We do that. So were in a strange and unprecedented situation in this country. We have a president who apparently or evidently reached out to a foreign leader to ask that foreign leader to investigate one of his domestic political rivals, which is another way of saying that the president of the United States asked a Foreign Government to interfere in an election and possibly subordinated American National security interests to his own personal needs and desires. My question to you is, is that an Impeachable Offense . Well, first let me say how pleased i am to be here this afternoon. Its a busy day. The Program Opening with the arts is something i was very excited about because and ill get to your question. Im just here, so its fine. The fact is that ive tried to avoid the situation were in now because it was very divisive for the country. This administration has done irreparable damage not irreparable. Lets hope its reparable. But we must repair and we must heal. For me, relating that to chris, its about the arts. I always believed the arts would bring us together. They inspire, laugh, cry, just enjoy and put our differences aside. Thats a very positive thing. When we hear the battle hymn of the republicans, it rouses such emotion in all of us that we are united. I thank the atlantic for recognizing the role that music and the arts play in our lives, and i do believe that is a path that can unify us one way. You asked about what . Let me just say that last tuesday, september 17th, was constitution day. It was the anniversary of that day when Benjamin Franklin came out of Independence Hall and said, what do we have, a monarchy or a republic . He said a republic, if we can keep it. A republic if we can keep it. On that very day last week, that tuesday, erupted this remarkable set of facts on constitution day. It was about the ig, Inspector General, the director of National Intelligence saying there was a whistleblower complaint. Then we learned that it was going to be blocked from being presented and that the dni was not going to allow it to come forward. So let me just say this. I have more experience and intelligence than anybody in the congress, at least 25 years. I was a member of the committee. I was the top democrat. I was the adam schi ff. That made me a member of the gang of four years ago. Then leader and speaker. So i have been there for the writing of the laws for whistle blowers and further protections for them along the way. I was there to part of writing the bill to establish the office of the director of National Intelligence. Thats only since 2004. We didnt have it since then. And that office has its own Inspector General. This Inspector General is appointed by president bush excuse me, President Trump. Important difference. His own appointee. Inspector generals are greatly respected for their independence, their objectivity, and the rest. And by law, when a complaint comes from a whistleblower, the Inspector General has 14 days to investigate and then the director of National Intelligence has seven days to report it to the intelligence committees of the congress. That is the law. It says shall. It doesnt say may, should. It says shall. Thats a very fraught with meaning word in legislation. But this administration is blocking the dni from conveying that to the intelligence committees. The dni is at the present time breaking the law at the direction of the administration. Its really unfortunate. So to the substance of the we dont know. Well, we sort of do. The president has in so many words said that hes raised these questions with the ukrainians. Hes, in effect, admitted hes intervened on the quote unquote biden issue. Again, and he has referenced that, and if that is the case, that the president of the United States would ask a Foreign Government to assist him in a political way, that would be wrong. Would it be impeachable . Let me just say that everything weve been doing up until now is about preserving that republic that Benjamin Franklin said, republic if we can keep it. And that means its not a monarchy. We have a system of checks and balances in our constitution. Three coequal branches of govlt to government to be a check on each other. And that is a republic, a democracy. It is now a monarchy. The president has said article 2 says i can do whatever i want. Thats in violation of the spirit of the constitution. Now, our founders wanted to provide for, shall we say, some activities that they might not themselves engage in, and they put up guardrails. But they never could suspect that a president of the United States would jump over those guardrails. I want to widen out the appture in a minute and talk about the whole of this presidency, but let me stay on this for a minute. If what were describing is accurate and if its not impeachable, if youre not willing to say its an Impeachable Offense, what is impeachable to you . Let me just say, ill be making an announcement at 5 00 today, not here right now but youre more than welcome to make it right now. [ applause ] its really sad to think that a president would perform an Impeachable Offense. Its hard. You know, its hard to say weve gotten to that place. But what would be an Impeachable Offense would be that which is proven in an investigation. You have to have an investigation. Right, but calling for the convening of a select committee is the beginning of a discovery process, not the end. So you dont have to have enough proof to convict at the outset of the process. My question, i guess, is but you said is it an Impeachable Offense, and that is a verdict. Given what we know and given what the president has said i mean, the only analogy here is , but we seem to be in a situation at the moment in which richard nixon, after the watergate breakin, said something akin to, yeah, i broke into the watergate, i needed to see what the dnc knew. I