as laid out by the government a turkish ship has been seized off the coast of northern libya by forces loyal to warlords $24.00 have to it happened just hours after turkey's parliament voted to ratify a military agreement with libya's internationally recognized government meanwhile drone strikes on the libyans. have killed 3 people the internationally recognized government says the drones are being used by the united arab emirates that supports have to out west african leaders have ended a summit in nigeria's capital amid increasing cross border security concerns leaders from the economic community of west african states discussed fund raising to support the fight against violence attacks in the region those are the headlines out 0 up fronts is coming up next thanks for watching. the poll is really. no one east goes back to school to find out the secret to this.

and historic week in washington d.c. president donald trump impeached so what happens now and up from special. this week donald trump became the 3rd president in u.s. history to be impeached by the house of representatives democrats in congress voted through 2 articles of impeachment one of which charges that the president abused his power and pressured the government of ukraine to assist with his reelection campaign by investigating a political rival and the 2nd which accuses him of obstruction of congress next up is a trial in the senate in the new year where the president is sure to be acquitted by

a republican majority so how bad is this for trump and win it or maybe help his chances for reelection in 2020 joining me to debate this a hall in the hill a republican political consultant an advisory board member to the trump 2020 campaign tiffany cross liberal commentator and co-founder of the news website the b d c and john mikhail constitutional lawyer and law professor at georgetown university thank you all for joining me on this special episode of upfront hauler let's start with you the house of representatives voted to impeach donald trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress that's both pretty damning and some might say pretty humiliating for a 1st term president it's a big deal to be impeached he's one of only 3 presidents it's historic but in context of the current political atmosphere i don't think it's at all surprising. you had elements of the democratic party declaring on and knock your each day that

they had every intention of impeaching this president this was a foregone conclusion it was a foregone conclusion to. now i think certainly there probably were some people who recognized some questionable things happening on the campaign trail however if it were a foregone conclusion my goodness trump must've been their coconspirator because he time and again proved that he was worthy of impeachment by continually repeating impeachable acts and so i don't think that we should be looking at this through the prism of republican versus democrat these are patriots versus people who are going against the constitution and it's laughable to people who defend this president time and again if this is not impeachable what is let's just bring in joan. collins says it was a foregone conclusion tiffany says it's about patriots versus people who are not defending the constitution in a rover on the run to the left of this week to nancy pelosi called it a crusade versus a crusade and an unprecedented unconstitutional abuse of power by democrat

lawmakers elsewhere he's called it a hoax he's called it illegal as a constitutional law professor what do you make of such claims about the process itself. i thought the president's letter was quite surprising and i don't believe it's going to. speak well of him from a historical perspective he seemed to be wanting to write from that perspective so that in the future we could look back on this event and reach the verdict that he hoped but it was really an on his letter as you described it quite surprising to me that his lawyers or the people around him as advisors led him to the lawyers were cut out of the writing chrysalis admit that but on the substance and this is something that will come up trumps state of mind all day long and another day or on the substance is it illegal illegitimate the way the democrats have done this no it's not that the constitution vests broad authority in the house to impeach and in the senate to try and preachments there are imaginable circumstances where there

could be review of those procedures but under very unusual circumstances and nothing like we have here on the substance of the impeachment many would argue it's an open and shut case from the rough transcript of his phone call with the ukrainian president from the witnesses who have testified under oath in public many of the members of his own administration for what trump himself openly says is tiffany mentioned is it any wonder to you all the more than i think 800 law professors and 1500 historians have said based on the evidence he should be along partisan lines people believe that i mean i read the transcript and i didn't find that it was offensive at all but you know people can draw different conclusions and i can then i will ultimately i think that this will go to the voters in 2020 and he's going to win in a landslide ok and so you guys can try to litigate this all you want here in washington but we travel countries come back from ohio and we're going to do it come to the politics of it just on the substance you say you read the cool it's all politics on lines but people who testified in congress are not partisans you know literally members of it only get a straight who is calling these witnesses i mean who is calling the witnesses so it

