Particularly the cause of it, trumps eagerness, frankly his need to get foreign help a second time to get elected and the fact that he got caught trying to help trying to get that kind of foreign help a second time that is going to be central to the donald j. Trump story forever and despite trumps attempts to claim that its all just a hoax, signs point to him being in what can only be described as a total meltdown. Signified perhaps most perfectly by this sixpage angry rambling, frankly weird letter that he sent to nancy pelosi on the eve of his impeachment day. Now Speaker Pelosi and Mitch Connell are at a standoff on what will happen next which is supposed to be a trial for which mcconnell and the other unprecedented thing that kids will heroin about has promised to instead turn into a sick display over loyalty and obedience to donald trump. Joining me now is the staff writer at the new yorker who was one of 700 historians who have signed a letter calling for trumps impeachment. Always e great to talk to you. Good to see you. We were talking a little in the break but nothing kind of signifies Donald Trumps state of mind like this letter. It is long, it is weird, it is rambling. You know, i could read from it because it would be quite dramatic but it is a signifier about how he feels about this stain on his legacy. The emotional compose sure of a person whos just been broken up with. Right. And i think it is weird. Its strange and then it kind of in a certain way is appropriate because it matches the tenor of what weve seen with the presidency has been, the campaign that preceded it has been and so the tragic comic part of it is the idea that this is a document aimed at history. Because usually when people write something that they know will be a landmark that future administrations, future historians, journalists, people will look back and say, well, this is an important assessment of this particular moment, they strive for the high ground. Yep. This was mean spirited. It was petty, it was almost it was in full sentences but it was somehow another still twitter like kind f eexclamatio points and so on. Its a very interesting kind of idea that this is going to be a statement about the seriousness or the gravity of this moment. Meant for historians and he states this is for historians to refer to this rambling sort of manic letter. But i want you to sort of deal with the reality of what it means to have this president not just be impeached, but be impeached for the its similar to what nixon did which is that he cheated to win even though he was going to win anyway which is the weird thing about what nixon did but in the case of donald trump, the fact that he needs foreign help to get elected and not only needed it once but needs it again and is pursuing it, what does that mean from a historical point of view . I think the thing with nixon is important because even the idea of him cheating when people anticipated him winning was the fact that it was more of a reflection of his personal insecurities. And when you go back to nixons letters, its almost shakespeareian. You can kind of read the documents associated with him, what that psychology was. A profoundly fragile and insecure man who was also simultaneously the most powerful man in the world. I think that that metaphorically applies to the moment that were in right now. No one else in this country has control of the Nuclear Arsenal and no one else in the country problem bring has an equally vivid easily displayed understandable set of kind of narcissistic insecurities aside from the person whos occupying the white house right now. And i mean the interesting thing about nixon is there were fears among the people around him that he would do something crazy. They were afraid of what he might do. With trump your thoughts . No, so heres the thing that concerns me about this which is that the attempts to hold him accountable have tended to em bolden him. One of the things that people have pointed to is the fact that he had this conversation right on the heels of the mueller report. Yeah, the next day. But what does it mean if this person then has a rigged senate trial in which really fundamentally people have said they dont intend to be impartial jurors in this. What does that then say . What statement does that send to him . What kind of impunity will he behive with on the other side of that . And so i think thats one of the aspects that is concerning. It had to be done signing that document with 2,000 scholars and historians say this is really a textbook example of what the founders were talking about when thaw were worried about the leaders of this country using the power of his office in order to pursue personal gain in particular ways that they understood to be detrimental to the republic. Thats pretty much i dont think you get a better example of that aside from what were looking at right now. What happens on the other side of it, thats another question. Its an interesting point you make because you think of countries and other parties in other countries, minority countries that needed foreign help including sometimes help from the United States to stay in power because they were you now have a Republican Party that gathered around a man who is specifically impeached for defying their own body. So what does it mean to then have a party that says it is actually not a problem for the president of the United States to seek foreign help to get elected because thats how we retain power and its fine with us but its also okay for the president to defy us, to defy congress. Right. Its creating an elected monarch. Thats the kind of behavior that the republican part of Congress Seems to be okay with. Theres one historical note on this i think is important to think about. In his farewell address George Washington gives the country two warnings. Two things that hes really concerned about. One is that he wants the United States to stay out of foreign conflicts. And he was like, we dont need to be entrenched. Europe is always going to war. We need to develop on our own and so on. The other thing that he warns about is the danger of what he calls faction and he calls it faction because it wasnt a word that you know, we would use now which is partisanship. And so he said that, you know, faxalism could undermine the democracy that we have now. I dont think that for their foresight in certain matters as it relates to this, certainly their foresight into the nature of tyranny and oligarchy and governmental abuse i dont think the founders recognized the extent partisanship could undermine democracy in the way that it has now. Lets put donald trump in the Bigger Picture with Andrew Johnson, with bill clinton, with richard nixon. In nixon you have somebody whose crime was an attempt to cheat to win an election. In the case of clinton i find it funny when they say this is the first politically motivated impeachment. Republicans wanted him excised from the history books. They were just hunting for something for years until they found a sexual scandal. In the case though of Andrew Johnson there are i feel like a lot of parallels with donald trump. What the party has gone towards is the sense they cannot win elections through democratic means and so everything is on the table whether its stopping people from voting altogether, using the census from rid people from the census so its all about trying to just win know down to only the people they allow in. Is it sort of natural that foreign help just is the next thing they want . Sure. I mean, i think that one of the things that we have to look at i think is the kind of Guiding Light or guiding star, understanding whats happening, i think future generations will probably look back and say this was all about demography. The thing thats tying the civil rights issues of Voter