7 Moments That Stood Out From The 1st Day Of The Trump Impeachment Hearings

Speaker 1: 00:00 Day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry of president Trump will continue. Friday. The first day of hearings led to new revelations in the inquiry, but this is just the beginning as house Democrats try to build a case that the president tried to bribe or extort Ukraine here with more about how the impeachment process is playing out is UC San Diego political science professor fad [inaudible]. Professor cow's are welcome. Thanks for having me. What were your major takeaways from the first day of the public impeachment hearings? Speaker 2: 00:28 Well then day one was a good day for, for Democrats for a couple of reasons. First, they were able to deliver some new news, right? There was, uh, an allegation, uh, that the president who was overheard in this phone call with his, with it, with a loud voice on a cell phone demanding an investigation. And then his ambassador is an picked ambassador, George Sutherland, ambassador Sunderland saying, you know, we think he cares more, uh, repeatedly about the investigation than about the Ukraine that comes close to having presidential intent. That is, and importantly, it was something that didn't surface in the deposition and he saw the Democrats immediately moving to subpoena the witness who heard this firsthand and, and, and we'll, we'll likely hear for them. So I think for the Democrats, they needed to show that they were bringing something new to the game, that this was really an investigation, not just political theater. And I think getting a new fact into the record was an important win for Democrats. Speaker 1: 01:26 You say this impeachment is looking like that of president bill Clinton. How so? Speaker 2: 01:30 Well, I think at this stage of the bill Clinton impeachment, we had an agreement on the facts of the matter, right? That what bill Clinton did, that he had this extramarital affair with a white house intern and, and that he wasn't truthful, uh, that he lied about it to Congress. And then the debate became over, well, was that a high crime? Was that an impeachable this, there's an agreement on the set of facts and then a question and debate over interpretation of is this impeachable? And I think where we are now is, you know, ever since, uh, the president, uh, released his transcript to the Ukraine, we know that he invited, he asked as a favor Ukrainian information on his political rival in 2020 and I think the Democrats are trying to build and have our assembling a more and more solid case that the president was making aid to Ukraine and, and a white house visit conditional upon that. But the question that many Americans are still split over, we've seen this in Washington and we see it in polls, is, well, okay, if he did this, is it big enough to impeach? And so in that way, we would have a similar agreement on a pattern of facts. And now the debate is about, is this a, you know, a Cardinal sin or are merely venal. Speaker 1: 02:38 So what is an impeachable offense? According to the constitution, Speaker 2: 02:42 it does it in five as [inaudible] high crime or misdemeanor, right? It elevated to the constitutional level. And a lot of the work that has been done that we've seen in, in, in the last few months about what the debate was, uh, in Philadelphia at the constitutional convention, how founders talked about it, it really struck at crimes that were not just, you know, a traffic violation, but ones that strike at the balance of power between the branches or bringing in foreign governments to uh, to have influence over what was then a, you know, a very isolated and, and we country that was, that was open to the whims of, of Europe. And so I think the argument that Democrats are making is that by trading U S policy and for traps betraying its central purposes to solicit a political advantage in the next election and help the damages opponents, what the president was doing was getting in the way of the balance of power, the operation of the democratic system in America. And it was bringing in foreign interference. You know, which even in this day of us as a superpower still can directly contravene us national policy interests. Speaker 1: 03:47 Now do the Democrats have to lay out a crime in order to make a credible and reasonable case for impeachment? Speaker 2: 03:52 Yeah, I think Democrats that you know that as prosecutors, uh, at this stage, right, they are going, you know, because even though the house in peaches, the Senate holds a trial and convicts, they're going to have to act like prosecutors here. They're going to have to try to convince the American public of exactly what happened, but also why it's important. And that's why you saw these, these civil servants, bill Taylor and George can't talking about why the Ukraine is so important, why it's important to a stable Europe. Why the U S mission there that they were, they were faithfully representing was so vital to our national security interest in why, uh, they felt certain actions, uh, you know, got us off that miss mission. If Democrats want a swing the public and thus have any chance of swinging Republican senators to impeach, they're going to have to press that case and make it convincing. Speaker 1: 04:41 Does the fact that the aid eventually went through undermine the Democrats argument at all? Speaker 2: 04:47 I don't think it did just because if you look at the patterns of the fact, uh, that aid was held up at the time the Trump administration was pressing for this, it seems. And, and w w we'll see public testimony, um, very likely, um, by, by U S diplomats who communicated that message very clearly to, uh, to, to the Ukrainian officials, you know, if you do this, we will do that. And also the fact that the aid went through just after this situation started to blow up and after public reporting on this potential scandal came up, the aide was forced through that makes a, that doesn't make a compelling case, uh, of defense for the administration. Speaker 1: 05:27 Now, Republicans have said this, impeachment inquiry against the president is politically motivated. Have previous impeachment proceedings ever had bipartisan support. Speaker 2: 05:36 You know, they have had bipartisan support. And that's what led at the end of the day to, uh, to, to Richard Nixon resigning. Right when he saw after a long, very long process, really after two years after the Watergate crisis broke, public opinion was slow to change, much slower than it has in this impeachment inquiry. But by the time we got to 1974, by the time the advanced to the Senate, he was clearly losing Republican support. That's why he resigned. We're in a very different America today. There aren't liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats anymore. We're in a much more polarized era where, where both parties know that a lot of their policy goals and their electoral fortunes are tied up in the fate of this president. And it makes it much less likely that you'll see the parties split on this. But as more and more facts emerge, some of the senators who are facing tough reelection campaigns and have been silent and on the fence on this, there's some possibility that they may move. Speaker 1: 06:29 Well, the hearings resume tomorrow. What can we expect then and going forward into next week? Speaker 2: 06:34 Well, I think we're going to see more partisan sip. We're going to see more calls of a witch hat, more tweets, uh, and the Democrats. Clear playbook is to make this as sober and, and responsible as possible. And at the same time that they are looking alike, sober, responsible people, they want to make it not too boring. They want to keep this being must see TV. They need to keep making sure that there are moments of testimony that crystallized their case and, and can be replayed on the six o'clock news and, and share it on social media that that'll help make their case because most Americans aren't going to have the patience to sit and watch these hearings as we get deeper and deeper into this process. Speaker 1: 07:17 I have been speaking with that cow's Couser, UC San Diego political science professor, professor [inaudible], thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me.