is an ok well many of many are george w. bush on the phone all right guys you know if we're going to get back into that i mean there are so many neo cons and never try. or is that a permit that permit this administration how can you be really doesn't question all that i mean i was good at how could you have never trump or if you work for trump there are so many never trampers in this administration it is all you say about lots of people to buy fortunately many of the people who are making early decisions in this white house were counter to the president's intentions i mean holland just very quickly to the trump says it was a perfect phone call do you agree with him on that yeah ok there are some republicans who say it was a perfect phone call but also that he shouldn't be impeached for it he may not be in the right language but it doesn't rise to the level of removing a president from of his wife we are going to have lengthy impeach this president for this what we impeach a president for when you look at this is that the conservation of our democracy where very young democracy when you look at it from the world stage people would look at us with a you guys are baby you're not old enough our democracy has never before been tested like this so if you're saying it is ok for the president of the united

states with the help from a foreign power to investigate your political opponent i have to question your state of mind you've got to fight all their patriotism is it ok to do that. well not necessarily that he was soliciting them for help in the election maybe tacitly that's what it was but he didn't explicitly say that he didn't express that he's ok what he did and that's a no no no i'm not i'm not going to see that he did do that so when he said china forget ukraine showing the should start investigation into the bidens because what happened in china just about that but only if someone's committed a crime and you want to get to the bottom of the debate was clearly would you want to set a precedent and i think we should investigate hillary. and the democrat running for office also we should investigate all of this although she's done wrong all over the place not necessarily and for all that i just i just it just to do with a point to do the principle here just a consistency so the democrat kind of in the sun does this with warren joe biden you're ok with them saying iran would like you did investigate. you're ok with that

i'm going to make the point that you all are perfectly fine with. congress investigating the press in the united states in an election year you're not. fine because joe biden is running for office for that anyone to investigate him for any wrongdoing or for anyone to investigate hillary clinton in the argument a foreign government should investigate him say so the president if their foreign government wants to pursue an investigation that's fine you just on some of us to denounce are sure you're ok with bernie sanders or joe biden next year asking the iranian government to investigate don't do news business dealings you're going to have some there's been some crime then go and investigate it you're ok with that yeah going to find it a democrat say and i'll investigate it as the rest of us and then again i don't i really answer the question as if there's been wrongdoing if they want to call for it fine ok john you didn't sign the letter from professes a few days ago saying that there is a case for impeachment. you know at the time it was circulated i didn't have a chance to read all the materials that have been published on the question and i

wanted to do that before drawing a conclusion i just to be clear i'm persuaded that the president committed impeachable acts at this point i had some reservations about the letter as well because it's not clear to me that focusing single this episode as opposed to the broad sweep of conduct that the president has been gauged in is is the right way to go on this tiffany what's your position on the idea that for example some people say why not put the a monument schools divided nation of you know foreign governments paying trump or campaign finance violations or kids in cages a lot of attacks on president trump but when it came push came to shove the house democrats with 2 very narrow articles related to ukraine is very peculiar to me that for some reason ukraine resonate with the american people but it was something that with simple that it got and i know you know you have people on the other thought i would say well this isn't resonating with the american people but what american people are you talking to i talk to people all the time i'm from ohio very

familiar with from supporters and actual you know people who support the constitution in the country and i think that there are a lot of people who support this and so i think nancy pelosi may have erred when she thought the american people have to be with this well when they're going to do lazy in a big store i think when there's been a continuing dumbing down of the american election and not everybody consuming the minutiae of politics like we are i think there are things that people would have supported and also say this was one of the most complex issues they could have gone after the president to impeach him on going after his businesses would have been so much easier if we just speaking politically in addictively this is absolutely the wrong one to have gone with no question we're going to be the country to me just clarify one thing for our audience what you know because one thing that's often very confusing for people is the constitution talks about impeaching the president for treason bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors the president said again this week there was no crime let alone a high crime but that's not why crimes refers to you don't actually you don't actually have to go. it is a criminal offense to be impeached am i right in saying that correct so it's very

clear from the history of the scholars who have looked at this very closely that criminal conduct is neither necessary nor sufficient to constitute impeachable conduct under the constitution let's talk about the senate trial because that's where this goes next in the new year the senate controlled by the republican party unlike the house tiffany what is the point of all this if impeachment is just going to be rejected in the senate anyways doesn't that make this all a big waste of time i don't think so i think it is important for the american people to see the evidence laid out before them i think it's unfortunate that you don't have an impartial senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has said openly that he's quite meeting with the white house i think those are all important things for people to consume i realized that something is what has gone wrong in our democracy and this is not ok for whatever happens in the senate it should still be questioned by 'd by voters come $22020.00 points out that mitch mcconnell did go on fox news and say we're coordinating with the white house on this he said he's not an impartial jury the senate is supposed to act like jurors you also have. republicans

