Supporting evidence, thats how the nixon precedent had it, the articles of impeachment there focused on water date but then it brought in some other things, and here are the most important thing is not just ukraine but the president s reaction to ukraine. When he is engaged in unprecedented obstruction, no president in our history has ever done this, saying. Brennan what do you mean . Unilaterally, i declare the entire investigation illegitimate. Nixon contemplated it and even he backed down and if this president can do it, this is a central argument in my book, every president can do it, whether it was obama before or the president Elizabeth Warren or person my sanders or whoever, impeachment is so central to our checks and balances and what he is doing is a fundamental threat to our constitution. Brennan what do impeachment articles look like . What is a prudent selection . Yes, so in the book i lay out three articles, one is abuse of power, that he, the president was trying to cheat in the 2020 election with the help of a foreign government, using his commander in chief powers, so it is different than 2016 when he was just a candidate, saying russia are you listening . Brennan republicans would say 2020 was never mentioned elections were never mentioned in that socalled transcript. No, but what was mentioned was his chief political rival joe biden, and, you know, the idea that a president could go and withhold foreign aid in order to get an investigation announced, not even completed but announced by his adversary is something so pernicious and so dangerous our founders madison, hamilton would have cried at such a thought because it is such an abuse of the president s power so that is article one, article 2 would be bribery, the quid pro quo engagement, the withholding of aid and withholding of white house meeting and article 3 is the obstruction of justice as we talked about. Brennan you would keep it on those three . I would. Brennan you tweeted recently you thought if you go from impeachment in the house to a trial in the senate and the senate doesnt conviction that you should retry with a new senate after the elections, i mean, doesnt that sound like more than a vendetta . Certainly i didnt advocate you should do it, i was being descriptive not normative that there is no double jeopardy protection in our constitution, and i was trying to brennan you are saying theoretically it is possible to do there . What i am trying to say here is the senate has an obligation to conduct a real trial and i suspect they will conduct a real trial. Brennan what does a real trial look like . With. With witnesses and subpoena power so the president stonewalled all of these witnesses, john bolton, mike pompeo, acting chief of staff mulvaney, all of those folks should testify in the senate, they should be called and indeed donald trump should testify in the senate, and so what happened right now is the president has said i dont have to bother complying with any of this but will the senate, in that real trial there will be subpoena procedures available and the democrats can call trump and i think that they should. Brennan you call yourself an scream centrist, but given your prior work people will say you are a democrat. Uhhuh. Brennan the argument around this particular impeachment is that we are in this incredibly heated partisan moment, either degree of the country has at least recently went through there is no way to have a credible impeachment trial, i mean, that argument is made all the time, that this was always going to be partisan and certainly the votes are headed in that way. Do you agree with that . I mean not at all, two things, first of all i think my obligation as constitutional professor is to read each case on its own so i for example supported neal gorsuch , trumps nominee to the Supreme Court and testified for him, so, you know, i dont think you just view this through a partisan lens, number 2 i think we have a to try, the idea this, that americans are so weak we cant see facts anymore i think is wrong, i think if you give me 30 minutes with anyone i can convince them of how bad what trump did is for separation of powers and why he has to be removed. Brennan why dont you think the public or at least the polling that we have seen has the level of, dont have the level of conviction you do . Because they havent focused on the some facts and the senate trial will be the place, it will be a formal, solemn procedure and i see how trials change opinions. Brennan what does a trial look like . They think of tv dramas and this is maybe the third or fourth time our country did this. We had eight a teen impeachments and some senate trials, and so i think it looks like a real trial. It looks like witnesses coming forward, and arguments being made and the eyes of the nation. Brennan do you think a Republican Controlled Senate is going subpoena john bolton or subpoena secretary of state democrats will have subpoena power and go to the chief justice and i have had privilege of arguing now 39 cases before the chief justice, 40th on wednesday, and i think he is a consummately pair person and i think he will want this evidence out to the american public. Brennan interest. Are you advising on this . No. Brennan no. Just through my writing. Brennan just through your writing. Neal katyal, thank you, good luck with the book wand we will be right back with our political panel. Balances skins microbiome. So skin looks like this and you feel like this. Aveeno® skin relief. 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Listerine® completes the job by preventing plaque, early gum disease, and killing up to 99. 