To participate and actually defend itself a on the substanc . Or was does it do . Is it all bombast all the time until we get to potentially an Impeachment Vote. I want to delve deeper into that point and also tell our viewers here, as were at the top of the 11 00 hour on the east coast In Washington, youre watching msnbcs special live uninterrupted coverage of what all agree is a historic day on capitol hill. C this is the preparation for a house vote on resolution 660, providing for the rules for the potential impeachmentth of the current president donald trump. What you see on your veen is a countdown that will result in proceeding to thatsu vote. So the current count you see on your screen has not yet arrived under the house procedure on the phone. What i can tell you, in a matter of moments when you sigh this count run down,u within the ne nine minutes, we expect the house to, proceed then to the
actual vote on the Impeachment Resolution and trules. We also are told in a departure from then normal course, speak pelosi will be presiding over this, speaking and going up in front ofnd the entire congress there to preside over this vote. Speakers also, asis you may kno from watching the news, speakers dont usually vote on each Provision Becauseea The Speakerf the house controls everything and can control when there are votes and when there are revotes. Were told Thel Speaker May also were watching to see if the speaker votes on this resolution as well. I want to bring in Garrett Haake who has been keeping an eye on all ofpi this directly for us o the dihill. What happens next, garrett . Reporter im still seeing the s majority of members have t yet voted in this first series. I usually the first votes of the day are the first time a lot of members set foot onme the house floor. Folks are coming from their offices, from their apartments around town. A lot of membersou starting the Day Rolling M in for this first vote. Well see thiss timer probably expire and then have some additional time before the
second advote, the key vote of e day takes place. Ida want to point back to kevin mcincarthy, the republican lead in theth house who just finishe his remarks. He made a couple of political points that i think you can expect to heart a lot more, particularly as the process changes here and the process arguments having been used by republicans up to this point become less valid. First is ais circular argument, but youll hear it a lot. That this cannot go forward if its not a bipartisan impeachment. He will b be calling back to nay pelosis party line, essentia y essentially, for the last year and a half. The impeachment has to be done on a bipartisan basis. Pelosi would talk about that a lot as a means to forestall impeachment on earlier issues brought forward in this administration. But republicans, by Whipping Veryan aggressively to keep the membership in line can prevent this from becoming bipartisan. Inmi fact, the only republican thats come outt, in favor of impeachment so far, justin amash from michigan is no longer a
congressman. They dont want to talk about the ideato that this is what democrats are investigating hert is the idea that the president is trying toth influence the election in 2020. But i they want to try to turn f independentff voters, independentminded americans who are justed so tired of the muellerrussia2016 story line. Any time you hear republicans refer back to the Impeachment Vote is an invalidation of the last election, thats what youre seeing signaled here. Here is the president trying to change Theth Results of the 202 election, youll get a different reaction from people, than anything that reminds peoplem the long relate gags of the 2016 campaign. Mccarthy laid down the marker there. He expect to hear those two lines of political spin here for the nextn month or so. Garrett haake, we are six minutes out of this vote, thank you. Te well be coming back to you. I want to turn back to jeremy bash. As you know, jeremy, most members come down to the house floor and thats where they make their votes known. In a social media era with a twitter presidency, we sometimes get otheren indications. Everyone knows that justin amash who left the Republican Party has broken with r the president already. Heth has a new tweet that may ge a sense of where he is today. Pretty striking. His tweet says, quote, this president will be in power for only a short time, excusing his misbehavior will forever tarnish your name. To my republican colleagues, quote, step outside your media and social bubble. History will not look kindly on disingenuous, frivolous and falsesi defenses of this man. Jeremy. Congressman amash has been a leading voice outside of the Democratic Caucus for holding the president C Accountable for this conduct. I dont know whether or not hes going to have other people join him. Right nowotop it looks like abo
half the democrats and half the republicans have voted. Right now its breaking almost entirely on party lines with the exception of one democratic who hasra voted no on this initial resolution. I thinkal what youll see from here over the next five or six minutes, the rest of the House Members will come to the floor. The bells are ringing around the capitol to signify minutes taking down onig this vote. They d will extend it to allow almost everybody to vote. They vote by an electronic key card they slide into a slot in the house well. Then youll see nancy pelosi at the podium. She probably will get a number ofl inquiries from republicans trying to sort of gum up the works,f but she will ultimatel gavel down the proceedings, call probably a fiveminute vote and that will be the vote on this resolution, and that we expect toat largely break down along party lines. Ing the next couple weeks, arii think youll see open hearings on tuesdays, wednesdays and ne thursdays. Youll hear the familiar names,