saying we don't want any witnesses to stand trial now it's done should be done in the house what do you say to people who say the senate trial looks rigged you know i don't mean there should be a trial was just. like let's put this on a fast track let's get this done with this is all this has been all political conservatives are all into the constitution defining the constitution in that part of the cons yes let's put it let's go like enough dragging this out because it's a waste of time we're not going to remove the president so anything short of just ending this is for show and so republicans could pretend like you know we're going to put everybody through the paces whatever it's a complete waste of time to put a radio here in the same republican body that impeach bill clinton insisted every one of those i'm not going to defend this i'm not going to defend impeaching president bill clinton i think it's absurd but when you have lindsey graham for example as a prominent if i'm not sure i'm certainly not going to fail as a graham. but he was saying in the late ninety's a lot of the stuff you say we need to witness is we need people of open minds beautiful trial and now he's saying i'm not a i want to get this over and done with. i'm not sure if you thought but you see

what the real say let's get a delegate let's get it done because i'm going to you're going to see i'm not going to finance a proxy earned consistency because i think bill clinton had been impeached in the 1st place consistent is what i'm trying to be you have. trouble can be impeached in the house the lower chamber but for the president to be removed requires a 2 thirds super majority in the senate which is currently controlled by tribes politics did the founders joan want to make impeachment really difficult really hold really rare is that was the point they did they did and i think it's a point to add to our other conversation is that there's a strong presumption against impeaching government officials and certainly against him preaching the president and it takes a lot to overcome that presumption so going back to a point that was made earlier i don't think this was a foregone conclusion nancy pelosi for example made fairly clear that she was reluctant to go for them pietschmann i think the events the recent events with respect to ukraine tip the balance so there is

a presumption against impeachment the founders did want to make it hard to impeach a government officials and certainly with the president who has tremendous power and who has someone elected by the the american people there's an even stronger presumption arguably than in the case for example of a federal judge just deal with that point nancy pelosi many on the left would argue was dragged kicking and screaming towards impeachment. it was a foregone conclusion they're going to so she's get on with it and get get it done with i think that there where there's a especially radical element of her party that was pushing for this for a long time and it's you know that it will do you know she can relate to really at least one of likely i mean i think that this is all the product of a massive political miscalculation that they thought while they were deciding who the nominee of the democratic party was going to be they were going to distract and try to tear him down a notch and make him run as an impeached president and in fact what the result is is record fund raising for the president a lot of it said i just got back from a trump rally in hershey pennsylvania there were 15000 people inside. they're like

4000 people in the snow i mean like everywhere i go people are so excited for this president joe biden can't even even fill like a school johnnie's so i do want to come up to that point in shortly just one last question on the senate issue to view pointing out that the republicans don't want to have a kind of. drug haul and so you would say all done just have a vote get on with it is the problem here that it's all very well criticizing republicans for having made up their minds and votes but it's not just democrats have made up their minds on the phone see that it's all of these democrats sitting there going oh you know donald trump i want to i want to i want to quit him yeah i would actually refute that i think there are democrats who haven't made up their mind they've been pretty vocal about a shooting from of the well they're of the 2 but the little girl just as part of the knowledge public in the arts on the republican side are people who are you know wavering on what they're going to do so i think the difference is though between these 2 parties that's really not the republican party anymore right like this is like the trump sycophant when they were in evidence by harlan comments about how

awesome his rallies are and so that has anything to do with governing. and i'm not sure if that would be a isolated you look at you know what the republican party is doing when you had minority leader. kevin mccarthy on 60 minutes talking about the transcript of the phone call he hadn't even fretted and when you ask people what have you read the report have you read the transcript on the republican side time and again they say no we haven't even read it we don't want to see evidence you see a pattern of behavior where they say you know what this never this crime that you commit it never happened and then they go to well it happened so what this is been consistent through out the presidency so again if you are a supporter of democracy if you are supporter of patriotism then certainly you should want access is the examined in congress a co-equal branch of government so this is perfectly representative of the climate that is so unhealthy in that time she's just basically implied that i'm not a patriot and i'm working against the country and that i'm a sycophant ok. directly and i believe in that. is truly truly unfortunate i have

