white house meeting date. Once we have a date well call for a press briefing announcing upcoming visit and outline vision, reboot of the u. S. ukraine relationship, including, among other things, burisma and election meddling in investigations. So the ukrainians knew, the top aide, they knew they needed to make the announcements regardless of what they are saying publicly today. They were saying this privately to trump people. We get it. We understand. We need to announce these investigations in order to get what we want. And what they want in that case was a meeting. That wasnt connected to the aid because senior ukrainians didnt know about the aid potentially being stalled until after the july 25th phone call between donald trump and ukrainian president zelensky. So that is those are the nuance of this. And one of the things that i get frustrated with when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle suggest that the ukrainians are subservient to the United States of america, the ukrainians are involved in a hot war right now with russia. And to say that they would, in essence, lie because they need the support of the United States government is doing a disservice to the ukrainians and the ukrainian president and what theyre ultimately dealing with. Theyre going to do what is in their best interest for their country and not going to lie to their own citizens about Something Like this. And so we kind of oftentimes just dismiss the ukrainian what the ukrainians have said on this particular issue. I know you want to talk about this new report this week from Intelligence Community Inspector General the department of justice Inspector General rather. It made it clear that the russia investigation was launched properly, but they also revealed 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions were in the fisa applications, progressives and civil libertarians have argued for years that the fisa process is being abused. And now that the republicans are outraged and affect people like carter page, is there an impetus to reform the process . Fisa was passed in 1979 and there has been a number of additions to that to ensure that when federal Law Enforcement or the Intelligence Community looks to get electronic surveillance on an individual, especially an american citizen, that our Fourth Amendment Civil Liberties are being protected. I think there are debates right now about do you introduce a third entity to debate and have the side of the person that the fbi or the nsa is looking to surveil to make sure that they are doing what theyre doing. And i just want to make one point on this horowitz report, the bar for the fbi to open an investigation is actually pretty low. Very low. Whether or not that was done properly or improperly, they said it was done properly. That is not the real question. The real question is why were there 17 lies in this report . You had a guy who was helping one branch of the government, thinking he was helping his country, and another branch of the government was using that as an excuse to say he was committing espionage. As a former intelligence officer, that is absolutely outrageous. And, for me, if the roles were reversed, i dont understand why more people are not outraged and why chairman schiff is not more upset, because he was lied to by folks, and the media was lied to about this. And if horowitz would have came back and said that the steele dossier was 100 true, i would be apoplectic because people would have lied to me and id be dragging them to the hill for to answer questions. I agree with you 100 , there should be more bipartisan outrage about this. Congressman will hurd, thank you so much. Hope to you have on again soon to talk about issues beyond impeachment. Thank you. 2020 democrats are divided. Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling the approach naive. What is it . Thats next. Then i realized something was missing. Me. My symptoms were keeping me from being there. So, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of Crohns Disease after trying other medications. And the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. 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A Little Something called instinct. Been using it for years. Yeah, thats what im afraid of. He knows exactly where were going. My whole body is a compass. Oh boy. The my account app makes todays Xfinity Customer Service simple, easy, awesome. Not my thing. Save hundreds of thousands of lives. But after the emergency, time and again, Insurance Companies deny coverage, second guessing doctors, nurses and first responders. Now big insurance is lobbying congress. Asking for restrictions on air medical services. Eliminating patients access to lifesaving care and destroying jobs all in exchange for bigger profits for Insurance Companies. Tell congress, put patients first, not big insurance. Youre trivializing impeachment and i tell you what some day theyll be a democrat president and theyll be a Republican House and i suspect theyre going to remember it. President trump issuing a warning to democrats about this weeks historic vote as the house of representatives appears poised to impeach a u. S. President for the third time in american history. Lets discuss. Congresswoman, let me start with you, youre on the house Judiciary Committee who you have voted in favor of the articles of impeachment. What do you think when you hear the president s argument there just about the precedent that is being set or perhaps it was already set 21 years ago . Well, i think that he didnt understand it from the beginning. You remember he said hed welcome it. But for us, we felt such an incredible sense of urgency because of his attempt to interfere in the 2020 election. So the abuse of power and the obstruction of congress, if he thinks it is trivial, remember he wouldnt give us one document and tried to ban everybody from coming to speak to us. So i think that maybe the seriousness of impeachment is finally beginning to hit him. What about the converse precedent being set, which is is it okay for a u. S. President to ask a foreign country to investigate a rival . There are two issues. The one i have the most problem with is the second article. Obstruction of congress. If you dont comply you could be impeached and every president will be impeached if they say well not give you what you asker for. And i think that is reckless on the part of democrats to go in this direction. And i would be stunned if more democrats dont vote against that than the first one. The representative and i have a different point of view on what we believe the president did. I dont think what the president did was right in that conversation. I dont think it was anywhere near impeachable. Ill say to my good friend, paul, who was with bill clinton at the time, every democrat in 1998 agree d with what the president did was illegal. It was baloney. They said it was wrong. Oh, no, no. He committed democrat after democrat walked to the floor and said he broke the law and perjured himself. He didnt. He didnt violate any law. He admitted committed perjury. But in terms of the second article, if you look at clinton and nixon, nobody stonewalled the way he did. Hes engaged in a coverup from the beginning. But the remedy, congresswoman, as you know and every congress in history has done, the remedy is to go to court and get the court to compel him and they have not done that. Thats the problem. I dont think it is mutually exclusive. When the president said the democrats are trivializing this. We give our president 6800 nuclear weapons. He commands them with no checks or balance. He has 1. 