vindman, volcker, sondland, taylor, fiona hill. Beyond that i dont thinkfi theres a lot more evidence beyond thatre testimony, the te messages and the july 25th phone call. Well be back here watching the house floor probably around thanksgiving or before the december holiday break. Jeremy, lau do you view those depositions . As you mentioned, some have details leakingso out. Ta mr. Bolton and others are still being summoned and theyre figuring that out. This set of rules, if it passes today, brings all of those out intol public view. Reporter thats right. One of the provisions in the House Resolution isvi that the chairman of the committee, adam schiff can make public, essentially posting on a website the depositions. This was done in the Benghazi Inquiry and others, where essentially you see a live transcript of those depositions. Thats going to set a foundation for the hearingso so members kw what to ask the witnesses, know where to go. Its roadmap to the substance of their testimony. I thinkbs once you see those depositions in public, you hear the s testimony, you see the evidence. I think again members will have basically everything they need toy know to know whether or no they can impeach the president of the United States. Jeremy, thank you. Well beer coming back to you. Gene robinson is here as part of our special coverage at headquarters. Were a couple moments away from this procedural vote and then we get to the bigvo show. What are you watching form, particularly when we see reporting out of the white housh that the president has done something which hes known to do, Call Republicans and askwn r help. Were looking to see if republicans if anyone who strays. Justin amash is no longer a
republican. We expect him to vote for impeachment. Do any of the retiring republican members of the house, will hurd, for example, the other 20 or so have announced theyre retiring. Do any of them vote for the Impeachment Rules . That would be a shocking thing for the white house to see any republicans. I predict it would probably launch a tweet storm. Meanwhile, theres nothing on the president s agenda today, as i think was pointed out. Hes doing thes same thing we doing. Hes sitting there watching. Theyre watching carefully. Of course, as there may be a few republicans whoma stray, there e also potentially democrats who stray or who the speaker doesnt feel are s needed to get over t
majorityve hurdle here and may allowed to stray. I want m to go to Kristen Welke keeping a keen eye on this both from the white house and working your sources on the hill. What are you hearing . Reporter ari, we know the white house thinks, as many as four to five democrats actually may flip, to your point there. Theyll be watching that closely. We know President Trump has been working the w phones. He started his day in the residence. As of about a half hour or so ago, so likely making his way over to the west wing where he and others will undoubtedly monitor Theseun Proceedings Ver closely. The president tweeting about it, yet again calling it a witch hunt. The question becomes what will the white house strategy be moving forward. We know themo president has bee working theha phones. He maywo meet with lawmakers lar today. The white house signaling theyre going to beef up their communications strategy. Before this vote, ari, the ar administration, the white house argued thisni was an illegitima process because there i hadnt
been as vote. The question becomes will that have to zmang will they have to fight this battle on substance moving forward . I put that question to Kellyanne Conway earlier today. She made the nwcase, look, it i both substance but is also the process. I think youre going to see both. Let me ask you about that. Thats so fascinating. Senator mccaskill was discussing this set of rules, if it passes, affords the white house more options toth engage and send people down and make their case. It alsoma threatens them with a remedy where if they continue in the view of the house defy Lawful Subpoenas and requests, they may lose those rights. Its wonder, at this point, any indication who the white house would tisend . Do they send white House Counsel and government hilawyers . Do they send rudy giuliani, jay sekulow . Do you have any clues or tea leaves to ready there . I would be very surprised if it was rudy giuliani. My anticipation it would be
likely, if not the white House Counsel, someone who hashe been working very closely with the white house vecounsel. Of course, the leader there. That would be my anticipation. I think you did hit the nail on the head here, ari. Right now the administration feels it has a strong argument to make to say, look, Administration Officials cannot testify because they would undoubtedlyld be testifying abo material theyre arguing is protected by executive privilege. That argument getsby tougher to make once this vote takes place. Thatke doesnt mean theyre not going tosn try to block testimo. For example, all eyes are going to be on john bolton. If hes subpoenaed, will he show up . His attorney is saying hes not going to show up unless hes subpoenaed. What Legal Recourse would the administration have given that this vote would basically say, look, the white house could bring its, own counsel into the proceedings, ari. Senator, you look like you might want to get ngin. Int wanted to note that we have thet triple zeros. You can explain how this works. We have no time remaining, but a lot of voeks bmissing. If you total it up you have 351 members of congress voted. Its not like they didnt know today was a big day. This is oneda of my pet peev, they let the mother control the time of t the vote. Th we would quickly cut off the Vote Whenut The vote was suppos to be cut off. Invariably they let it go on and on, so g members know theyve g a graceno period with which the can get to the floor and cast their vote. I predict this thing stays open for another ten, 15, maybe longer. I feel like what m youre saying when it comes to deadlines, members of congress, like us. St exactly, procrastinate and know you can still get in under the wire. The point i wanted to make before, as we were talking about members conflicted about this vote, there are two kinds of memberser conflicted by this vo. One are the democrats that took out republican members of congress in districts that t ar veryn divided on this issue. The other are republicans who remain in congress that are in