not attacked you personally in the way that you have i don't particularly think. this perfectly illustrates the problem in this town perfectly instead of having a conversation person we can with. people about listen we all we all we all make mistakes but. some people think people who should try to minimize them so the idea of donald trump because he is the living modern american he is the leader of the working class party and this kind of i'm going to get in here. yeah no. because it's not he was so i mean going to take a 16 year. old out i don't look at people i'm going to color to go back to where they came here i am going to it's happened the things i learned about this pragmatically and no candidate is perfect but for the 1st time in generations there is a man standing up and he's giving voice to people in the heartland of america that i've said all these trade deals are sending my jobs overseas we're going to read

about completely true that's already got i look at this pragmatically and i'm not even close these teeth have nothing to do with trade deals do they you're trying to tie this back to the very you've made a very strong point the republican party that you personally attacked you and i and i'm just checking you against personal attacks by your here supporting on. the world a cry again for as i said i'm also politically pragmatic and i'm voting for the guy and i'm supporting the guy that i think is going to do the best job for the american people so let's so let's talk about what are those attacks ideal ok let's talk about who's going to do the best job you've alluded a couple of times to how you think this is working in favor of the president this entire impeachment process the big question for politicians and pundits hanging over this process constitution and legality aside is is this going to hurt or help donald trump's reelection chances in november 2020 what do you all think tiffany i think it's incredibly challenging to penetrate this wall full layer of ignorance. i think he could do i think it is very true when they think it's somebody on 5th avenue and not have any. you know there was

a news organization here in america that's weeded out a video of his supporters who were threatening mass violence against the country if he were impeached somebody said i have a 357 magnum that says he won't be impeached these are the people that support this president and so i think when you look at it through that lens of course those people are going to stick with him here's what we know chops the base has not grown in since 2016 he has only lost people there's nobody who looks at the past 2 years and say you know what that truck guy he's on to something i think i'm going to put 5 and get in his camp it is true if you look at you know that everybody is going to be historically speaking when you had under johnson impeached like an 868 nixon jump before he could actually be impeached by the full house in 97 for quit bill clinton obviously in the late 1990 s. does history tell us anything about how damaging it is for president and for their party when they're huge. i think we only have a few data points as you mentioned and they point in different directions so johnson i think was clearly hurt by his impeachment he didn't rebound he lost the

next election grant president grant was elected he was damaged goods he was not likely to rebound clinton on the other hand president clinton his popularity actually rose as a result of his and all the democrats lost the white house at the end of his presidency that then of his presidency but that was 2 years later he was already into his 2nd term so it's hard to tell i think you know given the reality of the way our constitutional system is designed this strategic question about what's likely to happen really is going to come down to the voter perceptions in a small number of states the swing states especially the upper midwest states like colorado virginia perhaps but especially wisconsin michigan yes pennsylvania and that's really the key question i do not know what the answer is to that question i think we none of us will know until we get closer to the election all and just in terms of being good for trump i hear this often that it would be it might be good

for trump trump himself doesn't seem to think it's good for him we talked about the kind of slightly deranged letter he sent nancy pelosi which you said was a political letter i think you tweeted $123.00 times the other day and we know he tweets a lot when he's stressed he's angry is upset he does seem to be acting like a man who's completely calm about this whole process is he you know him but i absolutely actually he's in great spirits last week was a great week for him here what is it was so angry that he i don't i would say that he's necessarily angry but he's under he's under constant attack and so why are you surprised that he's fighting back but i want to i want to dress this point i believe the president one of the by products of this has been record fundraising he's doing really well and it's galvanize his supporters his supporters are even more dug in than they were before tiffany you can't deny that. i don't have 50 percent 54 percent to 46 percent is a bunch of different polls about him. the country support impeaching and removing him which is kind of by historical standards but still it's a reflection of his point that this is

a polarized country yeah i can actually completely agree with harlots point that again his base life way isn't going anywhere i completely disagree that he's somehow expanded his base and i want to say on the next year's election listen we have a lot of issues around this election our own u.s. intelligence agencies have said has already tried to influence the election by attacking some of the outlets or campaign workers on different campaigns and different media outlets so i don't know that this is going to be a free and fair election we hope it is that's what this guy we hope it is so this is about we hope it is but this is something that we should definitely be aware of and he's already kind of dangled out there a 3rd term and we know by the evidence of. pain it's not he's obviously a joke what he says he's the president of united states he should not be in the program what about the argument even from many liberals who are worried about how the impeachment play in the election you say. the senate quit holding his get on