3 million men and women under his arms. Every cadet is under his command. He has the most power of any human being in the history of humanity. And yet now he said he can do what he likes. He can leverage that power to advantage himself in the election. If that is as professor gerhardt said, if that is not impeachable, i dont know what is. Mary katharine, how do you come down on this . The conversation said that it was bad behavior. Thats clear from the very beginning. The question is whether its a judgment call whether you impeach for it. Obviously some is political or partisan because they have an obligation to move forward and check the president and i think it is worth having thought this behavior you by think censure would have been a better strategic move and would have accomplished that. To the extent people in this town think we are headed toward the removal of the president and everyone is behind this and obviously these things should happen, thats not reflected in polls. And thats not reflected in, particularly, independents, in swing states who are really important to getting on board. And democrats are going to have to deal with the fact that it is very likely that the oon tie impeachment side of this will be the more bipartisan side of it. And that is a problem. Let me ask you this. I want to go to the graphic for question four. Shes right in the sense that when you look at polls from the swing states such as this poll from Marquette Law School which shows not only is there not support for impeachment in this key state of wisconsin, among likely voters, but that it hasnt changed from november to december. It is still a slight majority opposing it. 40 supporting it. Does that not concern you politically . I understand you think you are doing what is right but is there not a political ramification that you are afraid of . Sure. There is a political ramification but that puts the burden on us to make sure we do the work we need to do, to get the vote out, to educate the voters, but it is very significant. Even though the percentage has not moved, it is still a very High Percentage of people who feel that the president should be impeached and should be removed. But most of my colleagues, when we went in to take that vote in judiciary, everybody was sad. It was solemn. We understood the importance of what we were doing but felt the urgency was such that we could not just allow the president to continue. Remember, he believes that article 2 says he can do anything. We have to put the brakes on him because we cant have remember, we were worried about voter suppression. Now we have to worry about president ial interference in the election. The reality is they are not stopping anything. This is a political exercise and it is unfortunate they may have been able to, Mary Katharine alluded to censure, they may have been able to get bipartisan agreement to do something, to send a message to the president. This sends no message. This sends a partisan message. Wait a minute. My colleagues cannot say what you just did, that the behavior was inappropriate. Remember, they went out and said that, and they got slapped right away, and fell into line by basically saying that nothing happened. When the president came out and said what i did was perfect. Politically where people were voting, im old enough to remember when kentucky had a republican governor. That was six weeks ago. He ran against impeachment and lost. In louisiana, the republican was going to beat the democratic incumbent governor in louisiana, running on impeachment. He lost. So republicans have been running against impeachment and not in swing states or republican states, and theyve been losing. Thanks one and all. Merry christmas. On a happier note we want to welcome the new estimate of the state of the union family, Nicholas Alexander zarmanov, the beautiful new son just born of our executive producer abigail and her husband alex. We love him already. We cannot wait to meet him. 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And this is just the beginning. Tmobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. Welcome back. There has been a glut of information for americans to consume over the past few months. Not all of its bad for President Trump. Theres Hunter Bidens legal but swampy burisma contract. Serious and potentially criminal fbi misconduct. But make no mistake. The primary question facing the house of representatives and indeed the nation this week is whether its acceptable for a u. S. President to use the power of his office to get a Foreign Government to launch an investigation into a domestic political rival. Thats really it. Thats the fundamental decision. House republicans have taken many approaches to try to change the subject from that question. Some just plain deny reality. Why is it ever okay for an american president to ask foreign power to investigate a political rival . Why do you think thats okay . He didnt do that. He didnt do that . He sure did. Hes never denied what he wanted from ukraine. Take a listen. If they were honest about it, theyd start a Major Investigation into the bidens. The other frequent attempt to change the subject is to complain about process and procedure. Mr. Chairman, what will live from this day is your ruling and the majoritys ruling of minority rights are dead in this congress. Thats unlikely. The thing is if you read about the moves to impeach president s andrew johnson, president nixon and bill clinton, history doesnt spend any time on the partisan squabbles over procedure. The focus is always on what the president did and how the members of congress voted. And no one should belittle how difficult it is to vote to condemn a president from ones own party. In 1974, republican congressman Robert Mcclory of illinois, he initially supported president nixon, but it got to be too much. Ive heard it said by some that they cannot understand how a republican could vote to impeach a republican president. It would infer that no matter what high crimes and misdemeanors might have been committed, that if attributable to a republican president , then i as a republican am foreclosed from judging the merits of the case. I cannot and do not envision my role in that dim light. In that dim light. Judging a president s misconduct through a partisan lens or any lens other than right or wrong. When congressman mcclory died at age 80 in 1988, his obituary in the New York Times didnt mention procedural gripes. It focused on how he voted on the charges against president nixon. Abuse of power, aye. Contempt of congress, aye. The mcclory test is vital. Would you vote on impeachment had a democratic president asked ukraine to investigate a republican politician . President trump will eventually leave washington, d. C. But this vote and the standard being set will live forever. If members of congress are looking only to november 2020 and not to their eventual obituary, well, then theyre viewing not just this vote, but the u. S. Presidency through a light that is not just dim, but pitch black. Which is what it looks like, i suppose. Fareed zakaria is next. Protecti. The bad news . The perfect photo is not. Depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Its easy to move forward when youre ready for what comes next. At fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. And on the way, youll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. Because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. Save hundreds of thousands of lives. But after the emergency, time and again, Insurance Companies deny coverage, second guessing doctors, nurses and first responders. Now big insurance is lobbying congress. Asking for restrictions on air medical services. Eliminating patients access to lifesaving care and destroying jobs all in exchange for bigger profits for Insurance Companies. Tell congress, put patients first, not big insurance. This is gps, the Global Public square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. Im fareed zakaria. Today on the show, boris brexit and the future of britain. This one nation conservative government has been given a powerful new mandate. And what message was johnsons victory send to donald trump . Also, impeachment, a trade deal with china and more with an all star panel. Then communist china and democratic india. Two systems with the same problem. Pe