Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for america, today i am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment. In response the white house says it, quote, looks forward to a fair trial in the senate and President Trump lashing out on twitter saying this the do not radical left democrats have Just Announced they are going to seek to g impeach me over nothing. The n good thing is that the republicans have never been more united. We will win. Remember it was just yesterday, ali, the president said hurry up, go ahead. If you are going to impeach me, do it. You dared her, well, shes doing it. This as the New York Times reports that the president is likely to beth impeached by christmas. Joining us now daily beast reporter betsy swan and white house b correspondent for pbs ns hour yamiche alcindor. Those are very strong words from Speaker Pelosi this morning. Any idea when this is going to happen . The average person at home might feel like this is dragging. It is not dragging. The clinton impeachment in the senate alone took five weeks. This is really, really moving quickly andll the president was saying i want to be impeached fast, but the caveat is the democrats have already been doing that. Democrats have the very beginning when nancy pelosi a few weeks ago announced an impeachment inquiry saying they were going to move expeditiously and they have done that. I iomean, that monster hearing week where they had public hearing back to back, six, seven hours, 12 hours at times, democrats have really been focused on making sure they want to get this before christmas, ive been hearing the week right beforeth christmas is when ther will be an official vote, thats around the same time we will be having a president ial debate. There will be a lot going on that week. Democrats have been focused on the idea they want to do this quickly, they dont want it to mesh quickly into the democratic primary. The president is hoping to get this over with because what we do know is senator Mitch Mcconnell the Senate Majority leader says he believes President Trump will be acqu acquitt acquitted, he wont be removed from office. In some ways everyone is operating in d. C. Like they already knowt. C whats going t happen. Betsy, the speaker also stress nancy pelosi stressing that this is go the country not about politics. She said democrats arent concerned about how this is going to affect the 2020 race. Do you buy that . I dont. Its hard to speak about democrats as one entire group at all because the House Democratic conference is suche a diverse x of people all over the ideological spectrum. I mean, from pelosis perspective and Leadership Perspective they of course are going to be sort of singleminded in their argument thatle this is about whats doi whats best for the country and not about making partisan calculations. Of course, at the rank and child level theres plenty of chatter about the way that this could impactth elections coming up in 2020 particularly for vulnerable freshman democrats who won districts that historically have been controlled by republicans. One challenge with this political context that has been discussed inpo private meetings among House Democratic leadership according to democratic sources is the fact that the poll numbers dont seem to be moving. Democratic leaders have said that they believe its unlikely theyre going to have more than 55 give or take a little bit of support for the impeachment process because the country is so polarized and so divided right now. It seems like that number might be as high as its going to get for democrats and they are going to have to do this despite the fact that it may come potentially at a political cost. Yamiche, we know the white house lawyers have been meeting with Senate Republicans to determine how theyre going to handle these impeachment proceedings. We keep hearing the idea that they want live witnesses. How do you think this is going to play out . Well, the white house is really focused on the fact that they want the president to be fiercely defended and they were at one point complaining about the factne that they couldnt bring their witnesses but this trial is going to be able to really have the white house put on display people that they think bolsters the president s claim that he did nothing wrong. Ive been talking to sources in the white house who have essentially been saying that this is something that they are gearing up for. At one point the impeachment strategy was shcatter shot, theyve brought people in, have an idea what they want to be doing, want to have witnesses to say over and over again that the president never directly told anyone at least so far that there needed to be a quid pro quo. In other words, the president never said to Rudy Giuliani, at least no one was proven, i need you to get this investigation for joe biden in exchange for this military aid. The other thing i will tell you when we go back to this idea about the election, ive been talking to Trump Campaign sources and they tell me theyve been seeing an uptick in volunteers, in donations, they think their voters are more energized than ever, that this is a good thing for the president. That is spin on their part but there is this idea that people are so dug in on both sides of this, people now have known for weeks what the president is accused of and his supporters are sticking with him and democrats are of course digging in and saying this is a president abusing power. You also have of white house putting out a statement sig this is now congress abusing power. Both sides are trading barbs and voters are getting more and more polarized. Betsy, one interesting point that nancy pelosi madein during her remarksat this morning is tt this isnt actually about ukraine, she said everything ultimately leads to russia. She, in fact, said all roads lead to putin. That seems to be a message she wantedge to make clear. I dont know who the beneficiary of that message is supposed to be, the American People in their support for impeachment or republicans who shes trying to have face what she believes this isve all about. Its an important observation because its impossible to talk about the u. S. Relationship with ukraine without speak being it in thewi context of russia as a geopolitical threat to the United States. The t kremlin has been trying t suck backen in as much of ukrainian territory as possible over the last several years and kremlinar officials believe tha they have a right to control ukraine, something that ukrainians vehemently are fighting back against. Part of the reason of course that ukrainians wanted the military aid that the white house temporarily held up is to help them in their current hot war against russia. So the fact is when youre looking at america and ukraine policy russia is a key part. In addition one of the issues that trump brought t up on his phone call with the ukrainian president were allegations that do not have evidence that the ukrainians meddled in the American Election in 2016. We now know that American Intelligence Community officials have told capitol hill that that particular narrative, that notion, isve being pushed by th kremlins own security services. It is literally a russian government talking point that is informing how Congressional Republicans are talking about the u. S. ukraine relationship. Yamiche, the speaker dodged a question about whether or not articlesdo of Impeachment Associated with the mueller inquiry are going to be included here. What do you know . Democrats are still debating what these articlesre of impeachment might look