State judge has just ruled that the state of wisconsin Must Immediately deactivate the voter registrations of more than 200,000 people who live in wisconsin. 200,000. More than 230,000. I mean, for context, the newly elected democratic governor of wisconsin, tony evers, hes pointed out in reaction to this ruling that he won the governorship last year in wisconsin by less than 30,000 votes. This new immediate voting purge ordered by this state judge sort of engineered by this conservative legal group will deactivate, will purge, the voter registrations of more than seven times as many voters as the number that made up the margin that elected the states last governor. Ye yeah, you cant be too careful. Lets get these voter rolls trimmed. Disproportionately, the voters that are being targeted to have their registrations deactivated are in milwaukee and madison. Which you can imagine why. They are both bases of the Democratic Party support in the state. Theyre both home to Large College campuses full of students who, again, tend to vote democratic and so, naturally, those are the places being targeted to have voter registrations deactivated. And as wisconsin is springing into action to take more than 230,000 voters off the rolls effective immediately, the great state of georgia as of tonight is doing the same thing. You might remember in the hardfought georgia governors race that got national attention, right, democratic rising star Stacey Abrams facing off against the republican secretary of state in georgia, brian kemp, the man who was in charge of running his own election as secretary of state, the main controversy in that governors race, the reason Stacey Abrams never formally conceded that race, is because of this massive effort by the republicancontrolled State Government in georgia, brian kemp first among them, to cut down the number of people who were allowed to vote in that state ahead of that election. Between 2012 and 2018, republicanled government, the republicanled government in the state of georgia canceled over 1 preside1. 4 million voter regist. Just in that state. 1. 4 million. Well, as of tonight, the republicanled State Government now under the gubernatorial leadership of brian kemp because now hes the governor, tonight, theyre trying to unregister another 313,000 people in georgia. People who are registered to vote, but the State Government is going to unregister them. Theyre going to deactivate those voter registrations and purge those people off the voter rolls. Stacey abrams was not elected governor against brian kemp. She now leads an antivoter Suppression Group called fairfight. Fairfight has been battling this in court to try to stop it, but, i mean, this is part of a larger thing. I mean, as georgia democrats have fought harder and harder to register more and more people to vote in that state and as georgia has, thereby, increasingly trended purple and even toward blue, this has been the republican response. To just wipe people off the v e voting rolls by the hundreds of thousands every way they can. And so, yeah, these days are upon us already. The next election will, of course, be decided by which candidates are on the ballot and how good they are at running their campaigns and the mood of the country and all the rest of it, but in a technical sense, in a nuts and bolts sense, the next elections will, of course, be decided entirely by who votes in those elections. Who finds it easy to vote, who finds it hard to vote, who finds themselves disallowed from voting. So, wisconsin and georgia both in the middle tonight of purging between them hundreds of thousands of voters off the rolls in both states, both of those states the people who are disproportionately targeted by those voter purges are people who are likely to vote democratic. Now, in terms of who the candidates are going to be in the next election, one of the other things were watching tonight thats going to be really interesting over the next few days is that the democratic president ial candidates are supposed to be having their next debate this thursday night in los angeles. I say theyre supposed to be because theres a couple of interesting developing stories to watch there. First of all, all the candidates who have qualified for this weeks debate, all seven of them, have now joined with new jersey senator cory booker and former hud secretary julian castro, neither of whom qualified for this weeks debate. The seven candidates who are going to be on the stage plus booker and castro have now joined forces, nine candidates all together, to basically petition the Democratic Party, to petition the dnc, that they should change the criteria by which Democratic Candidates qualify for the debates from here on out. Of the seven people who were qualified for the thursday night debate in l. A. , six of the seven of them are white. Only andrew yang is not. The candidates are describing the limiting impact of the dncs debate rules as having a, quote, inadvertent impact on the diversity of which candidates are making the cut and ending up on the stage for the democrats. So, all the candidates on stage, plus booker and castro, theyre asking the party now for changes, late changes, to the qualifying process for the next debates. Basically, to make it a little easier for candidates to get up there by more means than they can get there now. So far, the Democratic Party shows no signs of giving into these demands, but, i mean, think about housetw this plays if all of their candidates are asking for the same thing, thats eventually going to become an awkward problem for the party. You