And laura jarrett, cnn justice correspondent. Great to have you all here. Lets talk about where we are with impeachment. I need you guys to explain how this impasse is going to be broken. Nancy pelosi is not going to send the articles of impeachment over until Mitch Mcconnell can guarantee its going to be a short trial. Mitch mcconnell has guaranteed hell not be an impartial juror and is working hand in glove with the white house. He also says, fine, dont send them over. I dont want to have a trial in the senate. As john point eed out, the only fly in the ointment is that the president wants to have that moment of President Trump being acquitted in the senate. What is going to happen . Donald trump needs to get some serious legal advice. Hes not the worlds easiest client, but somebody needs to sit him down in a serious way and say, you do not want a circus here. You do not want a long, drawn out trial. You are not going to have that moment of vindication. You are winning right now. The status quo right now is donald trump will not be convicted in the senate. One thing they teach us when were baby prosecutors is, if you are winning in court, shut up and sit down. And someone needs to tell donald trump, maybe a little nicer than that, but shut up and sit down. How is it winning to have been impeached . Oh, no, thats over, but in terms of the ultimate outcome in the senate. If he thinks hes going to have a dramatic trial thats going to somehow undo the impeachment in the hour, hes kidding himself. He wants a senate trial because he thinks it means he can get unimpeached. He cant. Unimpeachment is not in the constitution. The question is whether hell be removed from office. With this maneuver, a lot of us are wondering, what is nancy pelosi doing here . Its a lot more clear to me this morning because shes created this third party, the president whose interests are not in line. Theres tension there. To have the specter of it weighted over him for a long time. Obviously, the reporting shows hes not happy about it. Hes privately fuming about it. Hes talking to his buddy senator Lindsey Graham saying, whats going on . He thought this was going to be done, maybe even by the iowa caucuses. Now nancy pelosi is wielding her power to show, i dont have to move this along. So were going to be at least until january and maybe even longer because what does she have to lose . To drag this out as long as possible. There may be a Tipping Point in which voters say enough is enough, but right now, she gets to have this over the whole holidays and hell be at maralago not happy about this. He may want a big show to have hunter biden and joe biden testify. Look who had a big moment last night. Even addressing a question of whether he was too naive to assume in a posttrump world there could be bipartisanship. I of all people am not naive. Look how they have attacked me. So you have someone who came out arguably stronger, and the president , yes, hes always going to be that impeached president , but he wants someone else to go down and thats joe biden and hunter biden. Heres what senator Lindsey Graham said last night about this after speaking to President Trump. I just left President Trump. Hes mad as hell that they would do this to him, and now deny him his day in court. The reason they are denying his day in court is they know their case sucks. What day in court . He wasnt participating. Was President Trump going to show up at a senate trial . No way he was going to show up. He was going to send his legal team there. He declined to show up in the house but hed absolutely have to show up in the house. So they would have to participate on some level . Thats the answer is yes. The answer here is wow. Polite yes. Any time i Say Something brilliant, this goes off. So then they couldnt just stonewall the way they did in the house. Theyd have to show up . They could still, but to me, its crazy that were arguing about, should there be witnesses at a trial . Call me oldfashioned but isnt that what trials are all about . The precedent here, i learned from professor gerhardt yesterday, 40something witnesses in Andrew Johnsons trial, three in bill clintons trial and the record was set. It was in a box. You had the starr report. Here theres so many Unanswered Questions and were thinking of having a trial with no witnesses . I dont know how thats 71 of americans in our poll say they want to hear witnesses in the senate trial. What was it, 64 of republicans . If the fight is about hearing witnesses, the democrats are winning. Joe manchin, the conservative democrat from West Virginia has come out and said he wants witnesses, which is interesting. He could be someone who said who knows how he could vote, but he wants witnesses. This puts pressure on the four to six republican senators like susan collins, cory gardner. Theyre going to be asked, what do you want to see happen there . They have to listen to their constituents over the holidays. They could potentially get pushback on this and say, wait a minute. Its one thing to be in defense of the president but have no witnesses whatsoever . Thats the thorn in mcconnells side. He doesnt care what nancy pelosi is doing but if he gets even a handful of those vulnerable republicans to say, wait a minute. We have to hear from a few people, thats where things get interesting. 