welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this very important day with us. the house of representatives about 30 minutes ago passing its first formal impeachment vote, marking an important symbolic step in this ongoing inquiry. >> on this vote the ayes are 232, the nays are 196. the resolution is adopted. without objection the moment to

reconsider is laid upon the table. >> that vote falling almost exclusively along party lines. again, not a vote to impeach the president but a vote to set the ground rules around the now continuing impeachment proceedings. president trump reacting in realtime on twitter, of course, calling it, quote, the greatest witch hunt in american history. the speaker, you saw her with the gavel there. moments before the voting began, she was on the floor telling republicans they're just frightened. >> today the house takes the next step forward as we establish the procedures for open hearings conducted by the house intelligence committee so that the public can see the facts for themselves. i don't know why the republicans are afraid of the truth. every member should support allowing the american people to hear the facts for themselves. >> republicans complaining to the very end, right up to the vote, about the process. >> there have been some people that made it public that wanted

to impeach him. not because they're high crimes and misdemeanors which is the constitutional standard but just because they don't agree with the results of the 2016 election. by using secret interviews and selective leaks to portray the president's legitimate actions as an impeachable offense. democrats are continuing their permanent campaign to undermine his legitimacy. >> cnn's manu raju is live on capitol hill amid this big drama. manu, they've just turned the page, if you will. what is the mood in the house? >> reporter: that is significant because we're expecting this impeachment inquiry to move rather rapidly in the next couple of months here to try to begin this public phase of this investigation, bring in some of these witnesses who have already testified behind closed doors, allow them to tell their story in a public setting. we're already hearing word that some witnesses have suggested

they they would be open to doing so if they were invited to come to testify, including bill taylor, the top diplomat to ukraine, who said the president of the united states withheld aid to ukraine and withheld efforts to give bo ukraine until there was an investigation. so far jeff andrew of new jersey and colin peterson, both conservative democrats who come from swing districts, but there are other democrats from swing districts, from districts the president carried in 2016, the democrats won in 2018 who resisted moving forward on impeachment proceedings for some time but have come forward to support it in the aftermath of the ukraine matter showing that

there is wide support within the house democratic caucus to continue with impeachment and also significant support in order to -- that could lead to the ultimate impeachment of this president. so if the president -- if the house does move forward, john, with articles of impeachment, you can expect this party will mostly be along party lines. john? >> manu raju, live for us on a big day in capitol hill. we expect reaction from key democrats and key republicans in the hour. to our studio, olivia knox with sirius xm, dana bash, margaret talev from "poliltico" a." republicans complaining about the process. they're about to get what they asked for. the question is, will they regret it? when you've had witnesses

testifying behind closed doors saying, i was hired by president trump, i was hired by the secretary of state, i was hired by the national security adviser, and i think what is happening is wrong. >> will they say they regret it? of course not. will they live to regret it? possibly. but because, unfortunately, even though this is so historic what is happening today, it is still happening in the era in which we live, which is so incredibly partisan. it is happening in an era where you had a republican leadership in the house able to, when they worked it really hard, we're told, really hard, to get whole other rank and file, even those who have spoken out and said this is a terrible thing the president did to vote no on moving forward with an impeachment inquiry. that is where we are right now. to your point about the next phase and the open hearings, i was communicating with a moderate democrat saying exactly that, that the democrats who put themselves on the line, who are in trump districts, are looking forward and saying, yes, we're

maybe getting hit because of the process now during the depositions, it is behind closed doors, but just wait until we hear from some of these civil servants. not just political appointees, but civil servants who have unimpeachable experience talking back that way. >> the democrats have said behind closed doors they see a crystal clear abuse of power corruption case against the president of the united states. the republicans have complained mostly about the process. are they going to attack these witnesses when they come forward? you didn't hear much of it today. are you going to hear the president did nothing wrong, or are they going to shift to, this isn't really nice, but we don't think it's impeachable. >> shifting this in the house intelligence committee benefits both parties. some of the best questioners on the republican side is on that committee. john radcliffe, for example, i

think is better in intelligence than judiciary. we heard the poison tree argument from republicans in the past week that this can't be fixed. they're going to stay on that, but now they'll get an opportunity to actually cross examine these witnesses. it's one thing to say, you couldn't have possibly known that for the following reasons. i think both sides are getting a fair amount of what they want. >> i was covering the white house. 31 democrats broke from hillary clinton, if you will, and voted to at least endorse the inquiry. the key to richard nixon's impeachment is when republicans started to crack. nancy pelosi able to hold her members except for two. 17 republicans are retiring in the house. if there were going to be breaks, she thought it would be there. didn't happen. we begin this next chapter in partisan polarized corners. >> yes, and at some point it's going to have to move beyond that, i think, for the speaker to sort of be judged favorably

