seriously. at that point i mean to thank all of our panel of experts that's clyde wilcox here with me in die hard alan baron here's with us from washington d.c. and philip bobbitt he's with us from new york thank you for all of our guests they're going to stay with us as we continue our special coverage here of the impeachment proceedings well right now it's 20 g.m.t. that's 3 pm in washington d.c. and when our 3 hours into the final debate over whether to impeach the president of the united states democrats and republicans in the house of representatives are currently making their case about whether or not donald trump violated the constitution he's accused of withholding aid to the to ukraine to pressurize and to investigation his political rival the democrat controlled house is expected to make trump the 3rd president to be impeached in u.s. history trump has dismissed the process as an assault on america democratic speaker

of the house nancy pelosi opens that debate calling for both sides to put aside their part of the ship and to vote in the interest of the country it is tragic that the president's reckless actions make impeachment necessary he gave us no choice what we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the constitution is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections the basis of our democracy hundreds of historians legal scholars and former prosecutors regardless of party had stated that the president committed impeachable offenses while trump's republican allies say the democrats have been trying to impeach the president since he was elected. we on the republican side have no problem taking our case to the majority and to the people of this country because they elected donald trump and it is

a matter for the voters not this house not in this way not in the way this is being done it is trampled everything this house believes in i said it yesterday and i believe it to be this true today i will fight this on process which has been deplorable to use the word of the majority it has been all for the calendar the clock make it impressive that we actually do it quickly we don't care about rules we don't care about minority hearing days we don't care about giving the opportunity for witnesses to be called because the chairman gets to determine what is relevant well in my interest white house correspondent candy how could that fence that's. he's on capitol hill for us where that all important vote will happen heidi we've been hearing so many impassioned statements from both sides a historic day talk us through what we've been hearing and seeing over the last few hours. that's right well we have been neck deep in these partisan arguments about these articles of impeachment of course this is the final chance for these house

members to get these statements in the record for history to remember everyone is expecting that by the end of the day that there will be this historic vote to impeach president trump which would make him only the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached the articles he is facing now is abuse of power and obstruction of congress both stemming from accusations that he used the power of his presidency to try to get you crane to announce investigations into trump's to mystic political rivals house speaker nancy pelosi this morning opened up the debate calling that an abuse of power by on part of the president and that he is an ongoing national security threat of course we're hearing a very different interpretation from republicans doug collins who is leading the republican debate on these articles he says that democrats have been searching for a way to remove trump from office since the 1st day he took the oath of office he

says this impeachment proceeding is a sham but really all we public then scan do and they have been trying to is delay what many see as the inevitable which is that by the end of tonight in about 4 hours time give or take there should be this vote that is scheduled and democrats certainly have the numbers to pass it to impeach trump the question that remains is exactly how many democrats may defect from their party caucus in voting against the impeachment there's very few who have expressed that they may do so we know one gentleman who is a congressman from new jersey says he will vote against the coachman who's a democrat who is actually considering changing to become a republican because of this vote but other democrats who represent these conservative just tricks where voters like trump. they have said that they've come off the fence on this impeachment that they will vote this evening to impeach the president explaining to their constituents that they're doing this out of

a solem responsibility to the constitution to oversee the president what they see as his wrongdoing and they do so knowing that that they may cost them their seats in congress with their conservative constituents caster there live for us on capitol hill it's a long day for heidi thank you heidi also on capitol hill republican senator lindsey graham said just a short time ago that he would want to see a quick impeachment trial in the senate without any new witnesses presented i think this exercise in the house is beginning to weaponize impeachment the intel committee could did the fact finding elements of it which is unusual the process they use i think is dangerous to the presidency is an institution when it gets here my goal is to have a short trial is possible or does it translate to when 51 people are ready to vote this one will vote the most likely outcome is to use the trial record. what they

used in the house to impeach president trump will be the trial record for the senate well let's go now to our white house correspondent candy health that candy let's unpack what lindsey graham had to say that he's saying as short a trial as possible what would that look like. yeah a short trial because essentially what the president this white house know in their working coordination is that if it isn't prolonged they can quickly vindicate the president something he's looking for because that bodies dominated by republicans and move on to the business of the american people but really what we know is going to be campaigning for donald trump's reelection what's really important to note and there is if you listen to the longer sound bite from lindsey graham because he does tend to go on for a while what he had to say there was really valuable in terms of impeachment and the impeachment process you heard him talking there about weapon i say impeachment

the concern that this has become so partisan that many in the united states do not take it credibly the reason he's saying that is because the last time we saw impeachment involving president clinton it was at the end of a very long process by an independent counsel by the name of kenneth starr this time we did have an investigation of the president with a special counsel but that concluded and now in a totally separate topic not about russia and whether there was russian collusion but now the president whether he abuse just powers of office is what's being investigated and this is what has made it very hard for ordinary americans many who support the president to trust this process speaking to what lizzie said right there they believe that it's been weaponized and that a clear cut case has not been made as we saw in the case with president clinton in fact that's why we see president trump tweeting a quote from kenneth starr that independent counsel during the last time there was a discussion of impeachment in the united states the president retreating this

