the us president—elect joe biden has outlined a $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy. speaking in delaware, he described his proposals as a two step plan of "rescue and recovery". concern about brazil's new coronavirus variant has prompted the uk to impose a ban on travellers arriving from south america and portugal. the health system in the brazilian city of manaus is said to be close to collapse. scientists are still in the early stages of studying the variant, which may be more transmissible. north korea has unveiled a new submarine—launched ballistic missile at a military parade in pyongyang. state media described it as "the world's most powerful w e apon" the north korean leader kim jong—un watched the display of armoured vehicles and other hardware as aircraft flew overhead.

now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. donald trump has secured his unique place in the history books — the first president in american history to be impeached twice. what that means in practical terms isn't yet clear. there will be no trump trial in the senate beforejoe biden moves into the white house. but democrats do insist he will be held to account for the assault on the capitol. my guest is veteran lawyer alan dershowitz, part of the trump defence team in impeachment one. will he be involved in the sequel? and how will it play in a divided america?

alan dershowitz in massachusetts, welcome to hardtalk. well, thank you so much. yesterday, we saw several records broken. one record, the obvious one, that the president was impeached for the second time. but the more important record is that congress violated more provisions of the constitution in one day than any congress in the history of the united states ever did. they violated the first amendment freedom of speech. they violated the criteria for impeachment. they violated due process by not giving the president an opportunity to be heard. they violated the 25th amendment by sending a message to the vice president to violate the constitution. and they violated the bill of attainder clause by saying that a president can be put

on trial after he leaves office in violation of the constitution. what a record for congress in one day to violate five provisions of the constitution. well, you certainly speak with great certainty, professor dershowitz, but obviously those members of congress who looked at what has happened in the united states over recent days reached a very clear conclusion. and unlike impeachment one, it wasn't a partisan conclusion — there were ten republicans in the house who joined the democrats in deciding that, yes, president trump should be impeached for incitement to insurrection. so your certainty is not shared by so many others who've looked at this case. well, that's true. that just proves that republicans can be as wrong as democrats. my certainty grows out of an objective view of the constitution. i'm a liberal democrat. i'm not a trump supporter. i voted for hillary clinton.

i didn't like at all what president trump did. i think what he did was outrageous and wrong. but i understand the constitution and i understand that it has to be interpreted consistent with non—partisan objective views. yeah, 230 congressmen can be wrong. that's happened before. that's happened many times before. congress did a lot of things over the years that have been unconstitutional. but never in one day have they violated five provisions in the constitution. and i will challenge any member of congress to debate me on this issue. well, it's notjust a member of congress you might have to debate. i mean, there are many legal scholars who do not share your opinion. professor garrett epps at university... bring them on! well, you don't even know what he said yet, but he says telling people to march to the capitol, saying that he would march with them, as trump did, clearly, he said, there was no time after trump made those

remarks for people to get any other message from the president because they then did march, and in his view, in legal terms, that represents a very clear case to put before a jury of incitement. he's not saying that he's absolutely sure a jury would convict, but he's saying the case is there. no, it's not there. it's just like the brandenburg case, which the supreme court reversed nine to nothing. in brandenburg, a hooded klansman surrounded by people with guns and crosses talked about taking "revengeance" against the senate and the house. they threatened to march, hundreds of thousands of them, on the congress. and the supreme court, nine to nothing said, "we don't like that speech, "but it's protected by the constitution". civil rights leaders, suffragettes, union leaders have all made similar speeches. when you speak in washington, you say "march on the capitol", "confront the senators", "show them you're strong." "fight like hell"?