with the vote we know the outcome and then trying goes into election saying i was acquitted does not hurt the democrats i think it does hurt because people are not consuming the minutia when that is not at all what happened at the same time would you criticize the democrats for rushing through this no i wouldn't and this sounds terrible i'm going to go there is just going to have a lot to the minutia it's not just the democrats to explain but yes yes it is the job of the democrats to explain however when you look at the american electorate it's just not what americans are focused on and i think you know trying to cover this administration is like trying to catch confetti and i think that was very much intentional he creates chaos and so you have all these 1000 things every day like you said he tweeted 123 times and you have a mainstream media that has failed in covering these things so when you go to the average person you can look at some of these like this anthropology the experiences that the media has obsession with trump supporters and you watch these people try to clumsily talk to policy or try to regard to take. talking points or tell you what the impeachment is about and they can't do it so people say you should never blame voters but i do think voters have to take responsibility in this the

marketplace i'm paying attention and that is not happening and if you want to come back and brief because i want to bring john in as democrats made a big calculation using this ukraine thing we touched on this earlier they should have you something that people could actually understand they haven't been paying attention it makes no sense where you people are focused on jobs you know am i better off i want to say i want to talk snooze poll shows 54 percent americans are removing the response you. know i'm not i'm not i'm not going to the president just once i mean that's fine i mean i don't think that these polls are deliberately wrong and i think they're deliberately misreading people i just don't think they were accurately capturing the electorate anymore we're just not and that's evidenced by many of the flawed polls that we saw in 2016 to 26 the national poll was almost spot on you know they were not that nationally. impeachment wise in terms of the politics of impeachment oh we're going to see this normalize now it's going to become a common feature holland and tiffany have both agreed on the polarization in this country both sides agree that countries. do you know think impeach will become a tool just going off to presidents you don't like the republicans could have said

you did it we're going to do it to you now with the democrats in the white house i think that's a serious risk and i think the country would be worse off if that actually is what happens impeachment should be an extreme remedy that's only used in the rarest of circumstances nonetheless when conduct rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor which you believe it does in this case has to do i do i believe that the president as far as you know the record currently shows and i think the trial in the senate is actually important i disagree with harlan in the sense that it's important for there to be a real process in the senate the evidence that we currently have it seems to me suggests that the president used the powers of the united states government and his unique position in the united states government as the person in whom all of the foreign policy policy powers or most of the foreign policy powers are vested in interacting with foreign governments and turning that to private advantage or pride . again that's a very serious. action that he took and you know this is the consequence of the

story. in the senate trial one thing that just reminded me we talk about the politics of the presidential election if he loses the election what you want you want to you want his opponents to remove him and show that's all i want i don't want to ruin i'm saying that i'm saying you want them to if they going to get rid of him they should do it by the but yet you don't box and if they do they win next year popular vote college he'll leave quietly and go happily and accept the result worse this spite of. him saying that what you believe when he did he say he wouldn't leave office he had tapped mike huckabee according to him to look at oh my god you seem to me you can't hurt me then we may be ok i try to get them out of the night and realize i could be out of time but i'm not you know that also troubling people that's so sad without at least sad i'm sorry i'm going to have to live with that if it is so sad paul and john thank you all for taking part in this debate we appreciate it and that's our show up from will be back next week.

over a year protesters across france have demanded economic justice police have responded with mass arrests i'm a true grade weapons to constrain the movement do you think he could have been mistaken between aiming at your head all you access all those people in power has been in france to investigate the escalation of violence in dost what this means to free speech and the democratic rights of its citizens police on trial on al-jazeera article 2 is it out to donald trump is now the 3rd president in history of the united states to be impeached that someone said should be leached everyone want to see his major event dream for the future of the rest joining us with details coverage and analysis of the trump impeachment amount to 0.

to. look. good luck a little. oil coal. india police or choose the fusing excessive force as the death toll rises from protest against a new citizenship or. you're watching al-jazeera live from the headquarters in doha i'm dirty navigator also a heads cooler weather brings a glimmer of hope for firefighters struggling against australia's bushfires. getting more photos for politics it was backs those at the polls were the wider choice plus. i'm robert oulds on the us mexico border where president drugs border

wall is under construction in one of the most biologically diverse areas in north america.