quote the evidence has to be overwhelming and it's not even close the argument republicans are making the argument you heard there from lindsey graham is that this is a case built on hearsay opinion and not on concrete evidence democrats would say they tried to get it and the white house obstructed the bottom line here is that there is this compound. elling case republicans believe and that's why they believe they can convince voters to give donald trump a 2nd term when ultimately the other unique factor in all of this is that impeachment for bill clinton happened in the 2nd term this is happening for donald trump in the 1st term the voters will have a say on whether or not they believe congress acted appropriately when they vote in november kimberly we've also been hearing from kellyanne conway just now the special advisor to the president speaking from the briefing room in the white house behind you she attacked nancy pelosi even she also defended the president no surprise as that took us through what else she had to say. yeah that is the real

essence of kellyanne conway is message when i did have the opportunity to listen briefly before coming up to the cameras is that the republicans in this white house who have been working in coordination believe that the case against the president is collapsing now let me rephrase that very carefully it's collapsing among a very narrow number of voters in the united states and that is the independents in a very divided america there aren't many of them but they do exist particularly in some of the key battleground states like wisconsin michigan in fact michigan is where this u.s. president will be traveling later in the day he's going to hold a make america great again rally in battle creek michigan how fitting on a day that he is battling with the opposition democrats and already the vice president is there and he is making the case that despite the arguments that have made made against this president they would say from day one from the day of his inauguration mike pence the vice president says he admires donald trump's

determination and resilience to go forward take a listen. what's happening on capitol hill today is a disgrace you know the truth is they're trying to impeach this president because they know they can't defeat this president. they're trying to run down this president because they know they can't run against our record they can't run against our results they're pushing this partisan impeachment because they know they can't stop you from giving president donald trump 4 more years in the white house. and this was the fear of democrats and the real gamble when they decided to move ahead whether or not to go ahead with impeaching the president if this would actually help build support for donald trump the campaign seems to think so in the last couple of hours it sent out an e-mail as saying that they've really seized on what they see is impeachment fatigue among the american voters as so much so that

not only has support for the president they claim gone up very marginally but in terms of not wanting to appease him but when it comes to actual support backing of the president's policies the campaign says it's gone up by 6 percent that's significant because certainly this was the fear of democrats that the president would look like a victim and that would garner even more support whether or not that last election day is certainly a big question but for right now this is potentially not what the democrats wanted to see candy how could there for us at the white house we'll be chatting to a again later on thank you kimberly well let's bring you up to date is where about 3 hours now into the debate it's up to 3 more to go before that all important vote let's remind you of the process so once the challenges are actually approved by the house the president is then and peached bought it doesn't mean he's automatically forced from office the next step is a trial that's held in the senate and that could be as soon as january and it's

overseen by the chief justice of the supreme court there the senators will act as jurists while members of the house of representatives of the prosecution is at least 2 or 67 senators need to vote guilty on at least one of impeachment in order to have donald trump removed from office and if this happens the vice president then becomes president well let's bring in clyde wilcox who is a professor of government at georgetown university here in doha thank you for staying with me in the studio clyde we've been talking a lot about public opinion here why have the democrats even as they've laid out their case in the house and now we're going to see this for years why have they not been able to shift pup. opinion feather in his favor well because it's a very complicated story right i mean the public is not watching all the testimony the evidence is pretty overwhelming right but many americans don't have any idea where ukraine is they have no idea about crimea or russian intentions there they have no idea about foreign military aid so it's just too complicated for the

average american we've seen lindsey graham now push for this speech trial in the senate and presumably that's also what the republican leader there mitch mcconnell wants and they've made it clear that this is in their minds a partisan process how's that like use a play out with the of the senate do we see any shifts in bad allegiances it's hard to know there are some republicans who are trying to bargain with mcconnell at this point but let's stop for a bit and think about what they're saying right the republicans brought forward no fact witnesses in the house they have ample opportunity they have not right so here they have an opportunity in front of the whole country to bring in their witnesses and they're saying that the secretary of state would be a democratic witness they're saying that the president's former national security adviser would be a democratic witness right they have been witnesses so of course they want new witnesses in trial they want to get it over with very quickly. well we're also heading into an election in head how is this likely to shift the political calculus

for both sides i do you know the democrats swept a lot of swing districts in the house of representatives in any normal circumstance they would lose some of those seats this time around right so i think that's natural to happen i don't think necessarily we can tell anything about how this will play out in the election coming in november of next year however it's worth thinking about the timing of this because the republicans are saying look they're doing this right before the election well that's when the whistleblower came forward the democrats i think were reluctant to impeach this president they had ample grounds to do so when miller came in with 10 cases of felony obstruction of justice in the 2nd part of his report plenty of grounds for impeachment there they chose not to write but when the whistleblower came forward using a national security related issue i think they basically had to act then i do like the suggestion some of your other guests have had which is not to take it to the senate and continue to investigate there are 3 other whistleblowers who have come

forward who are being investigated at this moment there's a lot of people who should be compelled to testify who the courts have to rule on this and so i think that maybe instead of rushing to a sham trial it's better to keep investigating so just to be clear after the vote today the house can vote to impeach but they don't necessarily then need to immediately go on to a senate trial where they don't have to carry it out ever right they could just impeach and leave it there so if they chose to continue investigating they could then bring it at a later stage yeah they even closer to the election well yes but that would not be the point the point would be to find out more of the facts right and to. the obstruction of congress is a very serious constitutional issue and congress has the right to do the impeachment hearings lots of people who should have been compelled to testify have not so the key the court needs to rule on. that like i said there's another whistle blower so get to the bottom of the story right over the last few hours clyde you