crosstalk. "show them we're not going to take it." to a group of people who have said... "fight like hell!" that's in every speech. absolutely. let's remember the context here, professor dershowitz, i dare say you were not in that crowd. sure. but there were many people in that crowd who, we now know, were carrying weapons of one sort or another, whether it be home—made bombs, whether it's... same thing in brandenburg — the same thing in brandenburg. here are a group of people... they were visible. the speaker in brandenburg knew that they had weapons, whereas president trump had no idea these people had weapons. if president trump had made the same speech and no—one had marched to the capitol, would it then be a crime? of course not. and the fact that people marched to the capitol is irrelevant in judging whether or not the speech itself is protected by the constitution. we should not be compromising free speech in the interests of ending a term four or five days earlier. it will stick with us for ever and ever. this will be a horrible precedent and mostly, it will be used against the left. it will be used against radicals, it will be used against civil rights activists, it will be used against women

and african—americans and others who are protesting for good things. remember when the precedent was established against bad people? it then is used against good people. that's why i'm fighting for the first amendment. you sure are fighting. you're fighting with great passion on this show, but does it never give you when people like — and i'm not going to quote to you nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and all the other democrats who are insistent that president trump has to be held to account for what they regard, quite simply, as out—and—out incitement. i'm going to quote to you people like former governor chris christie, a long—time ally of president trump, a lawyer — an experienced lawyer in his own right — who said quite simply — and to be honest, this does seem simple to most people — "i think," he said, "if inciting insurrection isn't an impeachable offence, i really don't know what is, and in my view, trump should be impeached." that's his opinion. but remember, people said the same thing about communists in the 1950s. "they're going to take

over the government. they're going to deny us our rights." people said the same thing about marches in the south when african—americans and other leaders — i was there in the south in the 1960s and they were accusing us of sedition and trying to overthrow the government and ending segregation. that happened all over the world. it happened in south africa, in the soviet union. it's happening today in iran. do we really want to see the united states on the side of suppressing speech, even if we don't like the speech? i don't like the speech that the president gave. i do not defend the speech on the merits. but when nazis marched through skokie, i defended them. they walked through a city with holocaust survivors in order to goad them and provoke them. it was horrible, it was terrible, but it was protected under the first amendment because our first amendment protects speech that even would end democracy. crosstalk. britain? —— remember when the united states had that revolution against britain?

but hang on. for many years thereafter, there are people who wanted to go back to britain and be part of a monarchy, and that was protected speech. your entire focus on the first amendment and the right to free expression in the united states, am i to take it from that, you're saying president trump could have said anything, literally anything, and you would go to the state to defend his right... no. let me tell you what he couldn't have said. well, i certainly follow voltaire by saying "i disapprove of what you said, but i will fight to the death for your right to say it". here's what he could not have said. he could not have said, in front of the capitol, "now, right now, break in into the capitol, break windows, trespass, go on the floor of the senate, beat up senators, kill policemen." no, he couldn't say that. that's incitement. but he was a mile away, and he was giving a speech and he said, "peacefully and patriotically go down to the capitol. yeah, fight for your rights. yeah, don't take this." that's the rhetoric that's protected. come on, professor dershowitz. crosstalk.

don't come on me! i know what i am saying! _ the president could use words like "peaceful" and "patriotic" and he could also be inciting at the very same time. and is it not significant that after he, and we've seen the pictures. but he didn't. we're watching the violence on a tv screen, we know that after that he went out and he tweeted and he tweeted his love, his love for the people whom he'd just watched on television trashing the capitol. we understand one capitol police officer was killed. we also understand others were killed in the incident. that's right. and after all of that... all terrible. ..he went on twitter to say that he loved — he loved the protesters, the rioters that he'd seen on tv. that's a very good reason — that's a very good reason for not voting for him. it's a very good reason for giving him moral opprobrium. but it is not a good reason for constraining the first amendment. this is not

about donald trump — this is about the future of american free speech, which is being endangered by twitter, it's being endangered by facebook, it's being endangered by congress. and i'm there to defend the first amendment, as i did when nazis marched through skokie, when nazis called for me to be killed and me to be injured, when brandenburg called for me to be killed, i'm there to defend them, because to defend the free speech of your enemies is to defend the free speech of everybody. impeachment is a political as well as a legal process. many would also say... no, it's not. it's illegal. it's legal. well, it's legal in a very particular way, because the jury in a trial in impeachment is political. it is the 100 members of the us senate. it's not a jury like any other. but the criteria are specifically laid out. the framers initially thought about maladministration, which was a british criteria for impeachment, and they rejected it, saying they don't want a british parliamentary system where the president serves at the will of the legislature. so they set out four criteria, legal criteria —

treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanours — and unless those legal criteria are satisfied, there can't be impeachment. they also have the 25th amendment. yeah, well... if you're unable to govern, if you are mentally ill, if you are physically unable to govern, then you can be removed. those are the only two bases for legal removal. and the congress is not above the law. they must follow the law of the constitution, and they didn't do that yesterday. and you used that key phrase, "high crimes and misdemeanours" and that is clearly open to interpretation. and i talk about morality partly because i was taken with this interesting quote from a commentator, bret stephens. i'm sure you know him or know of him — he writes the new york times. i know bret very well. i know him well. he's a friend. well, he's a self—identified conservative, but he's certainly not a fellow traveller with donald trump right now. right. and he says this... noram i.