on these issues. if all that happens in impeachment is the people who already didn't like the president vote to impeach him and those who like him vote against it, then it hasn't really served its purpose. i think you're going to see that point from republicans and the president today, that at the point the house is authorizing an impeachment inquiry, it was overwhelmingly approved by the house with nixon on a bipartisan basis. with clinton, 31 democrats voted in favor of the impeachment process. but this next phase is a big one. now we're going to start talking not just about process, we're going to hear plenty of that, but about substance and what the defense is on the substance. >> and what do republicans on the hill say to that point when some of these -- the american people might not know the names of some of these people that testified behind closed doors, but most of them are serious, credible people. again, some of them career foreign service people, some of them hired by mike pompeo, by the white house, trump

appointees. you can't say 17 angry democrats when you have a bunch of republican appointees who work on team trump sitting in the witness chair. how are republicans going to handle it now that they're getting what they asked for? >> that's the big question, what are they going to do now that everything is out in public? so far they continue to say they don't think any of the evidence that's come forward to date are quid pro quos. they just flat out deny it. they continue to attack on substance. they say it wasn't necessarily wrong in asking ukraine to investigate, and that's pretty much what they're placing their bets on. we see it continuing. i suspect that they will even though, yes, he said they didn't necessarily attack the witnesses today. we've seen them repeatedly attack the character of these witnesses. >> but this process argument is aimed squarely at voters in swing states. president trump and his campaign team believe that the way

california and new york voters react to this mutual agreement is fundamentally different in the voters of the states that are different. in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, florida, the states we all know will be the key states, there is a fundamental split, and in those places voters are more skeptical about the legitimacy of this impeachment inquiry and the fairness of how it's being conducted, and that is what that process argument is about. if john bolton is compelled through subpoena or the court to testify, do you think republicans are going to go after john bolton? no, republicans will go after the process, but it doesn't mean bolton's testimony and other testimonies won't be crucial to understand what happened. the question is will key voters already have tuned it out by then? >> if they see the evidence and if what happens behind closed doors doesn't sway, democrats

have moved more toward impeachment, republicans pretty much stayed the same. the question is can you move that number, because that's how the trial will play out. nancy pelosi gaveling the debate closed today, she had resisted this for a very long time. she said democrats had no choice and she promises they'll be careful. >> it's a sad day because nobody comes to congress to impeach a president of the united states, no one. we've come here to do the work, make the future better for our children, for america's future. we take an oath to protect and defend the constitution, and that's what we cannot ignore and we will not ignore when the president's behavior indicates that that investigation, that inquiry is necessary. >> she says no decision has been made on actually drafting articles of impeachment and bringing it to a vote. that's her own process argument, is it not? are we not, after the passing of

this vote today, is it not inevitable that the democrats will at least bring to the floor of the house of representatives articles of impeachment? >> yes. unless something remarkable happens that we can't see right now, yes, it is inevitable. and you're exactly right. she is trying to beat back at the notion that this is a preconceived ending and that this is what democrats wanted to do since the president got into office, which, by the way, is not totally untrue. a lot of the democrats did. but what nancy pelosi has, and we witnessed this when we were covering her when george w. bush was president, is that she does have some credibility in this because she beat back really loud impeachment calls over george w. bush and the iraq war. she said, no, we're not going to do that. i don't know if republicans think she has that in her now.

we are waiting for the reaction. key members on the hill, both democrats and republicans, have a bench schedule. you see them right there. and the president offers a strong condemnation of the vote on the house floor. ♪ things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ nothing is everything. keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. ♪ i see nothing in a different way ♪ ♪ and it's my moment so i just gotta say ♪ ♪ nothing is everything skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment your doctor should check you

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corrupt president in our nation's history. when i called for his impeachment two years ago, washington insiders and every candidate for president said it was too soon. but i believed then, as i do now, that doing the right thing was more important than political calculations. and over eight million people agreed. we proved that there is no challenge that americans can't meet when we work together. i'm tom steyer, and i approve this message.

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country. the house voting to formally bring forward the impeachment for the president of the united states. that vote did not sway the republicans to vote yes with them, so what happens to try to block this? . >> reporter: this was a big win for the white house. it wasn't sure going into this week, i know there were people worried about going into this week, and every single member of the republican conference voted with the president, voted with republican leaders. that was an accomplishment and a couple aides are very happy with the way things went. they know this is moving to a different place. that vote wasn't the vote on impeachment. that vote came before any of the public hearings, came before the articles, came before the public really zoned in on any of this. the thing i hear from the republicans is, look, back in my