71 of americans are agreeing there should be witnesses is because this isnt asking for too much, right . Its not an over the top request to have the people who have firsthand knowledge of what transpired as witnesses in this trial. And i think republicans and Mitch Mcconnell need to come to a conclusion as to whether this is a trial or a political process because hes weighing both all the time and its one or the other but it cant be both. Lets talk about this interesting piece in the post overnight. Journalists, as well as pundits and regular people have tried to figure out where the ukraine Conspiracy Theory began, the genesis of this. Was it Rudy Giuliani . Well, according to the Washington Post, it was a different source. It was vladimir putin. So heres they basically say after meeting privately in july 2017, the russian president vladimir putin, at the group of 20 summit, trump grew more insistent that ukraine worked to defeat him according to multiple foreign officials familiar with his assertions. He meets privately one on one with putin away from transcribers and go on. The money quote from the Washington Post is this. Once former senior white house officials said trump even stated so explicitly at one point saying he knew ukraine was the real culprit because putin told me. And there it is. We spend too much time focusing on putins role in this. Its not really any different from his predecessors. Every soviet leader wanted to interfere in u. S. Elections and was transmitting false tales about what was happening in the u. S. And wanted to cause discord. The difference is you finally have a president willing to buy into that who trusts this person. Why we dont yet know, but its still baffling to me that we continue to hear these stories, years after this took place, that these are his top advisers who are now coming out off the record and saying heres something that should have set off alarm bells internally and, i think, nationwide in realtime. Its really telling. We need to stop normalizing this buddy buddy relationship because theres nothing normal about it and its a real harm to u. S. National security. One of the things that i see here that weve seen time and again is you want your decisionmakers. Your president , your government to take the facts and reach a conclusion. Here it seems theyre doing all this. Start with the conclusion. What do we want the end story to be and backfill in the facts. Can i tell you one other reason the discussions weve had play together and why republicans have told me over the last month, one of the things that concerns them as theres a delay in the senate trial is they just dont know whats around the corner. They dont know what new information can come out. They dont know what newspaper is going to publish which finding. This person, this former senior white house official, might this person come forward and explain the conversation that they directly heard . Theres the fear of the unknown and not just that. Theres the expectation, laura, among some republicans is that there is more out there. Whether or not we find out what it is, theres more. We havent heard from john bolton. This is a key fact witness. We havent heard from mulvaney. We havent heard from the people who were in the room for some of these conversations. Pompeo. We could name a dozen people who were present for some troubling episodes who we havent heard from, and there are plenty of former officials who are obviously privy to a lot of this information and willing to talk. But i mean, its amazing that the Washington Post publishes that article. Obviously, its eyepopping. Fiona hill testified. We spent a lot of time trying to dispute this notion. A lot of this is out there not from Anonymous Sources but public testimony. And almost every single republican knows better. So anybody thats defending the president s argument that its now ukraine, they know thats not the case. And they should be equally alarmed. Theres a real trial lawyer on that team, what they are telling donald trump is trial is unpredictable, its dynamic. You are at risk as long as this trial is open. Who knows who could come forward. Ive seen all sorts of surprises happen midtrial for good, for bad. As long as this is an open matter, who knows what could happen. Are there still court cases that might compel john bolton, Mick Mulvaney to come forward or were those retracted . Where are we with there is no case on bolton and mulvaney. Thats essentially become article two of the articles of impeachment, obstruction of congress. The only one still alive is don mcgahn which is at the court of appeals but it would take a miracle for that to be finished with the court of appeals, the Supreme Court at the same time frame and Mueller Mcgahn is not part of the articles so i dont see that breaking the logjam. Great to have you here. Happy holidays to everybody. Its dangerous to say that. I keep poking the bear by saying that. Who is the bear. Happy holidays is very controversial. Youre not supposed to say happy holidays. But there are two holidays right now so its fine to use the plural. One would think but it upsets a lot of people to say happy holidays. Well see what twitter does to you. A prominent christian magazine calling President Trump profoundly immoral and he should be removed from office. What does this mean for his support from evangelicals . Thats next. Sfx [sneezing] i am not for ignoring the first sign of a cold. I am for shortening my cold, with zicam zicam is completely different. Unlike most other cold medicines, zicam is clinically proven to shorten colds. I am a zifan for zicam oral or nasal. children playing dog barking Music Building experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. Sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first months payment. Choose the longest lasting thiaa battery. Son music energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. Matched by no one. Quote, trump should be removed from office. Thats the headline from christianity today, a leading evangelical magazine founded by the late minister billy graham. Evangelicals are one of the key pieces of President Trumps base and their support will be crucial if he is to win reelection in 2020. Joining us to talk about this, ben howe, the author of the immoral majority, why evangelicals chose political power over christian values. Ben, great to see you this morning. Tell us what the significance of this statement from christianity today is about how the president , they say, is so immoral that he deserves to be removed from office. Well, you know, i think the fact that a christian