and i've been talking a lot about impeachment this specific impeachment but let me ask you this before i let you go. how his impeachment changed as a concept of the course of time we this is potentially the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached and it's it seems it's become increasingly part of that process presumably that's not what the founding fathers envisioned so how has impeachment as a concept shifted in the american imagination well so the founding fathers didn't even think about political parties right political parties are not mentioned in the constitution there were none at the beginning there were some factions and so forth but i think if you compare say nixon who was not impeached but resigned before impeachment and clinton in both cases the party of the president did not say he's done nothing wrong they didn't deny basic facts right so in the case of dixon as i said earlier some of the republicans were leading the charge in saying i want to know what happened here and in the case bill clinton they said yeah he did this but

lying about sex is not a high crime the misdemeanor in this case you see the republican party basically denying every fact that you know their own people have testified there's a quid pro quo right the man who gave a $1000000.00 to donald trump testified that it was a quid pro quo everyone was in on it and what we're seeing here is republicans just denying they said there's no evidence it's all hearsay this was a guy who was involved right so what's really changed here this time and that makes me very pessimistic for american politics is you've got one party just says systematically denying facts that everyone knows are true. well not pessimistic that would leave it there for now clyde wilcox a professor of government at georgetown university here in doha thank you for being with me in the studio and sharing your analysis and well let's take you back to capitol hill and you're watching live pictures from the house of representatives where that final debate is underway over whether or not to impeach the president of the united states donald trump is facing charges of abusing his power and of

obstructing congress that impeachment vote is expected in the coming hours. well let's take a quick look now at news from other parts of the wild lebanon's former prime minister has announced for the 2nd time that he does not want to lead a new government saad hariri resigned back in october after weeks of anti-government demonstrations on monday the president planned to hold consultations with political parties to decide on a new prime minister but that's now been postponed until fasting people have been voicing their anger against corruption and sectarian politics governing the country for decades well protesters have rallied again in new delhi after india's top court postponed hearings on a controversial new citizenship law until january it says it needs more details

from the government the new makes it easier for non muslims from afghanistan bangladesh and pakistan to gain indian citizenship. well at least $23.00 civilians have been killed in the latest round of russian attacks on rebel held areas of northwestern syria shelling and strikes in province of escalated in recent weeks president bashar al assad's government appears to be preparing for a ground offensive to secure the main highway linking the capital damascus with the northern city of aleppo are. a major merges been announced in the car industry that creates the wilds of 4th largest manufacturer 5th cries there and p.s.a. who are the owners of persia and france have agreed to a $34000000000.00 tie up both companies have a short production line work is that no factory closures as are planned a strain has experienced its hottest day on record now the average temperature across the country on tuesday was nearly 41 degree celsius and that record could be

broken on wednesday as it's only the start of the southern hemisphere summer the searing temperatures have made things west for crews who are dealing with more than $100.00 bushfires in the eastern states of new south new south wales and ship owners are proposing a $5000000000.00 fund to reset you love a mission fuels and keana engine designs the industry is under pressure from the united nations to halt its year 2 emissions from so-called dessie fuel shipping associations are calling for a mandatory contribution of $2.00 per tonne on fuel band in order to help develop clean a technology. well you are watching special coverage here on al-jazeera because donald trump is on track to become the fed us president to be impeached you're watching live pictures now from capitol hill a house speaker nancy pelosi said that trump gave lawmakers no choice but to piss

you impeachment he's facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress that impeachment vote is expected in the coming hours is off to weeks of hearings public opinion on the impeachment remains split and you got to reports from miami and florida swing states that donald trump one back in 2016. this is not impeachable the impeachment hearings into president trump's dealings with ukraine began in november the hearings have times been dramatic revealing and deeply partisan places like graham's bar in miami though you're not likely to hit patrons talking about what many see as a political crisis it's something owner adam ghost and doesn't shy away from he holds election watch parties here isn't afraid of heated debate but says most of lost interest despite his efforts there's not an aha moment where you suddenly say democracy it's a long slog and you've got to stick with it and so my part in sticking with it is

keeping people engaged and exposing them to what's actually happening exposure to the twists and turns of politics may not be as crucial and deeply republican or democratic states florida and especially its hispanic voters will be pivotal in the 2020 presidential election i guess i kind of care but only like if he actually does get impeached but for the most part i am i am a keeping up with until the voting occurs i have no power in the situation so i don't pay attention i don't care so hard to weed through all the information out there and it seems like people are in such different sides of it that it's hard to at this point understand what's going on i mean for myself as a 2020 presidential election looms the fight to sway public opinion appears to have wavered on let's say that could have implications for the democrats they claim that trump was a russian stooge who was going to destroy the country the miller investigation found out that wasn't true and sort of decimated those trump russia conspiracy