districts that are very divided by this issue. And if you look to the senate, the president is not only making calls,nl Hes Doing Something Ee that is remarkable. Some people would say this is like bribing a i jury. He put out a fundraising plea forin joni ernst in iowa where hes upside down in favorability, tom tillis in North Carolina where hes upside down in H FavorabilityAnd Mart Mcsally in arizona where hes upside down in favorability. They will get millions of dollars in their campaigns from the s president s efforts just the last 24s hours. Th that is really outrageous. Were so busy talking about so luchin outrage, there hasnt be time to focus on this. Think about that. He is basically providing cash for candidates who are very conflicted about this vote because theyre from states where this is not an easy call for them. There is a whole lot of folks in
their states thatfo believe wha the president has done is just flat wrong. Jury tampering i think. Or bribery, whichever way you want toor go. Dicey. Its extraordinary. The president has the fact of his control of the republican base, basically, and his power to essentially determine whether members of congress or members of the senate get reelected or get primary. You know better than i do what that feeling in the pit of the stomach would be like for a senator ine that position. I certainly do. The day kennedy resigned. So thats another avenue where youll see the president exercising his power along with
the bombastic tweets, along with the complaints about process. Along with whatever sort of obstructionist parliamentary things the house can do about process in the house itself. What does it all get you in the end is the question when the substance is there . Melissa, i want to reset again here again, at 11 15 on the east coast. The house has finished the allotted time andni is still tabulating, as the senator is explaining, some procrastinators who have come to the house floor. The 227187, those have been be rising, which gets us closer to the actual vote. That gets use back, professor,o whatto is proverbially known in the constitution as the big enchilada. I wonder if you can set the table for folks, what does it mean that the houselk is about set up the blueprint for the potential impeachment of donald trump . For viewers watching saying, oh, my god, this looks like a big day. What does it mean that the president have done so many things objectionable, ideological, lemorally, politically, in the eyes of so many, that this scandal about ukraine brought us tos this point. You have to first understand the constitution is document about limiting government, limiting the congress, the executive, thegr judiciary, so each has an opportunity to check the other branches so no branch can aggrandize power and overwhelm the people. Thats the whole point of the constitution. This Impeachment Process is not about subverting the election, about overriding the will of the people. W its about allowing the will of the people to be heard because the president has exceeded the bounds of constitutional authority, and congress and the other branches are supposed to check that. Eugenes point is really right on. Congress created impeachment as
a remedy. What they didnt anticipate is youd have Constitutional Law Oa the side of the godfather. The idea that senators who will function as jurors would receive payments from the president for their high ln contested you say like aou condiment. Its constitutional law. Thenit you have this mob lawyerg on the side. Its incredibly suspect to go and provide these kind of paymentses to senator ernest an these senators that are in conflicted dikts, martha mccosally, knowing they will be theno ones ultimately to vote o whether or not this president is rude. Its handhanded, tight fisted. Ultimately it may be very y effective. Thats not something the constitutionom contemplated. Ns its corrupt is what it is too. To vote the prosecutors first, in the johnson impeachment, there was also a lot of horseim trading and ultimately historians say, bribes, which is quite striking
considering Thatui Bribery is a impeachable offense. Youre speaking to what you see as the potential further influence campaigns to try to get theseto votes back. I do have to ask you, aside of the y godfather, would only if theres a horse head in your bed. I thinkea the framers always expected, regardless of of how tough things got, individuals would put country over their own individual y interests, over pay interests if those are at play. Thats not what were seeing. This is perhaps the failure of this document. It expected too much. Thats why its going so crucial to have these hearings play out incr public. If we start from the premise that perhaps t the ultimate jurs in this case, the senators, may not be completely impartial jurors as we would hope to have in the criminal context, the real audience has got to be the American People. If wes have these Hearings Playing Out In Public where the
people can see the witnesses, can see who they are, what bias they , bring, what credibility they have and what they know, ultimately theyre the ones that can put pressure on the senators to say, look, the facts support this. This is something were hearing from republicans who dontin have a strong take on ts which is to say