district people are in support of the president, and they're not really talking about this other than they think he's wrong to some degree. that will start to shift. i think what will be most interesting is how they play this going forward. look, there is no question about it, we've been talking about it the last couple weeks. there is frustration about lack of direction they've been given from the white house. they have had a lot of one on one conversations with president trump, but they haven't had a lot of talking points about how to officially address the issue. that is going to need to change. the other thing that needs to change, the process argument. once the hearings become public, once things move out into the open with the deposition phase, republicans admit that that argument will start to lose its luster moving forward. kevin mccarthy, in his floor speech before this vote today, said we're one year out from the election. let the american people decide this, let the voters decide

this. that was a shift. you're going to start hearing more of that in the weeks ahead, john. >> we're going to hear it in seconds ahead. you see the republicans coming together in the room to give their take on this. we'll keep an eye on it until the leader comes in. more of the leadership -- no, we'll keep an eye on it. we'll hear some of what has been said behind closed doors that will come into the public eye. you can't look at the constitution and say it says you can impeach a president. high crimes and misdemeanors, what is that? if you look at this, only one formal republican voted with the democrats, justin amash. he said, the president will be in power for only a short time, but excusing his misbehavior will forever tarnish your name. to my republican colleagues,

step outside your media and social bubble. history will not look kindly on disingenuous, frivolous and false defenses of this man. they stood united today to stand by the president. the question now is as the testimony phase starts, will any of them crack? >> my understanding is the sort of shirts and skins argument that the republican leadership was making about this first vote to start the inquiry is different than what we'll likely see in terms of the pressure for the ultimate impeachment vote. >> they stopped again, waiting to get everyone in the room here. it is an interesting moment in the sense that part of this is these people from safe districts believe -- let's listen to leader kevin mccarthy. >> we just had a vote on the floor. in march of this year, speaker

pelosi said this about impeachment. impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country. today the country just witnessed the only bipartisan vote on that floor was against. the question to the speaker are the same questions i provided in the letter about the unfair process that we had. what has changed since march? in all the hearings, there's nothing compelling, nothing overwhelming, so the speaker should follow her own words on what bipartisan vote on that floor and in the sham that has been putting this country through this nightmare.

that's exactly what this vote shows today. i want to call up our whip, steve scalise. >> thank you, kevin. when we talk about the vote, i think it's important to note, when you see that not only did every single republican reject the impeachment protcess, but w were even joined by democrats who couldn't stand it anymore. when you look at where we are right now, we're at an important point in history. clearly there are people we serve with that don't like the results of the 2016 election. that's their prerogative. but the country next year will be deciding who our president is going to be. it should not be nancy pelosi in a small group of people that she selects that get to determine who is going to be our president. if you look at the resolution today, they talk about fairness. now, if they really think that they can tell people it's fair that only the chairman gets to decide who the witnesses are and

they give us an opportunity to call witnesses, but if the chair says they don't like the witnesses, the witnesses don't come forward. they allow the president to have legal counsel in the room unless the chair decides that they don't want the president's legal counsel in the room. that's never happened before. with the clinton impeachment, with the nixon impeachment, republican and democrat alike, both sides were treated equally. both sides could call witnesses. the president's legal counsel was in the room not at the discretion of the chair, but because it's fair. so when you look at the soviet style process, it shows you that they don't really want to get to the truth, they want to remove a sitting president. in fact, the author of the articles of impeachment said if they don't impeach the president, he will get reelected. that's not why we have impeachment. alexander hamilton made it very clear. his concern, when they were trying to promote the

constitution, was that he didn't want to see impeachment used for political purposes, yet that's what happened today. he predicted it, and it happened today. it's a sham, it shouldn't have happened, it's a tainted process that adam schiff is conducting, that jerry nadler may conduct. the people of this country deserve better. we should tackle real problems. we could have lower prescription prices today but nancy pelosi won't bring it to the floor because she's infatuated with impeachment. in fact, we could have better trade relations with canada and mexico and create 600,000 new jobs today, but pelosi is infatuated with impeachment. we could do better. our conference chair liz cheney. >> thank you very much, steve. i want to make sure everybody is focused on a couple things, and you'll hear from a number of our members today about this. the first one is that the

democrats cannot fix this process. they've now created a record over the course of the last several weeks with witnesses they selected. we know there were circumstances where chairman schiff told witnesses not to answer questions that our members were asking. we know there have been circumstances where our members have attempted to go read transcripts and they've been told by staff members that they're not allowed to go read those transcripts. this is a process that has been fundamentally tainted. the president has had no rights inside these hearings, his counsel has not been able to be present, so to say they're going to open this up, which, by the way, the resolution does not do. the resolution says they're going to continue to do what they want to do, it gives authority for open hearings, but they cannot go back and fix what is a fundamentally tainted and unfair record. the second thing is very important for people to understand, and you heard the whip talk about things that aren't getting done here.

