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Articles. >> reporter: now despite the acrimony today nancy pelosi extended an invitation to president trump to deliver the state of the union before congress on february 4th, the president has accepted. >> sara murray, thank you so much. and let's talk about what she wrote in the invitation. in the great wisdom our founders crafted a constitution based on a system of separation of powers, threeco equal branches acting as checks on each other to ensure the balance of power the constitution calls for the president from time to time give the congress information of the state of the union. that...

For more on that, i am joined by aaron blake, senior political reporter at "the washington post." we start with the idea mitch mcconnell, echoed by lindsey graham, says we don't need witnesses. we don't really need testimony. we don't really need to read transcripts. we're in lockstep, and mitch mcconnell actually said this on tv on fox news, we're in lockstep with the white house about how we're moving forward with this. this stands in contrast to the idea that the constitution calls for the senate to hold something akin to a trial. >> yeah. and i think it's important that we view some of the...

When barack obama decided to unilaterally suspend the senate so he could appoint some people to the national labor relations board. the supreme court ruled against him that he violated the constitution. could republicans have impeached him for abuse of power? this is a standard we're setting going forward. paul: democrats just want to get this over. >> yeah. yeah. we are lowering the bar, that's a very important point to make hearing we're lowering the bar. if resisting subpoenas from congress is an impeachable offense, most modern day presidents should have been impeached. there's no underlyi...

Unilaterally suspend the senate so he could appoint some people to the national labor relations board. the supreme court ruled against him that he violated the constitution. could republicans have impeached him for abuse of power? this is a standard we're setting going forward. paul: democrats just want to get this over. >> yeah. yeah. we are lowering the bar, that's a very important point to make hearing we're lowering the bar. if resisting subpoenas from congress is an impeachable offense, most modern day presidents should have been impeached. there's no underlying criminal statute here, not...

Coordinating with defense counsel doesn't make any sense. >> for mcconnell to be basically saying that the president is going to set the terms of the trial, that the president is going to get to decide the timetable and who is called? our founders would be rolling over in their grave. >> he should really take himself out of this kind of coordination with the white house. meeting with lawyers. he is undermining the credibility of the senate not just himself. ed: basically the majority leader of the senate can't lead the senate? >> here's what's interesting. is that, you know, the constitution c...