.."the moral case — the moral case is clear. trump has the blood of capitol police officer brian sicknick on his hands. legal analysts can debate," as you do, "whether trump's speech met the so—called brandenburg test for incitement to violence. but that is irrelevant," says bret stephens, "to an impeachment." "everyone except his most sophisticated apologists agrees that trump whipped up the mob." well, but, that's not right. it's not irrelevant to impeachment, because impeachment requires treason, bribery, other high crimes and misdemeanours. that's not subject to interpretation. misdemeanour has a meaning. it had a meaning in british law. blackstone defined it. in british law, there used to be capital misdemeanours. you could be executed for a misdemeanour. misdemeanours can be very serious, but it's all criminal—type behaviour. impeachment is not permitted for moral sins. it's only permitted for criminal—type behaviour. i argued that on the floor of the senate... with respect, whether you think... and i am making the same argument today in the court

of public opinion. yeah, you sure are, and it's very interesting but with respect, your views don't really count right because, according to the institutions of the us democratic system, the house of representatives have had the right to judge whether these charges should be upheld, the charge of incitement to insurrection. they voted overwhelmingly to uphold it, so... they... hang on, let me finish the thought. so it goes to the senate. now, you have suggested that it is not legitimate to hold the senate trial after donald trump has left office. but again, i'm no legal scholar, you are, but i look at what legal scholars say, and the preponderance of them are absolutely clear that there can be a trial after donald trump has left office. and it's not only there can be, there should be a trial because this man needs to be held to account.

if he is found guilty of the crime, he should be barred from holding any further public office. do you agree? no, absolutely not. first of all, these are not legal scholars. let's be very clear. people like professor laurence tribe are zealot partisans who twist the constitution to find their meaning. if this were a democrat who were being impeached, they would be saying exactly the opposite. they fail the shoe on the other foot test. let's look at the text of the constitution. it says the president shall be removed on impeachment. that's the purpose. once the president's out of office, he's an ordinary citizen. and to have a trial in the senate of an ordinary citizen is a bill of attainder. congress has no authority under ordinary citizens. look, i'm 35. i can run for... i'm over 35. i can run for president in 202a. can they haul me in front of the senate and say they're going to impeach me to prevent me from running for office in 202a? it's absurd. you can only remove a president. if you remove him, you can then add the sanction of disqualification, but you cannot put a president on trialjust to disqualify him for the future. that would violate the text of the constitution,

the intent of the constitution. and you could have 1,000 scholars saying that. they're all wrong, because they're partisans, they're zealots, and they would come out exactly the other way if the shoe were on the other foot and if this were a democrat. indeed, they did go the other way when clinton was tried. i was also one of those people. hang on, let me slow you down. i helped defend clinton, and the same people took the opposite view. let me slow you down forjust a second. you're inviting a very obvious question. given your strong feelings on this case, are you going to represent donald trump when it does come to the question of a senate impeachment trial? there won't be a trial. this is political theatre, and i'm neither a politician nor an actor. there's no role for a lawyer. they have excluded lawyers from this. they had no lawyers yesterday. they had no opportunity for the president to present his defence. and now they're saying they'll start the trial on the 19th and end it on the 20th. that's not a trial. that's a kangaroo court. i don't think any lawyer

should participate. i don't think it's... that's kind of a political charade rather than a legal trial. i don't think that's the way it sounds like it's going to pan out in washington right now. it seems clear that mitch mcconnell, who currently heads up the senate as the republican leader, he has no intention of a trial happening before the inauguration ofjoe biden. and chuck schumer, who will then lead the senate for the democrats, has said that after the inauguration ofjoe biden, the democrats will ensure there is a trial of donald trump. so how can you be so sure it'll never happen? that's unconstitutional. no, they may try to do it, but the defence will be, there's no jurisdiction. if i were advising the president, i would say, "just don't show up. "go and have your lawyers defend. "it's not possible to put you on trial constitutionally. "don't submit to a kangaroo court." so give me the straight answer to this question. are you going to represent donald trump? are you already advising him?

