Week that was, the impeachment flat line. This is one of the times when a line graph can tell a story best. Impeachment is a fact that President Trump cannot deny. Even in the age of alternative facts and even though some of his surrogates are trying to spin it in his favor and see he hasnt been impeached, the front remembered for decades to come. While the house and senate are squabbling over the terms of a senate trial, it feels like the fog over washington is only becoming thicker and denser. An impeachment really is a thought line. Look at this. This is from tracking autopolll patrols looking at whether people support moving trump from office. Theres been barely any movement throughout the hearings and the debates on the floor of the house. And then to the vote. People are exactly where they were. Basically a 50 50 country. So when you hear hype about movement and individual polls or when you hear trump claim hes gaining tons of support, just remember that its a flat line. One of the many reasons why is because the fox news talk radio fire wall is holding strong. Lets look at the banners from fox from impeachment night. The lefts impeachment lies exposed as a sham hits a new level. Talking about democrats walking off in impeachment. Delusional democrats walk off impeachment cliff. You know what . Trump couldnt write the banners be better if he tries, but he does try on his twitter account. Hes been screaming in all caps earlier in the week. But theres no way to tweet yourself out of impeachment. My question this sunday is what did we learn if anything in the past week . With me to discuss that and much more is the editor of the new yorker, david remnick. Hes been running the new yorker since 1998. The last time there was an impeachment all over the news. David, thank you for being here. Great to see you. Did anything change this week . Ill tell you what i think i hope changes. That i think is more important. Because weve seen the republicans stuck where they are. Theyre illusions about trump remain, and youre right to describe it as a flat line. Heres what i hope that we understand. That the the stakes here are immense. Its just its not just about the political future of one man, donald trump. Its about the future of democracy and democratic process and this is a a trend throughout the world. Its about the future of the earth. We have a party that has decided to be disbelieving about climate change. Its about issues as essential as that. And right now you have a country that is split, and to great frustration of people like you and people like me, we dont somehow understand. We dont understand why the evidence of things, why facts dont penetrate so many of our brothers and sisters in the United States of america. And this is a source of great frustration for the press. For the press. And for anybody who is thinking about these issues that are so important. And in your new column in new yorker. Com you write the shock of trumps it trumped reason fact and ethical judgment in the Republican Party. Its not as if reason and fact and truth telling were pervasive in any Political Party much less the Republican Party. But things have gotten markedly worse. Lindsey graham during the campaign called donald trump unfit for office. A bigot, a xeonophobe. Ma marco rubio, the bushes. So much of the Republican Party, their candidates, their lobby know the score. Everybody in the senate and the house knows this is a man of low character, of ethical ethics run amuck. This is not nobody in the Republican Party thinks this is a good and decent man. These are people who are looking to their political advantages. They think if they act or speak against them, theyll lose their seats. The only people speaking against him are people set to retire. 40 . Its republican. This is not exactly profiles and courage time. And john meacham is right to point out that if you look historically at the cost of opposing your president within the party, the price is not that high. People are people are themselves lacking character and courage. It has to be said straight up. What about this weeks letter from President Trump to nancy pelosi in advance of the impeachment vote. It was described as unhinged and crazed by commentators on cable television. Whats in it . Whats new . Does it speak to the broader question thats been in effect for the past three years about fitness for office . Is that what the conversations are about . Brian, nothing has changed. Ive lived in new york a long time. Donald trump is who he is. When he was a businessman, he cheated contractors and employees, and he behaved the way he behaves. You know, i thought that adam schiffs speech on the floor of the house was eloquent. And he called donald trump a cheat. That is at the nature of his behavior throughout his business career, throughout his political career. But if nothing has changed, can you blame people for being trump fatigue . Look, i think the press has done in total a terrific job of putting together the sum of particulars against trump, whether its through character, business behavior, Political Behavior and on the story of ukraine. We know whats what. Trump supporters say the media creates hoaxes, the russia hoax, the ukraine hoax. Thats the business were in. How do we disprove that smear. The question is how you reach people and change minds in the current environment. Its gotten increasingly hard. But cheating is also rampant here, and i think a lot of people in the media are not showing courage. First and foremost, an organization like facebook. Facebook refuses to consider itself what it is. Its a publisher. And its coming around to this maybe slowly because of the criticism, but first and foremost the value is money, money, money. This was the first social media impeachment. I feel like we dont know the ramifications, the consequences of everyone being in their own bubbles. This is not a question of the behavior of the Washington Post or the new yorker. However flawed we may be in a given moment. This is a question of larger technological trends that