9 of germs. Try listerine®. Need Stocking Stuffers . Try listerine® ready tabs™. Brennan it is time now for some political analysis. Adam entous writes for the new yorker and is a brandnew cbs news contributor. Welcome. Julie base is the Washington Bureau chief at the associated press. Cbs news Political Correspondent ed okeefe is also with us. And along with josh holmes a republican consultant and former chief of staff to Senate Leader mitch mcconnell. Josh, welcome with to the broadcast. Thank you. Good to be here. Brennan i want to ask you, you just heard neal katyal describe what a senate trial could look like if the house go goes ahead with impeaching the president , does your version matches . There are a couple of details that are probably worth going over. The first, is it is going to take 51 votes in terms of calling witnesses, i think neal suggested that basically the president of the United States can be called or subpoenaed to testify with a democratic wish list and apparently unfortunately that is going to take, that would take 51 votes from republicans to try to provide that. And thats obviously not going to happen. Brennan so when he is saying subpoena power there, you will see answer questions. You will see all different kind of things, i think the most important thing to focus on there is the president is going to have his first capacity for an official defense in the senate. And what that is, is basically a witness list of their choosing, that they will come to the senate with, discuss both the contours and the length of how that trial is going to work and try get republican buy in and hopefully bipartisan buy in to process all of this, but the idea that you can just sort of pull down and whomever you want from a democratic point of view to come testify before the senate is not true. Brennan well, one of the witnesses that you hear in the white house and republicans say they want to hear from is hunter biden and joe biden, the current candidate. I want to play a sound bite of joe biden on the campaign trail this week where he seemed to be bunching back a bit. But you on the other hand sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas cane that he had no experience with gas ors or nothing. In order to get access to the president. You are selling access to the president just like you are a damned liar, man, thats not true and no one ever said that. I didnt say you were doing anything wrong. You said i set up my son to work in an oil company. Isnt that what you said . Get your words straight, jack. Brennan get your words straight, jack. You dont often hear joe biden hit back like that. Is this a tactic . Is this an honest moment . I think it is an honest moment, i think this is the rawest issue for him, anything that has to do with his son. You know, when his son joined that board, burisma his other sew bow was, you know, a year away from dying and it was just a very painful moment for the family, and, you know, the policy that joe biden had with his son was kind of a dont ask, dont tell, hunter wouldnt talk to his the dad about his Business Activities and his father wouldnt ask. And so to have his son dragged into this is very hard for him, because it wouldnt be happening if his father wasnt running for president and a he also knows where his son is, i mean, i mean, i am not even sure exactly how sober he is at times, he struggled for years with his addictions and his dad knows that and during that period of a lot of time with hunter, you have written about him, and i know you have said it is also paintful because itone who reigm some of his worst instincts and she not there. Right, whenever hunter started drinking it again it would take bow to fly him to the airport to get treatment, right it was always bow who was the one trying to save him, and when, you know, during his last year of life, hunter was just a wreck, which is when this is all going on, and so you can, you know, we saw in the impeachment hearing one state Department Official testified he had concerns and he had raised it with members of bidens staff and biden didnt have the bandwidth at that time to deal with it because he was still dealing with, you know, the death of, the death of beau, this has been consistent in joe bidens life, anything that has to do with his family, anything particularly since beau died see for him which is the why, it is an effective issue for republicans to push on. Brennan yes. But also, you know, it is something that maybe people watch and they can realize, well this is a guy who actually really does care about his kids. Brennan but the chances of joe or hunter biden coming and testifying well, once again you need 51 senators to agree to do that. Brennan and a lot dont want to do that to a former colleague of theirs. Right. And we heard from enough republicans or enough of them have inferred that might be a bridge too far. Certainly other people involved, they would probably be fair game, but the bidens, less so. And from a raw political standpoint, thought this was a fantastic moment for him because it showed fire in the belly and gave voters a sense of how he would respond to this if he was asked about the situation by either an opponent or by President Trump, clearly others sought this looked a little weird because in that exchange at one point it sounded like he called the man fat instead of jackass you can listen to it yourself and decide, and there were some other missteps and misspoken words over the course of this 19 stop bus tour he made, but it was tink you hve cl handle it thats how he would handle it. A debate stage moment against President Trump. Julie, you saw Kamala Harris step out of the race this week. Is she a candidate to now go bee vp. I think she would have to be not just for joe biden but for any democratic nominee, Kamala Harris has a really interesting background, certainly