mean, donald trump says out loud what most people say to themselves. And so im not going to belabor this forever, but no, i think you are. And let me just say, in terms of the nixon analogy, the president is making lawlessness a virtue in our country. In that call, he sort of is trying to export it. Understand that. So we have several concerns about the president in terms of our differences in policy, and id love to tell you about all the legislation we passed that were hoping the senate will take up, starting with gun violence. Tomorrow we have a big wear black tomorrow, gun violence, activities on capitol hill and beyond and around the country. So we have some differences in terms of policy. You might want to know the president called me this morning about gun violence. He said that we were getting close to a solution. Open parenthetical, what is that call like on a day like today . Somebody said to me last night, they said, give us a surreal moment about the president and your conversations with him. I said, its more like its always surreal. This was a relatively normal call . Yeah, well, he called to talk about gun violence. Then it segued into other things. Can you give us an indication of what those other things are . Not right now. But i was concerned just in terms of being global that the president said, i have to get off the phone now because im going to go speak at united nations. I said, great, everything is great here. Its great. So i didnt have a chance to listen to his speech. I was too busy so i could have time to come here, but he said that he called upon the countries to reject globalism and embrace nationalism. Really . Really . So again, we have some serious policy differences, and in terms of multilateralism and who we are as a country. Ill tell you a story about me. When i was a girl, a young girl, i was a student and i went to president kennedys inauguration. It was freezing cold. It was much smaller, on the east side of the capitol, not the west side. I was a student at the time. And everybody in the world, and all of you are too young, but you read it in the history books, knows that president kennedy said to citizens of america, ask not what america can do for you but what you can do for your country. Right . Everybody knows that . The very next sentence in the speech is what struck me because i was a student of Political Science and international relations. The very next sentence, he said, to the citizens of the world, ask not what america can do for you but what we can do working together for the freedom of mankind. Freedom, freedom. [ applause ] but the part that really stuck with me was the working together. No condescension. Working together, not what we do for you, but what we do together. And that multilateralism has been a source of our strength. So when i see the president call for rejecting globalism and embracing nationalism, when i see him questioning our involvement in article 5 of nato and the rest, and i see his actions visavis afghanistan, we went in together, multilaterally, but hes coming out unilaterally. Then you see why theres some cause for questioning among some of our allies. Did i change the subject sufficiently . Beforehand, she said she only wanted to discuss the cello, actually. So this is already a victory. But there is, according to what were getting on the screen, a little bit of what you might call now a breaking tweet from the president. Saying . Who says that tomorrow they will release a transcript of the call. So my question to you is, if you see that transcript and it is more benign than weve been led to believe, will you do you think your caucus might stand down a little bit . No. Or do you think the caucus is at a boil right now . Youre going to find out in a couple hours. No, its not about that. This is about the constitution of the United States. And we have many other, shall we say, candidates for Impeachable Offense in terms of the constitution. But this one is the most understandable by the public. Its really important to know this. There is no requirement there be a quid pro quo in the conversation. If the president brings up he wants them to investigate something, thats of his political opponent that is selfevident that it is not right. We dont ask Foreign Governments to help us in our elections. Thats what we tried to stop with russia. Its wrong. So its not only about how we make decisions about our Foreign Policy and our global security. Its about undermining the integrity of our election, a. B, i dont think theres a i dont know i dont think theres a grasp on the part of this administration that the quid pro quo is not essential to an Impeachable Offense, but if you have sequencing, like a couple days before the president withdrew the bipartisan support for ukraine, bipartisan, enthusiastic support for ukraine a few days earlier, he withdraws it, then makes this statement. President s words weigh tons. Just bringing up the election is bad enough. That there would be a quid pro quo isnt necessarily in the conversation but in the sequencing. So this is not a good thing for a democracy, for a leader of the free world to be talking like that. And i dont even know if there are any scruples involved. Thats why i say they think lawlessness is a virtue, and now they want to export it to another country. If i may, it sounds as if you believe this is a very, very serious offense. Now, lets just put it this way. I accepted this invitation a while back. Im just noting, as an observer of this conversation. And i come every year. More or less. When im invited, i come because since i was in high school, i read the atlantic monthly. They always taught us if you want to know how to write, you have to read good writing. Lets hear it for the atlantic. Youre incredibly manipulative. Some people say that. So, so therefore, what would you be asking me if it