theories and now people are left wondering is this just more partisan bickering voters remain divided in one camp or the other the sunshine state though has a history of deciding the nation's fate how people feel matters if florida does one thing consistently it tends to reflect the mood of the entire country for decades florida voters aback but when. presidential candidate and that's mostly because the demographics here make this a mini version of the united states so a collective shrug here could be seen as a fairly accurate reflection of the current mood on the gallacher all this era miami florida. well let's bring in 2 experts to help us continue to break down what's happening in washington sad as he is a professor of law at the rockets law school and he joins us now live from new york and we also have alan baron in washington he's a former special impeachment counsel to the house of representatives i'm going to start with you alan because we've been talking a little bit about the options here for the house and there is the possibility that

they may could impeach him they've they have this vote now but then they decide not to actually go to a senate trial took us through what the options are there little well i think i threw that bomb to the table the couple of appearances ago yes there's nothing in the constitution that says you must now proceed to present the articles of impeachment to the senate and unless the senate receives articles of impeachment which to operate in function they really have nothing to do and it seems to be that it may well serve the best interests of the country and of the house in light of the fact that they're being stonewalled with regard to certain critical witnesses that they don't go rushing across the from one end of the capitol to the other to present the articles take some time to continue investigating baby a subpoena and if the after slug it out in the courts in order to make this subpoena affective well now they may have time to do that so that's what i think is

at stake here and i think it's a very interesting approach so i'm going to ask you for your take on that do you think that that's a real possibility and how might that play out if they if they choose to go ahead with that. yeah legally they could do they could pursue that route i think politically the democrats are trying to not make impeachment the key issue in the election season and some analysts including myself believe that that's one reason why they are trying to get the articles of impeachment voted on before the holidays and then they would proceed to the senate with everyone understanding that it's very unlikely the democrats are going to get the 2 thirds vote from the senate i think even if they did more investigations or went to court to subpoena witnesses i don't think that would change the outcome of the trial in the senate i don't think that you're going to get almost 20 republicans because you've got 67 votes that have to go to to to impeach me to convict on the articles of impeachment

and the democrats only have 47 right now so i think they're going to go all the way through and probably do it quickly because then they want to shift to focusing on the elections well talking of that election so if we have this trial starts in the senate and january and then we watch that play out and even if it is a quick trial there have been various analysts who say that this could push public opinion further in favor of the president galvanize the republican party unite the riots and that this would actually not play out very well for democrats a toll so if they don't think that they're actually going to succeed in removing him from office why take this to the senate at all. well i think on the one hand if you don't take it to the senate it makes it seem that this is not being seriously taken you have democrats right now on the house floor discussing that this is a threat to the republicans that what trump has done is

a high crime misdemeanor and therefore for them not to go all the way through makes it more likely that the democrat the republican argument that there are essentially you know politicizing this process and they're trying to remove a president through not through elections a more plausible arguments i think they have to go they've committed and they have to go all the way was a risk that they took by even issuing by going through the impeachment inquiry it was one of the reasons why i think palosi was very hesitant in the beginning to even proceed to an impeachment inquiry but now i think they're committed the challenge here is and it's it was a risk they knew from the very beginning in the republicans are trying to play off of it as well as will these proceedings both in the house and in the trial in the senate is that going to mobilize the democratic base more or is it going to mobilize the republican base is it going to peel off independents for democrats or peel off independents for republicans it is a gamble for both sides the republicans right now if you listen to what they're saying on in the on the house floor there's

a very common narrative so one is this is an attack on american democracy this is an illegitimate illegitimate process this is an attempt to undermine erode and know if i american voters and their votes and that in fact what the democrats are trying to do is get rid of trump extra legal or extra electorally through the impeachment process if that narrative the successful that could very well mobilize more republicans in favor of trial but then the other side is that trump is effectively a dictator or that he is engaging in authoritarian practices and abusing his power and abusing his office in order to get rid of his primary rival which was joe biden so this was a very space. civic intentional move to guarantee that he would win the elections by taking out the most competitive candidate out and let me get your take on this is this the democratic party having to bite the bullet the blood by the political

bullet here in order to protect the constitution as they're framing it i'd i respectfully disagree with some of the points that the professor was making i think that what trump did here was so much worse than anything that richard nixon did in watergate they're not even comparable nixon you know it what happened was a 3rd grade book burglary evolved into a coverup all of it domestic didn't really go to the foundations of our political process this involved a foreign country that was an ally excuse me and a war with the russians and the president of the united states basically blackmailed them or tried to into helping him politically against a rival probably his most well known rival or else he wasn't going to release the.

money that the both houses had appropriated for ukraine that is terrible if the if a president can get away with something like that with no consequences we have entered a very dark era in our political life alan you've been involved in a number of impeachment trials through a self these were to do with federal judges and i want to ask you about the level the threshold of evidence that would need to be presented to senators in order for them to be pushed over the edge and have to have to potentially remove a president from office where is that threshold because we've seen white a lot of evidence put out already over the the house arguments is that enough. the answer is yes the that very question arose in actually the 1st impeachment case i tried involving then of judge alcee hastings and his counsel.

