Book, desk 88 . good to be back. congratulations on the book, by the way. thanks. thanks. senator, let s start with the big news. mayor michael bloomberg looks like he is jumping into the race. david axelrod saying it is not exactly a vote of confidence for joe biden. what do you think? well, i think it probably doesn t change much. i think that bloomberg has wanted to do this all along, and i don t know i don t quite understand why alabama. i guess that s got to do with the filing deadline. but i m not dissatisfied with the candidates the way he says he is. i think this will play out and we ll see by january, february, march, april, you ll see the best candidate emerge. i don t guess you care to venture a guess on who that who the candidate might be. i really don t. and i honestly people ask me privately and publically in ohio
Pulled out three or four drawers. this desk said mcgovern. just said kennedy. i said, ted, walk over. i said which brother s desk is this. he said it s got to be bobby s because i have jack s desk. it does represent the power that my belief and the power of government to make people s lives better. that s what hugo black did, that s what bobby kennedy did. that s why i wrote this book, to emphasize the importance of progressive change. it s fascinating. thank you so much. what a pleasure to have you on. i really appreciate it. thanks for the show you do, don. eight progressive senators who changed america. roger stone on trial. and today in court. insults, threats and the godfather.
Two weeks and you choose based on seniority where you re going to seat. i heard it really doesn t matter. there are no bad seats. so i pulled open three or four desk drawers because i heard that senators write their names sort of like middle school, carve their names in the desk drawer. mcgovern, gore, tennessee, and kennedy. so i said to ted kennedy then in the senate, he walks over and i said ted, which brother s desk is this. he looks and says, well, it s got to be bobby s desk. i have jack s. so i started thinking about who some of these senators were. some of them i knew a lot about. not many. a few i knew nothing about. and i selected eight of them. no particular reason it was eight. and began writing and thinking and researching. and ten years later, the book was finished. so i didn t speed write this. i thought a lot about it. i read 150 books to prepare for it. but i wrote it mostly because i believe that the power of government can make a difference positively in people s lives. it s the reason i wear this canary pin.
So what can we expect if and when this case heads to trial in the senate? joining me now is senator sherrod brown from ohio. he is the author of the new book desk 88: eight progressive senators who changed america. i love the book and we ll talk about it in a second. first i want to ask you. in terms of impeachment, you said you will look at the evidence if it comes to trial in the senate. but you also say the evidence shows you a fact pattern that even richard nixon wouldn t have committed. what do you mean by that? i m not a lawyer, but i understand this whole process. that s often done in secret. obviously the impeachment hearings will be public as they should. then the trial begins, the trial is open. both sides get to present their cases. the house impeachment members who will be prosecutors in essence in the senate chamber and then the president has his
When you stand next to donald trump and you have that kind of crowd reaction, you play to it. and i m disappointed because i like john. and for him to say that about nancy pelosi is so off the mark. i say in my book, she is probably the best even more than lyndon johnson the best leader of a political party in either house in this congress in a hundred years. i want to talk about the book desk 88. and desk 88 is your senate desk. and you write about eight other progressive senators who have shared that desk. i want to start by asking the moment when you first opened the desk in 2007, i guess, when you were becoming a u.s. senator and you saw those names there. i think we have a picture of the desk here. and there are a lot of names there including robert kennedy, al gore sr. what s it like that moment where you open a desk like that and see those names and think, my gosh. i m actually going to sit here. yeah. it s pretty exciting. i ve been in the senate probably
Decides not to do anything while russian oligarch money floods into his backyard or you could just look at that clip. mitch mcconnell, again, saying nothing s going to happen and even predicted that if the impeachment inquiry went to the senate, well, it wouldn t matter because the president s going to be acquitted anyway so much for being fair or impartial or intellectually honest. i know that he never has been. i m just surprised he admitted it in public yesterday so blatantly. disagree with him on so many issues, but he is better than this to quote our good friend. you would think he would be. joining us now democratic senator sherrod brown, i believe, of ohio. there he is. you re the author of the new book desk 88, eight progressive