have an effect. Even fox news, fox news is not reaching 150 Million People a night. Its reaching several million. I dont know what the number is. 4 million, 5 million viewers. Its held through social media and influences other outlets but Something Like the leadership of facebook, if youre talking about this year and the last couple of years, needs to look itself in the face and take responsibility for the role here. When were talking about how lies and disinformation spreads, so much is about information spreading. In an effort to be seen as neutral, journalists time after time fell into the trap of presenting facts and lies as roughly e kwi lent and then blaming political tribalism for not seeming to know the difference. Do you agree . It happens. It happens, but i think theres been a greater effort not to do so. We certainly go to great thengts not to do it at the new yorker. I dont see it happening at other news outlets. Occasionally it does. You look at the evening programs at cnn. Are they sitting there swallowing lie after lie . I dont think so. In fact, the effort has been in the other direction. The real problem is what were discussing now. The kind of universe of manipulated social media, social Media Companies not owning up to their responsibilities and getting rid of the fakery that they are putting out. I know its a strong word, but were in a poisoned information eco system. All of us are in it even if we try to rely on magazines and other sources. One of the biggest problems, something we may never have anticipated. Im not saying the predecessors are innocence and honest at every moment, but the degree of dishonesty sitting at the oval office. The power of the pulpit that he has is immense. And even though a degree of incompetence has been one of the breaks on total disaster in every area, Donald Trumps ability to shift the argument, shift the dialogue, and the need for us to Pay Attention to what he says because the tweets cannot be ignored. I disagree with people who say they should be left alone. They are president ial utterances. They reflect his quote, unquote, ideas, resentments, and they have to be reported on. They have to be properly analyzed and debunk first dochk thats required. But they have to be reported on. Hes putting so much out. You mean on the level of you describe it as a matter of Mental Health or a matter of just volume . Volume. The idea that a president would take the time to tweet 300 times in a given week should begin to tell you something. David remnick, thank you for being here and starting us off. Good to see you. After a quick break, media memory loss. Is the media missing out . Well discuss it next. May your holidays glow bright and all your dreams take flight. Lease the c 300 sedan for just 399 a month at the mercedesbenz winter event. Hurry in today. Iclimate is the number 1ove priority. Sage. I would declare a state of emergency on day 1. Congress has never passed an important climate bill, ever. This is a problem that continues to get worse. Ive spent a decade fighting and beating oil companies. Stopping pipelines. Stopping fossil fuel plants, ensuring clean energy across the country. How are we going to pull this country together . We take on the biggest challenge in history, we save the world and do it together. Woman friction points, those obstacles that limit a companys growth. I try to find companies that turn these challenges into opportunities. Its these unique companies with Creative Business models that will generate value for our investors. Thats why i go beyond the numbers. That will generate value for our investors. Us. Its what this country is made of. But right now, our bond is fraying. How do we get back to us . The y fills the gaps. And bridges our divides. Donate to your local y today. Because where theres a y, theres an us. So bob, what do you take for back pain . Before i take anything, i apply topical pain relievers first. Salonpas lidocaine patch blocks pain receptors for effective, nonaddictive relief. Salonpas lidocaine. Patch, rollon or cream. Hisamitsu. The wait is over. Tmobile is lighting up 5g nationwide. While some 5g signals go only blocks, tmobile 5g goes miles. Beyond the big cities to the small towns. To the people. Now, millions of americans can have access to 5g on tmobile. And this is just the beginning. Tmobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. Shorten your cold by almost half with coldeeze®. Coldeeze® can shorten your cold by 42 . It releases zinc ions that may inhibit cold viruses from replicating. Try coldeeze® the 1 pharmacist recommended zinc lozenge. Welcome back to reliable sources. Im brian stelter. Are we all suffering from media memory loss . Two years ago today trump signed a tax cut and reform bill into law promising americans a giant tax cut for christmas. As we know the tax cut was weighted heavily toward corporations. Corporations benefitted. And many of the promises that President Trump made with regard to the tax cut have not been fulfilled. Now, today also marks one year since the monthlong government shutdown. Remember, this was in the news last christmas, last Holiday Season. Trump was demanding money for border wall funding. President trump has been trying to forget about his things. He said he wouldnt sign another bill like last winter and he signed two of them over the weekend. Lets talk about this idea of memory loss, how to make sure the media follows up on these stories. Let me bring in three experts with me. Katherine rampell, and also the author of winter is coming. Garry kasparov. And s. E. Cupp. Katherine, your brand new column is about the tax cut two years later. Broken promises. Is it fair are you seeing enough followups in the press about the milestones . I think there has been insufficient followup. Every single promise that trump and republicans by the way other republicans, other members of his party have made has been broken. He said the tax cut would pay for itself. It has added or is projected to add 2 trillion to the deficit. Trump said we would get to 6 