made a motion in the senate that the house would have to prove the facts beyond a reasonable doubt now that is the standard that is employed in a criminal proceeding the senate took it up and eventually they decided that it was up to each senator to decide for himself or herself what cinder they wanted to apply it could be that highest standard of the criminal law or it could be a preponderance of the evidence which is the more minimal standard used in a civil case and i think what we can infer from that is that a trial or an impeachment trial is not really anything really like a a trial in a courtroom i mean think of the fact that all of the people involved both in the house and the senate or politicians they are not judges they are not even jurors in the normal sense that we have a jury picked out of a jury pool so it's a it is a very political process and we think we're seeing that very very clearly in how

partisan this particular impeachment inquiry has been and will remain so high on going to bring you in here is what's your take on where we are in tens of the evidence because we've had lots said in the house on both of impeachment sofa and what happens when that goes to the senate and tens of fessing that evidence. well 1st i don't think that mr barron and i are disagreeing in terms of the seriousness of trump's actions and i agree that what he has done is egregious i think that it does mean the high crimes and misdemeanors obviously the articles of impeachment vote is going to likely show that today i think the the issue is really whether or not they were going to take the impeachment are the articles of impeachment and the vote on it and take it to the to the senate for the trial and i think they will but i agree that this is what happened is is very serious i mean on

2 grounds one is because you're dealing with a foreign government and the foreign interference in domestic politics but i think more importantly it's that he put his own personal political electorial interests and of national security and that is exactly what the founders did not want a president to do and that's precisely what impeachment is aimed to protect against so so i think that the allegations or the articles of impeachment are very serious with regard to the evidence and not withstanding that trump. effectively obstructed any attempt for the house the committees as well as the house itself to be able to gather evidence by telling his advisors by telling members of the executive branch to appointees not to respond to the subpoenas not to testify not to provide documents which in and of itself is really dangerous for the rule of law in the

united states because what he's doing is he's telling americans that this legal process is illegitimate that you should not respect the law because i don't respect the law you shouldn't respect the law and this is part of his messaging from when he was a candidate and it's gone through his presidency which i think is the most nefarious part of his presidency more than his specific actions is the way that he attacks the judiciary attacks judges. attacks the congress attacks legal processes and the concern that i have degree as a law professor is the generation that's coming of age right now under trump if that's what their perception is of our legal institutions of our congress of the separation of powers of the judiciary then that is going to that will not fare well for the country when they go up and think oh it's total it's normal for the executive branch not to cooperate with congress not to provide the documents but notwithstanding the obstruction of justice i think those who did testify it was

very clear that there was a quid quo pro it was very clear and even trump admits it to some extent he just doesn't think that there's anything wrong with it and that in itself it's troubling that he doesn't he thinks it is all within the disagreement on policy for him to be able to pressure the ukrainian government to open an investigation on the son of his political rival and on his political rival and it is no coincidence that biden when he announces his kid it is he was at the top of the polls so it's no coincidence that trump felt threatened by him politically this was not some random candidate who couldn't even get above one percent of the polls so this was abusing his office in need to prepare for winning the elections it's a form of cheating for lack of a better term and what concerns me is that the public that's listening to the republican narrative and that's listening and reading the tweets by trump

unfortunately they're believing a lot of it and we already know he's got 25 to 35 percent of the population has his base and he's using this as an opportunity to dig in his heels so again we've we've got a very serious rule of law problem that we have to address even if trump is removed whether through impeachment or whether through elections and consequences from this whole process and the narratives that have been spun so ha's is there for us in new york. and we've also been talking to allan baron in washington d.c. will be coming back to both of you shortly but we'll leave it there for now thank you where about 3 and a half hours now into that final debate over whether to impeach the president of the united states trump is facing charges of abusing his power and obstructing congress that historic impeachment vote is expected in the next few hours and we'll bring that to you live as it happens but for now let's go to some other news and lebanon's caretaker prime minister saad hariri says he's not putting himself forward as a candidate to head the new government for more on this let's cross to loren who is

that how europeans will profit that thanks to say yes hariri a statement comes a day before formal consultations a set to take place between the president and parliamentary blocs to designate the next leader harry resigned as prime minister in october following weeks of nationwide protests against the country's ruling elite demonstrators accuse the government of rampant corruption and a calling for a complete overhaul of the post civil war secular political system. ronnie curry is a senior public policy fan and professor of journalism at the american us to favor it he says harry recession is a signal that lebanon's political leadership is starting to listen to public opinion well he's done this several times before he's announced his candidacy that said he's not going to be a candidate than he was working by the sands to approve a candidate so with these leaders who are now part of the old oligarchic system that has ruled lebanon for many decades you never know what is the real

significance of what they 'd are doing one thing is clear though there is a new element in the political arena and it's the element of massive popular this pressure on the street against the political traditional only logic sectarian leadership and maybe heady it is decision now because he said in the last week that he was expecting to be prime minister he started insulting people maybe his decision now actually means more than it would have meant before because he probably is aware that the popular sentiment among the protesters on the street is that he would not be acceptable is part of the old system that has failed and has backed up the country and sent half the population into poverty so probably has decision is more meaningful he will he opens the stage now for real consultations among the parliamentarians but also among different political groupings and the country and this is really unprecedented in lebanon. and if he is attorney general