Suppression and voter access to whats happening on the border to the kind of unbelievable tolerance for taking children away from their parents to the rabid anti muslim politics that weve seen, all of these things are tied to a fundamental anxiety about the demography of this country. So if you were a person who lost by 3 million votes in the popular 3 million popular votes and won only by grace of the Electoral College and you know that youre staring down the kind of demographic dead end for where these politics could lead you, sure, it would would it seem that unusual . Would it seem that far out of the realm of possibility that you would seek to strong arm an ally into becoming part of the electoral process . Snot really. Yeah, and then which takes us back to Andrew Johnson whose impeachment was all about wanting to disallow black enslaved people from joining the electorate as sitsons. When you look at the scale of these things, even we look at what nixon did and when we talk there was one kind of asterisk on nixon is that we have talked about johnson, clinton and trump as being impeechl vi impeached and because nixon wasnt technically impeached we have not included him but we should include him because the process still achieved the end that it was supposed to achieve. That congress was going to impeach him and that he likely would have been convicted and so he stepped aside, which was the process working in a different kind of way. But when we look at the kind of gravity of this, the only thing that compares is johnson. You go straight from johnson to trump with johnson trying to undermine reconstruction and the fundamental bull work of reconstruction which was to allow black citizenship and now we have this issue which is trying to undermine an american election. So its there between 1868 and 2019. I agree. Trump is the closest to Andrew Johnson of any of these people and he just doesnt have the sense of sort of dignity of nixon who had least had the decency to resign. I dont think hell do that. Always good to talk to you. Good to talk to you. Coming up, moscow mitch ups his shell game. Theres always a turtle analogy. More a. M. Joy after the break. Cologuard colon Cancer Screening for people 50 and older at average risk. Ive heard a lot of excuses to avoid screening for colon cancer. Im not worried. It doesnt run in my family. I can do it next year. No rush. Cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92 of colon cancers. 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After all the senate is where house bills go to die so why not impeachments of republican president s . Speaker pelosi who is really good at this job has a few chess moves of her own. We have legislation approved by the rules committee that will enable us to decide how we will send over the articles of impeachment. We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the senate side. So you would with hold you would wait to send the articles until you understand what the senate is going to do. Well make a decision as a group as we always have as we go along. Joining me now is honk khan hou House Majority whip. Thanks for having me. Great to talk with you. Im going to play you a couple of the things that Mitch Mcconnell has said about the speakers sort of game plan in senning the articles over to the senate. Here is his first take on why he thinks that she might delay. Take a listen. Speaker pelosi suggested that House Democrats may be too afraid, too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the senate. Mr. President it look like the prosecutors are getting cold feet. Theres at lot of sneering think be senator mcconnell. Your thoughts on his thoughts . Nancy pelosi reminds me of all the women that ive had in my life respectful of everybody, fearful of nobody. Nancy is not fearful of this process. She is fearful of some of the things thats come from the lips of Mitch Mcconnell when hes made it very, very clear that he is not interested in having a fair trial. Hes interested in rigging a system, and going through a process that will eventually acquit this president , and hes not going to call witnesses. Some of them said i think my colleague from South Carolina says hes not interested in hearing the facts. Now, if anybody can see all the smoke that has been surrounding this president especially in recent weeks in securing our foreign relationships, they would know there are some facts that ought to be looked at and we ought to be bringing some witnesses forward who have been party to some of this stuff. So were not going to be a part of a rigged system if we can help it. And in fact, according to a political article, Speaker Pelosi said im never afraid and im rarely surprised. She said fear is not a word used with me. You should know right away im never afraid. Thats her take on it. And you mentioned your colleague from South Carolina, senator Lindsey Graham who has made it very clear that he is not impartial, that oath theyre going to take Means Nothing to him that hes going to hold a show trial of the bidens in the committee. In the state of South Carolina is that something that Lindsey Graham is going to suffer for . Is that what they want their senator to be doing or will he have repercussions. Jamie as you know as announced that hes going to challenge senator graham and from the response that hes gathering from all over South Carolina i think that people are chomping at the bit, looking for an opportunity to demonstrate to senator graham that they want a higher standard for their representative in washington. All of us ought to be interested in the process all of us ought to be interested in gathering facts about anything and all of us ought to be interested in giving a real honest assessment of any kind of issue that comes before our respective bodies, so Jamie Harrison has been taking very close watch of all of this. There are a lot of republican women that ive talked to who tell me that they are embarrassed by some of whats been going on recently. They are organizing for Jamie Harrison. I think we are going to find out very soon exactly what the majority of South Carolina i dont knows feel about this kind of representation, i hope that will give honor to good Proper Service in the United States congress. What about the very quiet senator tim scott . Where is he on all this . Senator schumer said they only need four senators to side with them to force Mitch Mcconnell to have a real trial. Is there any chance that tim scott might be willing to step up and be one of those four . I dont know. I have not talked to tim. I have not heard him say anything publicly about this. I have not read of anything. Maybe he has, but i know tim. I know his background. And i think that tim is an honorable person. I think he will listen to the facts and i think he will vote his conscience and i open his conscience is one that will maintain the integrity of the constitution of the United States of america which is what were here to do. We swear on the with an oath to defend this constitution and we also swear under god so help me god is what we say. And i would hope that we will honor that when we start assessing the facts and i think that tim scott will. Let me play you one more sound byte from Mitch Mcconnell about the idea of whether or not the speaker has leverage in these negotiations coming up. Take a listen. I admit im not sewer what leverage there is in retraining from sending us something we do not want. Meanwhile other House Democrats seem to be suggesting theyd prefer never to transmit the articles. Fine with me. Similar Kamala Harris would be one of the juries in theory, she wrote that mcconnell doesnt want a trial. Mcconnell appears more interested in covering up the president s misconduct than pursuing truth and fairness. Hes trying to limit the impeachment