cant have all of the candidates in the party against the party on a procedural issue like this. Even sooner than that resolves, though, theres this issue of whether there is actually going to be a thursday night debate this week, and that is completely determined at this point by whether or not theres going to be a picket line between the candidates and the debate venue at Loyola Marymount unit. People who work there are in a big, tough, labor dispute that as of right now is going to put a picket line around the entrance to the debate venue and democrats do not cross picket lines. Every one of the candidates scheduled to be on stage on thursday night has said that he or she will not cross a picket line in order to get into that venue, but as far as we know, a picket lines going to be there. So far the dncs response appears to be to hope that this issue will resolve and quickly, but if it doesnt, i dont know what plan b is. And i say this is a developing story, this is definitely worth watching over the course of this week because this is not something where, like, a shade of gray is going to work. Where theres, like, some compromise solution. I mean, this is a cut and dry thing. If there is a picket line, there will be no candidates at the debate. Only if there is not a picket line can there be a debate. Thats it. Its black or white. It has to go one way or the other and it has to go fast. I mean, thursday night, thats, you know, three nights from now. And, meanwhile, between now and then, the president of the United States is going to be impeached for only the third time in u. S. History. The president s favorite way to absorb information appears to be watching television. Nothing wrong with that. And most of what he appears to watch on television is the fox news channel. Over the past couple of days it appears to have rattled a number of the president s favorite hosts on the fox news channel, and, therefore, appears to have rattled the president , himself, that in fox news own later poll on impeachment, fully 50 of the country says they believe that President Trump should be impeached and removed from office. This is among registered voters nationwide. This poll was taken last week. Again, its a fox news poll. 50 of registered voters in the country say they want trump impeached and removed from office. Only 41 say they do not want him impeached. And that is the topline result which you might imagine would cause enough agina at the white house and the fox news channel. You look at the results below that headline, the detailed results, theyre even worse. The rise in the overall proportion of people in this country who want trump impeached and removed from Office Appears to be driven by independents turning against the president on this issue, and this is bad at any time. Its marley bad heading into an election year. In late october this same fox news poll showed 38 of independents wanting President Trump impeached and removed from office. Now the proportion of independents who says that has risen from 38 in october to 45 now. And that increase in support for impeaching and removing the president from office among independents, that is driving up the numbers overall in terms of National Support for impeaching him and throwing him out. In this new fox news poll, a majority or a plurality of registered voters very clearly say that President Trump abused his power, abused power. That is, 53 38 , yes, he abused power. Also, yes, he obstructed congress. Thats 48 34 . Also, yes, he committed bribery. Thats 45 37 . Fox news poll asked is it generally wrong for President Trump to ask leaders of Foreign Countries to investigate political rivals . Registered voters by a margin of 60 24 say, yes, that is generally wrong. Well, what about the republicans argument and the white house argument that everybody does it, that president s do this kind of thing all the time . Well, fox news asked registered voters nationwide, do president s typically ask foreign leaders to investigate political rivals . And the answer, according to this new fox news poll, is no. According to 58 of registered voters, only 22 say yeah, thats normal, president s do that all the time. I mean, every element of this impeachment poll from fox news cuts against the president. Is the Trump Administration cooperating enough with the impeachment inquiry . The answer from registered voters is no. 52 36 . Are Congressional Democrats running the impeachment inquiry fairly . The answer from registered voters according to this new fox news poll is yes, democrats are running this impeachment inquiry fairly by a plurality of 45 42 . How about the president s republican defenders in congress . Fox news poll asks, this is an interesting question, asked if the president s republican defenders in congress are defending him just because they want to protect politically or are they defending him because they truly believe that what he did is not impeachable . By a 16point margin, voters nationwide say republican lawmakers just want to protect politically. Want to protect trump politically. By a 16point margin. By 16point margin, registered voters looking at the behavior of republicans and trumpsupporting members of congress through this impeachment say its not because they dont think he should be impeached, just because theyre protecting him, anyway. Thats bad. Not only for the president , thats particularly bad for the president s republican supporters in congress who all have their own political fates to worry about. So the politics of the impeachment inquiry are a, on the move and b, trending badly both for