has ordered the arrest of former president evo morales on charges of sedition and terrorism the word stems from accusations from the country's interim government that he's been stirring unrest since resigning on his left behavior in november after protests and allegations of irregularities in the country's election which saw him return to power it said the country from mexico to since flown to argentina has been granted asylum he says the protests which forced him from office often a 14 years were part of a right wing coup. india's supreme court has postponed all herring's challenging a controversial citizenship law until next month there's been widespread anger over the new legislation which offers citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighboring countries but excludes muslims as our raman reports from krishna in the northeastern state of assam the court delay means countless families are now living in limbo. it's a sleepy village in the middle of

a sam's agricultural belt people who live here in christianized hindus and muslims yet almost soon be doing undocumented migrants so darn sarka is a pensioner he was born and has lived in the region for as long as he can remember a bengali speaking hindu he says this is home and he's indian but a recent government census deemed him and his family illegal migrants from bangladesh he was arrested and placed in a detention center for 3 years. released on bail he says his experience was traumatic and has led to complex medical issues and psychological disorders. we would break for on quality 6 wash have a cup of tea and do a little exercise and then they would lock us up to be in the room was not large enough and we slept on the floor about what do you 52 of whom sometimes not be fed until the next day. he shows me documents that date back to the 1930 s.

proving on the surface that his family has always lived in india the bengali originating in do and muslim communities here in krishna i number around about 400 families and they've lived here for decades living alongside each other in peace and of course working the paddy fields here you can see behind me but the passage of the citizenship amendment could very well undermine their very existence and render some of them stateless. the new law potentially allows anyone fleeing communal riots or religious persecution to apply for indian citizenship but siddhartha and some of his neighbors can't apply because the government does not recognize their status high court lawyers like hafiz child real waiting to see how the supreme courts rule on the controversial legislation now it is all an act of the past but the parliament so that it wants also with all the illegals can see

benefit to those buses on what i was formally didn't look mention here. for the indigenous people of the somme the new legislation is worrying they say it'll make them a minority in their own state by giving citizenship to him do refugees and then we'll have. his district in the region have seen violence again and been speaking families their business have been burnt down and there'd been economic loss but tangherlini or loss of life on this occasion the bengali hindu speaking community is scared. sudan's future is still uncertain his family's meager earnings revolve around the production of these plastic bags and the status of his family like those in the village of krishna i might not be made clear for some time. so robyn al-jazeera a sub. anticorruption campaign is a staged a mass protest in kyrgyzstan's capital bishkek for days weeks or scandal surrounding allegedly corrupt customs officials and the matter of

a whistleblower that was followed by a campaign of cyber attacks and online smith is against those trying to expose the wrongdoing paul brennan explained. several 100 demonstrators gathered in hysterics main square on wednesday in an expression of protest and a gesture media solidarity. the catalyst for all this was a damning investigative report which alleged that the former deputy head of the customs service brian back much of had accepted bribes from multibillion dollar smuggling and money laundering operations yes i'm here today because i cannot ignore this rally a lot of people came here to struggle for their future in our country to support them is my duty. as. it's not a political party not a movement it's just a platform that unites everybody nationalist liberals democrats socialists communists so common pain is corruption and we have to unite and say that we see

this corruption. protests over corruption and nepotism led to 2 previous kircus presidents being deposed in 252010 corruption is a fact of life in this the 2nd poorest of the former soviet republics and the sense of indignation this time has been fueled by the murder of the main whistleblower he had provided documents which he said showed how millions of dollars were funneled out of the country or much frame of and others allegedly received substantial kickbacks dream of his deny any corruption on november the 10th just a fortnight before the investigation was published it whistleblower was shot dead in istanbul the media which published the allegations have been hit with lawsuits and on monday their websites were knocked offline by cyber attacks some of the high profile demonstrators have faced intimidation and threats. yesterday we saw an unprecedented detox attack on 7 mass media websites it began from our website after we published an investigation with all the facts about the luxury

life of matt try emotes wife and her expenses and they were also possible but yesterday i started to receive threatening phone calls somebody with an unknown number told me to calm down and told me you don't need this rally and promising to do me harm. many are skeptical that demonstrations will lead to matter a mobs arrest or that they will trigger genuine reform. connected lawmakers in the kurdish parliament have defended him state t.v. has downplayed the protests and raise doubts about the media investigation but none of that has deterred the demonstrators and the movement is steadily growing. and that's it for me in the team here in london for this hour now though that. well if you're just joining us you're watching live pictures now from capitol hill

where donald trump is on track to become the 3rd u.s. president to be impeached house speaker nancy pelosi says he gave lawmakers no choice but to pursue impeachment he's facing charges of abusing his power and of obstructing congress the president's been tweeting throughout this debate insisting he's done nothing wrong describing it as an assault on america and that the allegations against him is true lies the impeachment vote is expected in the next few hours well let's dig into this a little more with patty callahan who's in washington d.c. with a special panel patty plenty of drama to discuss. there is a lot of drama and it can seem a little bit like groundhog day here in washington because we've been hearing the exact same arguments over days different hearings different committees now it's moved to the house floor and we're hearing hour upon hour of pretty much the same arguments want to talk about what some of those arguments are joining us to talk about this historic vote we've got john malcolm he's the vice president of the institute for constitutional government at the heritage foundation that's