her profile as the highest profile black female politician in the country right now. I do think one dynamic though between biden and harris to watch for is that dynamic from that first debate. Joe biden took that moment incredibly personally when Kamala Harris opened up her remarks by saying, i dont think you are a r b andart of reasonuaoe o whate were with n wre very e whhey we torney gnerals foralif you kw, politics is politics, if he is the nominee and he thinks that Kamala Harris can help him win the presidency you can put a lot of hard feelings as a side but certainly was a moment that stuck with him for some, quite some time. Brennan and when senator harris stepped back this week her retort to the president was i will see you at your trial, sir. Reminding everyone she is a prosecutor and now she will be there for that trial. How much of the 2020 Campaign Time schedule is actually factoring into republican planning . Yes, she will have no more or less role than any other senate in the body and i think that underscores a lot of challenge the democratic 2020 candidates have here. There are not as many senators as there were at the beginning but there still are a few, Elizabeth Warren, corey booker, and they are 0 going have a Closing Argument in iowa gtond. C. Talking about the impeachment trial of President Trump, so former Campaign Manager i cant imagine trying to manage a closing message to voters that you cant control. Second, third, fourth week of january they literally are walking into an iowa caucus without even being in iowa. Brennan and that might maybe factor into some thinking of the Republican Leadership and not just see the month of van but how long is this going to last . You never know, the contours again are going to have to be set with 51 votes and i think one thing that senate Republican Leadership is absolutely committed on doing you saw pat and others come up to the hill and talk to republican senators about this, they want a full trial. They want the president and his team to be able to provide a full witness list that they have the first kind of access to the American People to push back on the charges that adam schiff and others have brought. So that could take a while, but, again, i think a lot of that is going to be determined by what the specific articles say. Brennan yes. And i didnt hear that from mr. Schiff this morning. Brennan well, we might know more by the end of this week. We will take a quick break here but i want to come back with more on the white house strategy and a lot a lot happened this week, as always. But we will be right back with more from our panel. When you humble yourself under the mighty hand of god, in due time he will exalt you. Hi, im joel osteen. Im excited about being with you every week. I hope youll tune in. Youll be inspired, youll be encouraged. Im looking forward to seeing you right here. You are fully loaded and completely equipped for the race thats been designed for you. Brennan and we are back now with our political panel. I want to button up a few things on impeachment, julie. You heard President Trump while he was overseas, politics no longer stopping at the waters edge unload on adam schiff, he called him a does ranged human being, a maniac, a very sick man. This is someone who is trying to impeach him and in the process of writing the articles against him. What is the white house strategy here . I think white house strategy is to very quickly get through this house process and move on to the senate. They basically have accepted the act that the president is going to be impeached. They want to move on to sat but i do think that there is a little clarity that needs to be brought to some of the white house officials about what this white house procedure looks like, this is not a situation where the republicans senators are going to be out there on the senate floor actively able to defend the president. This is going to be a process that is run by manages, managers that have witnesses come forward so it is a little different than what i think the president has a in mind right now but certainly they think this is a better forum for them and an opportunity to go on the offensive and bring forward people who might add to the picture that the president wants to paint which is of a Democratic Administration under a Vice President joe biden who is engaged in corruption, which is unproven, so i do he it is a pretty high bar if you the white house to try to push in that direction, pitch the real lack of evidence that there is to bolster that case. Brennan so this isnt going to look like your arm courtroom drama . This wont look like your average courtroom drama. Brennan Rudy Giuliani, the word bold, brazen has been used, when i was talking to republicans about this decision of him to two to, go to ukraine this week and to meet with individuals who are part of this entire impeachment proceeding. Is there a strategy there . You know, mark meadows on this program was saying he would look at the information that Rudy Giuliani brings back. Is that actually going to be introduced . Yes. I dont really know what the plan is for that. I mean i did talk to somebody who traveled with giuliani on the trip and so that originally he was going to budapest to see through seven co, lutsenko the former prosecutor general and at the last minute they went to go see shokin, his predecessor who was allegedly fired by biden, again allegedly to protect his son. His strategy is clearly just to kind of. Keep the, you know, keep fanning the flames of a, you know, you know, innuendo, half truths, you know, that these ukrainians are giving him, you know, i spent a lot of time there with some of these characters and, you know, they pretty bluntly told me, you k