are you already telling him that that's exactly what he should do, ignore any trial in the us senate? i'm telling him that on your show and on other shows in the united states. i have not spoken to the president about impeachment since the day after i made my speech last january. he called me to thank me for defending the constitution. and we haven't spoken about impeachment or any of these matters ever since. i'm not part of his formal legal team, but i do speak on television defending the constitution. i'm not an adviser to the president, but i am a supporter of the constitution. i may be the only one left standing who makes these arguments, me and maybe three or four other academics who are neutral and objective. but please do not listen and take seriously these phoney academics who claim the imprimatur of scholarship and use it solely to make partisan points, which they would make the opposite point if the shoe were on the other foot and if it were a democrat. how do i know that? because they did make the opposite arguments when the shoe was on the other foot. you're a man of strong feeling, but you also, it seems to me, do indulge from time

to time in self—reflection, because when we last spoke on this show, you said to me that you had regrets. you regretted at least one individual that you had worked with and represented in the past. and that was jeffrey epstein. of course. we all know what happened to him. well, i'mjust wondering... but he was the worst. i don't want to talk about epstein today. i just want to talk about reflection and whether you now regret your associations with donald trump and your decision to offer him advice and legal help in impeachment one, because we now know what has happened since impeachment one and ijust wonder whether you personally feel perhaps you wish you hadn't got involved with him. no, i'm very proud of having defended the constitution. i was on the floor of the senate defending the constitution for 67 minutes. i laid out the constitutional case. i'm very proud of having done that. it's part of history now. my speech will be cited in the future as precedent when democrats are impeached. and so, no, i'm very proud

of having done that. i have not advised the president on his policies, most of which i disagree with. i agree with some of them. i agree with his efforts to make peace in the middle east. i disagree with his immigration policy, his tax policy, his health policy, his policies on coronavirus. i'm a liberal democrat. i'm going to continue to be a liberal democrat, but i'm going to stand up against the excesses of the democratic party when they violate five parts of the constitution in one day. listen, i get that message. today's politics will end tomorrow. i get that message. but i just want to continue with this theme of self—reflection, because you are clearly a legal scholar of long standing. but this isn't, and i come back to this point, this isn'tjust about legal scholarship. there are moral issues, there are political issues, institutional democratic issues, there are also historical issues. let me just quote one more quote for you, this time from another guy i'm sure you know, one of america's leading historians, timothy snyder, who spent a lot of time studying the rise of nazism. he spent a lot of time looking at far—right movements

across the world. i've read his books. and he says this, "impeachment of trump is important now, "because something has to be done to affirm for history, "for history and for us citizens of the future, "the gravity of this president inciting a violent mob "to undo a legislature and overturn an election." from the point of view of you as an american citizen, a man of history, a sense of history, do you not get what timothy snyder is saying? yes, but remember, the key words were, "something has to be done." the ends justify the means. "something has to be done." but if the constitution doesn't permit impeachment or the 25th amendment, something can't include that. "something" means he was voted out of office. "something" means that historians like snyder can write terrible, terrible books about him. "something" means acting within the constitution. but "something has to be done"

doesn't include assassination. it doesn't include violence against the president, and it doesn't include illegal acts against the administration of the united states. it doesn't include violating the constitution. so snyder is right. something has to be done, but the "something" has to be debated. and i'm here to say that the "something" can't include the 25th amendment and can't include the impeachment clause. it can't include bill of attainders, can't include denial of due process. yeah. those "somethings" are off the table. as you said, you're prepared to take this stand if you're one against 1,000 and right now, it does look like you're in a pretty small minority. some people believe that that's part of who you are today, that your ego is involved here. let me quote to you, and i know you don't like it when i quote him, but laurence tribe, also at harvard university, also a man of great scholarship and learning, he says of you, "alan dershowitz revels "in taking positions that are notjust controversial, "but pretty close to indefensible."