the president and for republicans in congress. And while it technically should not matter who conducts a nationwide poll like this, as long as its a scientifically sound poll, if were being realistic about it, the fact that this is a fox news poll and is, therefore, being covered all over fox news, which the president waup watches 24 hour day, that has a particular sting and particular effect for president and his staunchest defenders. The other thing that is at work here, i think this is the most interesting thing about this impeachment even when you compare it to other impeachments of the last century, right, even when you compare it to the watergate impeachment effort and the bill clinton impeachment effort, the thing i find fascinating here that i really think is it sort of stands alone, is that this impeachment crisis as the house moves to vote on articles of impeachment against the president this week, it is not a dead letter. Its not over. The impeachment scandal, what we know about it, continues to evolve and continues to break open bit by bit. For example, you remember Michael Cohen, right . It was this time last year that Michael Cohen was sentenced to prison for among other things making illegal payments totaling over a quarter Million Dollars to benefit the Trump Campaign for president by effectively payipay ing two women to make them stop asserting they had had affairs with thencandidate donald trump. Just about a year ago in the course of that criminal case when Michael Cohen was learning how much time he was going to get in federal prison that we also got headlines like these. Prosecutors say trump directed illegal payments during campaign. Federal prosecutors said on friday that President Trump directed illegal payments to ward off a potential sex scandal that threatened his chances of winning the white house in 2016. Before actually reporting for his first day in federal prison, Michael Cohen would go on to explain to congress exactly how President Trump directed him to make those illegal payments and the fact that trump wrote personal checks to Michael Cohen to try to disguise the source of the money and pay it all off. I am providing the committee today with several documents, and these include a copy of the check mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account after he became president to reimburse me for the hush money payments i made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and to prevent damage to his campaign. I am going to jail, in part, because of my decision to help mr. Trump hide that payment from the American People before they voted a few days later. As exhibit 5a to my testimony shows, i am providing the copy of a 35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on august 1st of 2017. When he was president of the United States, pursuant to the coverup which was the basis of my guilty plea. Regardless of what you think about the president and these alleged affairs, or whether you can bring yourself to think about them at all, personally, i just kind of block about it. Cant even get there even if i tried. Just oop, oop, im asleep. Nope. Asleep. Kind of a canary in a little bird cage. Put a little blanket over me. Regardless of what or whether you think about these affairs, the money that he paid to cover up the allegations of those affairs, those were felonies. The money that he paid to cover up the allegation of affairs were felony illegal payments. And Michael Cohen went to jail for them. And federal prosecutors say it was the president who directed Michael Cohen to make those illegal payments. But hes the president and so while hes president , he cant be prosecuted. And so only Michael Cohen has gone to jail for that. Funny, though, last may President Trump had to revise the Financial Disclosure that hes legally required to make as president. He revised it to include for the first time an afterthefact admission that, yes, he did pay Michael Cohen for the hush money payments to the porn star and the playboy model. Its illegal for a federal official, including a president , to lie on a Financial Disclosure form. He had not included his Illegal Campaign finance payments on his initial disclosure, but he went back and revised that and included it in a new footnote filed just before Michael Cohen went off to prison. Well, thats the history here. The its amazing, none of that factors into the impeachment at all. Thats just sliding. Right . But the New York Times reports as of this weekend that this time, what the president is not listing on his Financial Disclosure form is the free, very expensive gift, he has received from Rudy Giuliani. Free gift of legal services. In the scheme in ukraine for which President Trump is being impeached this week, Rudy Giuliani says he was acting as the president s personal lawyer for months. Trying to cook up this proverbial drug deal where the government of ukraine would announce investigations into President Trumps most feared political rival for next years election, former Vice President joe biden. Now, mr. Giuliani, believe it or not, is a very highly compensated lawyer in real life. He does have the right to work for his friend, President Trump, for free, but thats a gift if hes doing so. Under government ethics laws, thats a gift that needs to be asqu ascribed a real monetary value and needs to be disclosed on the president s ethics his financial filings. And its not a subtle thing. I mean, the rules explicitly say federal officials must disclose, quote, gifts of Legal Defenses. Either in kind or by payment of the fees. In this case, its in kind, but the