who feels compelled to speak out to his fellow christians about what should be expected of them is a great thing, but i think theres a little bit that he was missing in the article. One of those things is that donald trump hasnt changed, even before he ran for president. Weve known who he is. Thats one of the reasons i opposed him in 2016 and why i continue to not support him into his presidency. But if you are trying as an evangelical leader to convince other christians that they need to move away from donald trump, simply pointing out the things they already know about him, that they knew about him when they voted for him isnt going to do that. They already know these things. Theyve already become content with it. What really needs to happen is to understand that its the manner in which they support him, the lengths they will go to in that support. Thats the problem and also that they embrace so much negativity and not, you know, embracing the ideas of the sermon on the mount, loving your neighbor, loving your enemies, things of that nature. Thats the problem. Donald trump is just putting up a mirror to that group. Its not about him in a lot of ways. I hear you, but i think the editor is trying to make that point. Ill read you the passage where he talks about that. To the many evangelicals who continue to support mr. Trump in support of his blackened moral record we may say this. Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of mr. Trump influences your influence to your lord and savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off mr. Trumps immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. And i read the article and i understand that he is addressing the fact that they support him, but hes using that immorality that trump has committed. Hes using the things that trump has done and said and only that. Hes not talking about hes saying this guy is immoral. You shouldnt support him. What hes not talking about are some of the horrible things weve seen. People like Robert Jeffreys and others who are claiming that if you are a progressive, you cant be a christian. People talking about partisan politics even outside of donald trump as though there is one side who is going to go to heaven and one side thats going to go to hell. Theres so much that this group has said, not just in defense specifically of donald trump, but in the whole idea of partisan politics and republican politics. It needs to be harder on the people beyond just youre supporting an immoral president. They have become immoral beyond that. The ways theyre acting emulates what he does. And what about i mean, to your point, the things in the past that they somehow had to stomach. We could go through the litany of paying hush money to a porn star and lying about it in a statement. Mocking a handicapped person at a rally. I mean, we could go on and on up to today, this week where weve seen what he said about late congressman john dingell. How do evangelicals reconcile all of that with their own faith . Well, i talk a lot about this in my book. Basically what theyve done is theyve created a moral dimemma. Its not a real moral dilemma, but theyve placed donald trump into a position where he is supporting things like, lets say, you know, abortion issues. Hes going to be a prolife president , Supreme Court, things of that nature that they think are a higher moral concern than any problems he brings to the table. So as long as they can continue to hold this greater good that they believe hes accomplishing as the reason to support him, theres virtually nothing he can do that is going to make them lose their support. And you know, even in this instance, the shift here with this article is not that the evangelical im not convinced the author, you know, was a maga guy to begin with. More and more people are comfortable leaders are comfortable with the idea of saying these things and not concerned about alienating those evangelical christians. I think thats significant because there has been a fear, especially in publications like this, that if they go to antitrump for instance, they are going to lose their readership. But tell me a little more about that. You think the fact that this editor of christianity today has said all of this means that, what, hes not afraid of losing his readership . Well, i think that there is a stigma for a lot of christians that for a lot of christians who have opposed trump that it didnt start right away. Early on in the primaries, there was a big divide among christians about whether or not to vote for trump, whether or not to support trump. He didnt actually get a significant or at least a majority of evangelicals, even at super tuesday he had less than 50 . The rallying started in the summer of 2016. And within a few months, it became almost as though if you oppose trump you support things antitheical to christianity and that was the birth of what happened over the next few years. Getting to the antiof what i said earlier. Progressives arent going to heaven and things of that nature. Whats significant is if theres christian leaders who obviously still want to reach throngs of people and they know those throngs of people by and large support the president and they are still willing to say this without worrying about alienating, thats a strength as a christian certainly, and it also shows that stigma that theyre not concerned about could be a result and this remains to be seen, of what they are hearing on the ground. What they are hearing from others. Whether theres a shift in the evangelical base remains to be seen, but the fact that more leaders are coming out and saying these things is significant. Okay. Ben howe, we appreciate you being on. Your book, the immoral majority. Great to talk to you. Thank you. The leading Democratic Candidates squared off. There were candidates not on the stage. How senator cory booker expects to be there next time. Thats next. 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