and that's what you're doing right now, isn't it? what he's doing, tribe and others at harvard are imposing a speech code on harvard students. if harvard students dare to take a point of view similar to mine, then he calls those views delusional, bonkers, bizarre. i wouldn't want to be a student today at harvard law school with professor tribe as my teacher because i would be afraid that if i took a dissenting, contrary view, my grades would go down, my recommendations would not be forthcoming. i would not get a supreme court clerkship. it is a real problem, what's going on in american universities, and tribe is at the centre of that problem. look, i have spoken out. it has hurt me. i have lost clients as a result. i've lost friends. i've had family members turn against me. yes, i'm prepared to speak out. it's not for my own ego. i care about the constitution. i've been making these arguments for more than 60

yea rs. when i was student government president at brooklyn college, i was a pariah because i stood up against mccarthyism. i stood up against firing communist professors. i was anti—communist personally, but i took a tremendous amount of pain standing up for the rights of communists, standing up for the rights of nazis. i will continue to stand up the rights of anybody whose first amendment speech is denied, whether i agree with them or disagree with them. and i'm not taking any moral lessons from laurence tribe or other so—called scholars who are prepared to amend the constitution to fit their own personal political views. all right. i have to stop you there. and if you want to have tribe on... not only do i have to stop you there, i also have to point out that laurence tribe would utterly reject the way you've characterised him, as i'm sure would harvard law school. it's important to say that... let's have the debate. ..as we end this programme. let's put tribe on the show. well, we can't do it right now because we're out of time. but i do thank you very much

for being on hardtalk. let's have a debate. hello. the rain and snow that fell across many parts of the uk during thursday has been petering out. temperatures have been dropping away. surfaces are really wet out there. so with those wet surfaces and some cold conditions, ice could be a big problem on friday morning — fog patches as well. here's the frontal system that brought the rain and snow during thursday, but it has been squeezed out by high pressure. the winds have been falling light — that's allowed temperatures to drop.

we've got some fog patches out there, quite widely scattered, actually, across the country, and some ice — especially for scotland, northern england, the midlands into east anglia and the south east — so if you do have to make an essentialjourney, it could be some pretty poor travelling conditions. through the day, most spots will see some sunshine. it is a drier day overall. the odd shower for kent, the odd shower for shetland and a few places across scotland, north east england, the midlands will hold onto fog all day long. if that happens, you'll be pegged back to just one or two degrees. even in sunshine, it will be a chilly—feeling day. and then during friday night into saturday, rain will push in from the west. i say "rain" — as it bumps into cold air, we could well still see a spell of snow, especially over high ground in scotland in northern england, but even to lower levels, there could temporarily be a spell of sleet or snow, even as far south as east anglia and the south east through the first part of saturday morning as this frontal system works its way eastwards. but we will see some milder air working its way in, so any snow will be quite a transient feature, certainly at low levels

it'll turn back to rain. and then even the rain will tend to clear away through the day with sunnier skies and just a scattering of showers following on behind. those temperatures climbing, particularly in western areas — nine degrees in liverpool, belfast, ten in cardiff and in plymouth. now, as we head out of saturday into sunday, that frontal system moves away. high pressure tries to build in towards the south — that's where we'll see the driest weather on sunday. lower pressure to the north, so here we have a greater chance of seeing some showery rain, maybe some hill snow across parts of northern ireland, particularly scotland. whereas further south for england and wales, you can see largely fine conditions. patchy cloud and sunny spells, and temperatures for the most part between six and nine degrees. into next week, things look pretty changeable. there'll be some rain at times, but not all the time. it will turn a little bit milderfor a while. but how long that will last, we'll have to wait and see.

this is bbc news. i'm victoria fritz with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the us president—elect joe biden outlines a $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy. our rescue and recovery plan is a path forward with both seriousness of purpose and a clear plan with transparency and accountability. a uk ban on travellers arriving from south america and portugal as concern grows about a new virus variant from brazil. north korea unveils a new submarine—launched ballistic missile at a military parade in pyongyang, describing it as "the world's most powerful weapon".