a conservative think tank robinson woodward burns he's an assistant professor at howard university here in washington and melanie sloan she's a former federal prosecutor and founding director of citizens for responsibility and ethics in government to thank you all for joining us and robinson i want to start with you it seems kind of boring let's just be honest for watching a lot of politicians read from prepared speeches they're all saying the same thing for 6 hours is today important to do's important in the peterman is a fairly rare process and this will give some president should there be future impeachment hearings that also is a clarification of how congress can exercise the power against the president now that's the constitutional angle politically this is on likely to move the dial too far in november about 2 thirds of americans suggested the hearings wouldn't change their opinion about the impeachment process one way or another and we see that president trumps approval has remained fairly low and steadily low throughout his

presidency we've got a list of what he's done so impeachment probably will not have huge electoral consequences for or against the president the timing of it also could be key here because in the house right now this is all happening with just days until christmas and people are worried about a lot of other things that go along with christmas and the other holidays january is really boring in washington it generates born across the i mean unless you're diski across america it's pretty boring i suspect a lot more people be watching what do you think melanie. i think people are tired of politics in general i think we have what we call the exhausted middle of this country that is tired of reading all the president's tweets you know the days when he comes up with 100 of them and they also at the same time don't want to listen to the democrats railing against and i think they're tired by the whole process and they just want to tune out and live their lives they're also wondering when politicians are going to get around to handling the issues that they really care about i can't care but you you are right in that the approval hasn't really shifted

as since the here in started but we did see a pretty significant shift the majority of americans about 55 percent up until the ukraine story said no we're not going to teach the president that flipped so now in pretty consistently in polls we're seeing a slight majority of americans say that they think the president should be impeached or removed which is shocking in the last 2 in modern history we were there nixon had really high approval rating 60 percent up until they went really really south that he left clinton was 671 percent the day he was impeached how does that factor in john your similar diatribe i think that it's not just that americans are tired with politics what they're really tired with is blatant partisanship and that's what they view these impeachment proceedings to be these impeachment there he's going to be impeached along almost exclusively party line votes and he will be acquitted almost exclusively belong party line votes whole shift over time so you decided that poll but also actually if you want to look at what's going to affect

elections you have to look at the so-called swing states and do swing states in fact the momentum is going the other way with more people being against impeachment particularly among the key demographic of independent in the sense that it's not a dramatic shift though in those swing states and i mean either way is that it is a dramatic shift but if you're looking at trends and where it might make a difference in terms of the 2020 election which is what this impeachment proceeding is all about then it's important for all 3 of you we're going to fast forward the clock it's jan you. christmas is over all the holiday all the kids are back in school people are watching their t.v. does the trial change the narrative does it change public opinion let's go down the line for i think john is right to look at swing states and there are really 3 states that we ought to focus on michigan wisconsin and pennsylvania those are the real toss ups for this election where very boring things happen in january and i tell her in the states i'm from the midwest i'm allowed to say that god absolutely what will blankly happen in these states is that we'll see relative stability

currently the president on polls is about negative 7 to negative 14 in those states those polls will increase as we get closer to the election but the inflexibility of polling in those states suggests that it would be pretty hard for this to flip those states one way or another so i think things will stay bore well and i think the senate trial is going to be anti-climactic and i think that that's what mitch mcconnell lives he's making sure there aren't any witnesses and it's going to be a very quick affair there's not going to be a lot to see so i think it's unlikely to change anybody's feel. i think it'll be anti-climactic because there's not enough there to to justify removing the president i think one of the reasons why the democrats are rushing this is that they realize that that no one's paying attention to any of the people they have running for the nomination to be president they want the public to get beyond this so the people start focusing on that and you know robinson is correct about the president's negative poll numbers but i would note that around this time when he

was running for reelection barack obama was in negative territory 2 that he won reelection in reasonably handily so we'll see what happens his poll numbers were about the same as they were negative at a point in time but i want to bring up something that i think the democrats have positioned themselves fairly well in the senate when it comes to the trial they have been christian where we saw him very unusually come out didn't negotiate necessarily with mitch mcconnell the senate majority leader said we want witnesses and you're starting to hear the being hammered home by democrats if you've got nothing to hide then let us have the 1st 10 people who had to have the people who have firsthand knowledge you're close to staff the american people agree with that in an a.b.c. washington post poll just a couple of days ago 71 percent of the people asked said the president should allow his top aides to testify gatton is that going to happen i don't know whether it's going to happen with respect to letting witnesses testify i notice that adam schiff did not allow the house republican. you know participants in the intelligence committee to call the witnesses that they want i predict that this will probably

end up being a shorter trial but i could be wrong about that we may end up hearing witnesses from and appearing from mick mulvaney and john bolton and we manned up hearing from want to bodmin the whistleblower we'll have to see so melanie how does that play out let's just explain the process to everyone the republicans have only have to have 4 of their members say to mitch mcconnell no we're not doing that we agree with the democrats you need to have witnesses so that its peers to be a fair trial now how likelihood how likely is that in your opinion you know i think mitch mcconnell right. very tight ship and manages to keep his members of his caucus together for example if you look back to the kavanagh hearings he with the confirmation hearings of supreme court justice brett kavanaugh he managed to keep his caucus together and that too is very controversial so it seems likely to me that they will stick with him you know it's always possible susan collins who's up for reelection in maine might feel the need to say yeah i want to hear from witnesses i suppose they're going to be looking at their polling in their own