werent today . Lets go back when we were happily observing the anniversary of our constitution last tuesday morning. Yes, but the issue is that i live in the time space continuum, and we are on a crucial day, in all seriousness, in american history. We can lift up beyond the question of impeachment if you want by talking about lawlessness for a moment. We were talking about this a little bit backstage. Do you think the president understands right from wrong . No, its a very serious question. Do you think he has the capacity to understand that he might remember, if this phone call happened as we think, just using it as an example, it happened a day after mueller testified. Yes. Theres some object lessons in the whole mueller case for a president about talking to foreign powers about intervention in elections. Do you think that and you probably have a dozen or two dozen other examples where youre not sure if the president s moral compass is true north. Do you think based on your now significant 2 1 2yearplus exposure to him that he understands right from wrong in the way other politicians two years and nine months. Its 13 1 2 months until let me say that the president is responsible for his actions. Whether he has any scruples or understands right from wrong, he certainly has made some decisions that would call that into question, yeah. Here we are i mean, again, as i said, our founders wanted to protect a republic. They did not want a monarchy. Again, they established a constitution that would prevent that from happening. Guardrails. They didnt suspect everyone would be exemplary. So they had guardrails. And they could not have expected people would leapfrog over them, nor when we were writing the bills on the director of National Intelligences responsibility, shall, do we ever think that the director of National Intelligence would break the law . Break the law. So yeah, i mean, its legal or not legal. In some cases, right from wrong. I think we should start our healing process because its going to take a while. So lets be thinking in a positive way as we go forward. 13 and a half months. Now its like a third. 13 1 3 months. Because its going to take some positive repair in addition to Natural Healing for us to get to a place. And its absolutely, absolutely essential that the president be held accountable. No one is above the law. And separate from the issues the concerns were talking about here, that on the policy that we have a clear discussion about whose vision for america is the one we want to go down and its absolutely essential he not be reelected as president of the United States. [ applause ] well, you are focused like a laser on this 13 1 2 month number. Yeah, 13 1 2. Every day. Youre focused on that. You are a very smart political player and very adept at strategy and tactics. The question is, do you understand, putting questions of constitutionality aside and law breaking aside, do you see peril in doing down the path that now twothirds of your caucus wants to go down . Are we talking about a political calculation that impeachment impeachment process will turn President Trump into a martyr and activate his base even more . Look, i dont think politics has anything to do with this, although i read in some metropolitan journals that its all about politics. It has nothing to do with politics or partisanship. This is about patriotism. Though, whats sad about it is the republicans have not spoken up about any of this. Ill invisit thte them to join that we have gotten to this different place. Use any metaphor. Crossing a rubicon, the new territory, new day is dawning, anything you want to say. This is a very serious, in a class of its own discussion that were having about the conduct of the president of the United States. So this isnt about politics. If we have to honor our oath of office, to support and defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, thats what well have to do. But we have to have the facts. Its why ive said to people, as soon as we have the facts, were ready. Now we have the facts, were ready. For later today. But so this isnt about po politics. People say, youre just trying to protect your members. No, i have absolute certainty because were going to make sure it happens that we will retain the majority in the house of representatives. Whats more serious is that he cant win. That is very serious to our country, to us as america. What is america . America is our constitution with our system of checks and balances, a republic, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the guardian of our democracy, the press. Thats america. What is america . Our people. Unless youre blessed to be a native american, which is a blessing to you and to all who know you. We are a nation of immigrants. Dont take it from me. Take it from ronald reagan. Youve seen Ronald Reagans this is the last speech ill make as president of the United States. The last speech. Does that get your attention . Ronald reagan, the last speech as president. I want to communicate a message to a country i love. Look it up on google. Its so beautiful. Or wherever you look things up. Its so beautiful. The vital force of americas preeminence in the world is every new generation of immigrants who come to america. And when america fails to recognize that, america will fail to be preeminent in the world. We cannot close the door to the vitality of our future, ronald reagan. Its better and more poetic than that. Its longer too. So our constitution, our people, our land from sea to shining sea, this beautiful patrimony, and beyond, gods gift to us. He degrades. He says, im not making any environmental decisions based on science. Oh, really . Oh, really . So dishonor the constitution. Denigrate who we are as a people. Degrade the environment. And devalue our values as who we are as america, the idea of america. So this i