alike. Sources ive talked to say that there is at least going to be likely an abuse of power article, theres going to be an accusation of obstruction of justice because the white house has blocked witnesses as well as documents from being turned over to the white house s to congress, rather. The other thing, though, is this idea of whether or not mueller is going to be included in all this. Now, the white house is claiming and Jonathan Turley the gop witness yesterday said, look, the white house has been forthcoming because they released the Mueller Report, that was something they didnt have to do. Democrats have been saying they want to be focused on ukraine because they didnt want this to look like a second act on the Mueller Investigation, especially because a lot of democrats feel at the end of the day the Mueller Investigation just turned out to be something that was not at all something that the American People understood and it wasnt something that stuck to President Trump. So it will be really, really interesting if democrats actually add the Mueller Investigation into this. Itio will bolster the white houses claim that this is really all about the democrats being angry about the Mueller Investigation not ending with the president being indicted. So i think democrats are looking at this and trying to decide whether or not there is a risk there. I seem to think that and my sources seem to think they might be leaning toward adding mueller but that would be a big decision on the mart of nancy pelosi. Betsy and yamiche, thank you for joining us. Joining us now a democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee congresswoman Debbie Powell of florida. Thank you for being with us. Youve heard some of this discussion. How soon what happens next and how soon do you expect that your committee will draft these articles of impeachment . Good afternoon, ali. We are going to be actually meeting throughout the weekend. We have another hearing scheduled on monday morning where we are going to be listening and receiving all the evidence from the House Intelligence Committee. So at this moment we are deliberating, we have to review the evidence and i have to say that we will draft articles of impeachment depending on where we have the most clear and strong evidence on abuse of power by this president. Will the Mueller Report be a factor as you consider articles . I think that were going to be discussing that and, again, i want to just make it very clear that i think because its such an important moment in the history of our country, because we need to set the right precedent moving forward, we willed be using the information that we receive from all three committees, oversight, Foreign Affairs committee, House Intelligence Committee and look at allig the evidence before deciding what articles we will be w writing. Tell me about the division maybe thats the wrong word to use the debate, the different positions on this in the caucus. Why is that controversial . Is it just that if you put it in there is a fear that people will start to think this is muddled . Whats the concern . I actually i mean, personally in the committee we havent seen any controversy on this issue. I think its more than anything just making sure that it is clear, strong evidence. What we are looking at more than anything, atthough, right now i this callgh to the ukrainian government, to the president , president zelensky. Now, we know that right now we have an eminent threat that Undermines Free and Fair Elections which are the pillar of our democracy, which is why we are talking more than anything about that call. We have clear evidence, yesterday we saw in the hearing that its unequivocal that this president has abused the power of his office to put pressure on a Foreign Government withholding military aid for his own private political gain. O so i think that were going to start there and then review all the other evidence thats presented to the committee. About a week ago President Trump mentioned you by name at a rally in south florida. You were notably one of the first lawmakers to call for the impeachment inquiry. You representt a state that donald trump won in 2016. Talk to me about this idea of backlash or no fear of backlash. Nancy pelosi saying that this isnt about 2020 and our members arent worrying about that but you heard that obviously some are. Ali, when i heard my name called by the president one of the things that i got very frustrated about, which is why i responded, is that he said that we are doing nothing. The moment i came to washington, d. C. On january 3rd and i took the oath of office that same day we were in thet house floor voting until close to 11 00 p. M. To reopen the government. We have passed more than 350 bills to Lower Health Care costs, protect my community from the affects of climate change, protect my community from gun violence. I lost my father to gun violence. I want to make sure that the American People know and understand that we did not come here for impeachment. That we are left with no other choice at this moment but to take this road because the president and his actions of violating the law, violating the constitution leave us with no other choice. I am here for my children, i am here for the future of this country. I came from ecuador. I know what its like. When i see a man abuse the power of his office and surround himself with people that are loyalists, that could that threatens our democracy and it reminds me of many dictators in latin america which is why i am telling you and i think that a lot of us feel this way, its not t political. This is about protecting the constitution, the future of our democracy, its about myfu children and everyones children in this country. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Thank you. Coming up, the Trump Administration making changes to the snap program and hundreds of thousands of americans are about to lose their food stamps. Were going to look at how the Program Works and what the trump cuts mean for all of this people. We will also be digging into the 2020 race and impeachment with president ial candidate tom steyer. You are watching velshi ruhle. Where else . Mississippi. 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Tom, you have been since before you were running for president you have been a champion of impeaching donald trump, the house keeps getting closer to impeaching President Trump now. If the senate holds a trial early next year and a quits the president tell me how that plays out into the democratic president ial nomination that you are a part of right now. You are not one of these people who wants impeachment to be a separate issue, but what happens . Look, i think whats going to happen, ali, is there are going to be a series of televised hearings continuing to show the corruption of this president and this administration. If, in fact, it is sent if he is impeached and he is tried in the senate and acquitted, then the American People will get a chance to see the Republican Party going completely contrary to the evidence and lining up behind the most corrupt president in American History. But, tom i think that youve been watching these televised hearings and so have we. Do you actually think that they are changing the minds of any American People . When you watch the stories on different media outlets, the stories are very different. They sure are, stephanie. They absolutely are. And thats why actually having televised hearings where americans can see people testify without any kind of editing going on is so important. And i k