states but in general they tend to go with mitch mcconnell robinson let me ask you that question because we have force republican senators who are retiring and they don't care what. can hurt them and the political calculus here in the united states is very much that if you go against this president he will go against you he will go on twitter you will lose your primary you've got 4 republican senators who don't who don't really have anything to lose they're leaving and then you've got the mitt romneys of the world who like to send the message that they're the reasonable ones in the room. for good go if democrats or do they just say well if it's unlikely i would seem to hamilton hope that this would be roughly nonpartisan process that the senate would be able to act as a sort of more cool and deliberative body than what the house but unfortunately it is this is a much more partisan process than hamilton had hoped one point that senator flake

made on september 27th was that if these were private enclosed trials then $35.00 republicans would vote to remove the president now that's speculation on his part but it is likely that these senators are concerned about their reelection and even those who may be for who could be a little bit more nonpartisan are still operating on behalf of their partisan constituency that elected them and i was just that yeah there is joe manchin and doug jones on the democratic side who are also going to be watching their flank to i don't know how all of these senators are going to vote i don't predict we're going to see any earth shattering results but i think there are people at the computer early in political terms in terms of their own reelection prospects joe manchin is not up for reelection but he's of course in west virginia where they're always watching how he votes you know i don't think it will end up moving much but there are people on both sides that have to figure that you think that's true john you've been in washington do you think that's true that a lot of these republican senators privately say they think the president isn't fit

to be president if there wasn't going to be any sort of punishment for them that they would stand up against him i you know i can't crawl inside their minds to see to see what they think i mean there's no question this president is unorthodox yes of tweeting out saying things that i would certainly never see at the very least he's exhausting but being exhausting is not a reason to remove the president if there were a secret ballot i have no idea how people would vote but of course it's not going to be a secret ballot well let's talk about the president's deep on popularity because it's freely unusual i mean yes obama had had this attack but it's deeply unusual that a president's facing impeachment this unpopular and gets nobody wants to go against him so i would still what's going on. as already been g.o.p. does not really have a big game besides trump on the national scale we've seen young voters and particularly voters of color swing away from the g.o.p. in durable ways and it's pretty hard to bridge that after the fact with

a sort of more moderate middle ground and without young voters to appeal to particularly the g.o.p. doesn't have any other options besides trump and for that reason they stick with him and hold their nose when he says things that are perhaps unpalatable but that's what i want to go back to over the long term because politics are being set in for young people they're overwhelmingly saying they're not associated with this republican party once those narrative set in a person they tend to stick with that party they don't for most of their vote in adult life how concerned are you for republicans that they are losing people of color young people i mean this is not a country and i've said this before that's getting older or white or it's the exact opposite so what is the concern of the long term if he's impeached in the house survives the senate possibly even gets another 4 years you know i i don't know i have no crystal ball in that regard are you concerned well short changing demographics and how that affects alecto politics all you know that certainly concerns me on the other hand i would note that this president passed you know

historic will justice reform efforts that unemployment for african-americans has never been better in this nation's history so i think that you know things can change over time but there is no question this is a very polarizing president you talked about his is negative and while his popularity is somewhere around 43 to 45 percent among registered republicans it is significantly higher than that which is why i think you see some republicans who are afraid to you know they make privately criticize the president publicly is a different thing but for an international audience i should explain he is hugely popular with the republican party sometimes 80 to 90 percent in polls they make up 27 percent of the electorate so that just to put it in a broader context i have one question we only have 2 minutes left so i want to try and get to all of you so if you could be brief. possible this is a president who doesn't like criticism he's concerned about his place in history and he gets takes it very personally when he feels rejected how is this being the 3rd president in the history of the country more than 200 years to be impeached how

is this going to affect the way he governs is littered with speaker pelosi suggested that this current fairly deep he has no love from the democratic party to the democratic house and this i think will prevent him from being hospitable towards democrats in congress in the future when the real quick i think he was never going to be hospitable towards democrats really anyway so i think that he is in denial and he will just move on and say this was an unfair totally political partisan political exercise and it really doesn't affect him and it's unfair and he'll move on john is on a bigger i'm going to leave believes what he believes you know this is a man who when he gets punch counterpunch isn't really says you sorry on the other hand even in the midst of all of this he reached across the aisle and was able to forge a compromise on the u.s. canadian mexican agreement so i assume that there will be targets of opportunity in the future even if it's real and funding the government and if you can find me the one time this president has said i'm sorry or i was wrong i will take you to dinner

i can actually win that that ok well we're going to have a chance to talk about it a couple of hours so right now that is the latest from washington a very divided washington but it washington that's looking forward to january so for a while back to discuss the. well right now it's $21.00 g.m.t. that's 4 pm in washington d.c. and we are now 4 hours into that final debate over whether to impeach the president of the united states you're watching live pictures now of the debate that's ongoing on capitol hill let's actually take a listen adam schiff is speaking and that he would do anything you asked him to if that wasn't telling enough my colleagues in a conversation that followed an american diplomat dining with saw him and asked if it was true.