growth. Were at 2 . Thats what we had when obama was president. He said it would result in big raises. He said americans would be grateful and rush to the Republican Party because theyd be grateful for getting this boost to their paychecks. None of that is the case. The tax cuts are deeply under water, and weve just kind of let it go. We know its to be expected. Of course republicans would lie about tax cuts paying for themselves. Theyve always lied about it. And i just think thats incredibly disappointing that theyre getting away with breaking tons of promises. President trump is not the only one who misleads about the economy and tax cuts. Mark meadows made b. S. Statements about the impeachment debate the other day. Weve lowered the bar to impeach a president that continues to give us an economy that not only is growing but growing at levels that we have never seen in the history of our country. Is that true, katherine . None of that is correct. Not a a Strong Economy should be a get of impeachment free card. Its not. But as i said were growing at about 2 this year. We grew at about 2 on average during obamas second term before we had the 2 trillion tax cut. Thats below the long term post war average of about 3 . Its below what it was when bill clinton was impeached. When bill clinton was impeached we were growing at 4 . Is it trump fans are exaggerating the growth . Yes. All i hear is the economy. The Economy Today is not substantially different from the economy before Trump Took Office. Its not like you can point to a point in the decline of unemployment where you can see that Trump Took Office and the red sea parted and people gained job. These are basically the same trends we saw before despite the fact that theres been fiscal stimulous trump has pumped into the economy through higher spending. Were not seeing payoff. Because the economy has not crashed, for some reason trump gets to claim credit for the fact that things are okay. The Bigger Picture here is something you wrote for cnn. Com. You said i lived in the post soviet world i hear the echoes in trumps america. Is this the echo . Its worse. In the soviet union we had to struggle to find alternative sources of information. Here i just push a button. So swipe your finger on the phone. Its amazing that trump succeeded in just separating people. Its like red state reality, moose state reality. For instance the senator from canada lied about ukraine interference in elections on fox and then apologized to cnn. We see it thats right. Yes. Cnn anchorman could attack him demanding that he would apologize on fox. Thats what he did, and unfortunately its very little response from media forcing them to actually to bring truths to the fox audience. Thats an interesting term. Red state reality and blue state reality. Is it that simple . I think there are two different realities, and two different sets of, quote, unquote facts. Thats how propaganda works in a book i wont new england thats famous by a person i wont mention who is very awful, you know, he said propaganda works by appealing to feelings. And not our reasoning abilities. So to that extent, the propaganda is working. Id like to push back on something katherine said and the piece that she wrote, stringing all of these lies and broken promises together is really important and really good work. But im not sure hes getting away with it. I think the media is really holding him and republicans accountable. For example, she wrote about it yesterday. Youre talking about it today. I talked about it on my show yesterday. The media at large employs people just to fact check now. The president has broken promises. His lies. If you compare that, i think, to obamas media, for example, i think they were a lot more helpful in sort of the more subtle misleadings that obama participated in during his administration. Obama never made claims like this. Well, his lie of the year which was if you like your health insurance, if you like your provider, you can keep your doctor, that was parroted by a lot of people in the press. They wanted to believe it was true. I think trump gets more scrutiny. Deservedly so, but i think to say that trump and republicans are getting away with a lie is where the media is concerned is just not true. Now, where voters are concerned, will voters hold trump and republicans accountable . Well have to see in 2020. It was not a great Midterm Election for republicans in 2018, and i think a lot of the lies and broken promises probably had something to do wit. Katherine . Look, on the point about obamas claim about you can keep your if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Actually, a lot of Health Writers pointed out that was incorrect at the time. But leaving obama aside but a lot of news personalities did not. I cant account for i dont know thats the case, but whatever. Were not talking about bauchob. The point is about trump. Okay. Thats the point of this. Right . Trump keeps repeating the lies. He and mark meadows and others have figured out a lot of times the media wont call them out. Its about how great the economy is. The economy is quite good. Right. I think its the news overload. When theres 100 things going on at all times and 100 crazy claims, it feels like an overwhelming situation. I think the problem is that the way people process information is when you repeat the lie, even if its to debunk the lie, people remember the lie. They remember it about the economy. They remember it about whether or not ukraine was interfering with the 2016 election in the case of the john kennedy quote youre talking about. What happens is the news cycle becomes about the crazy thing that was said, and even if the media, which i think has not done a sufficient job at debunking things. Even if members of the media attempt to debunk them, we amplify the thing that needs to be debunked. Its a difficult challenge for people covering the claims. Whether its about National Security or electoral int interference. This was the year the White House Press briefing died, the on camera press briefing. It