there is a long list of things that the american people deserve to have done that simply are not being addressed because of the democrats' obsession with impeachment. think about what speaker pelosi has done for the last several weeks and what she caudified today. what she did today is say she was going to take the house of representatives national intelligence committee, which is the most important committee in this nation, and she has told them stop any focus on any issue that has anything to do with national security of the nation. you saw democrats on the floor of the house arguing that somehow it was republicans who were putting politics above national security. there is no one who has done that the way that nancy pelosi and adam schiff have done that. history will hold them accountable, history will judge them. we're at a moment where the nation faces grave, significant ongoing threats, and she has completely neutered the intelligence committee. she has said they must be focused on a partisan

impeachment process and not the oversight objections that we have -- >> you're listening to the three top republicans. if you need a reminder of a political process, let's go to the room and listen to the democrats. >> it lays out the impeachment process. the founding fathers understood that a leader might take hold of the oval office who would sacrifice the national security, who would fail to defend the constitution, who would place his personal or political interests above the interests of the country. they understood that might happen. and they provided a mechanism to deal with it, and that mechanism is called impeachment. we take no joy in having to move down this road and proceed with the impeachment inquiry. but neither do we shrink from it. the resolution from the perspective of the intelligence committee sets out important procedures for how we may conduct our open hearings.

during the depositions that we have conducted thus far, we've used a format that we believe very conducive to the fact-finding process. those procedures now will be incorporated into the open hearings in which staff counsel will be permitted for lengthy periods of time to do sustained questioning for up to 25 minutes per side followed by member questioning. we've used this, i think, to great success for both parties during the course of the depositions where, in the depositions we have alternated one hour for the majority, one hour for the minority, 45 minutes for the majority, 45 minutes for the minority. in those depositions, over 100 members have been eligible to participate. i should tell you that notwithstanding those that have complained about lack of access to the depositions, most of the members who have been permitted to attend have failed to attend, have not made use of the

availability of attending each and every deposition. but those that have on both sides of the aisle have had an equal opportunity to question the witnesses, and indeed, when parties will have an equal both- opportunity to question any witnesses that are called. the resolution will also permit me, as the chair, to release -- to begin releasing the transcripts of the depositions, and i think that you will see when those are released just what equal opportunity members of both parties have had. we recognize the seriousness of this undertaking. we recognize that we have been compelled by the circumstances to move forward. when a president abuses his or her office, when a president sacrifices the national interest, when a president

refuses to defend the constitution and does so for the purpose of advancing a personal or political agenda, the founders provided the remedy. i make no pre-judgment as to whether that remedy will be warranted when we finish these hearings. i will wait until all the facts are put forward. we will undertake this duty with the seriousness it deserves and to the best of our ability. thank you. and i now yield to the chair of the judiciary committee, mr. nadler. >> thank you very much. no person, republican or democrat, president or anyone else should be permitted to jeopardize america's security and reputation for self-serving political purposes. no president, no official can demand that an ally of the

united states do anything in particular to help his or her political ambitions as a condition of receiving help from our country. if, after a fair and thorough inquiry, the allegations against president trump are found to be true, they would represent the profound offense against the constitution and against the people of this country. it is the duty of the house to vindicate the constitution and to make it crystal clear to future presidents that this kind of conduct, if proven, is an affront to the great public that place their trust in him or her. this resolution that we passed today lays the groundwork for open hearings in both the intelligence committee and the judiciary committee. the house and the american public must see all the evidence for themselves. the resolution makes clear the

ample safeguards in the process that will be given and that will be adhered to. the resolution is necessary to ensure that our constitutional order remains intact for future generations. what we have seen are allegations of conduct on many levels that, if proven to be true, are a challenge to the democratic order, to the democratic norms on which we all depend. we must hand this country to our children with its democracy in as good a shape as when it was handed to us. we simply have no choice because no one can be above the law, and we must enforce that. i now yield to the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, mr. engel. >> you're listening there to two of the top democrats of the intelligence committee, chairman schiff and mr. nadler who would

handle the articles of impeachment, if it gets there. it's fascinating, we're just an hour removed from the vote to make this a full inquiry with the blessing of the full house. you see the parties working the voters. the republicans continuing to complain about the process, the democrats trying to say we have pre-judged nothing. the republicans would dispute that and some say they wanted to impeach the president for a long time, but the democrats saying we're going to bring to the public what we've been hearing behind closed doors and we believe that to be corruption worthy of articles of impeachment. >> and they're saying we are the ones in keeping with the founders. it centralized and aired out all the charges against him. it was a way of getting it out of the streets and making a political determination. on a couple points these folks

are making now, i don't really know what a soviet style impeachment is. i don't mean to make light of that, i'm just sort of curious who steve scalise is speaking to when he says that. i also note this is a good time to reflect on the fact that congress keeps an awful lot of its investigations secret. they're not subject to the freedom of information act. it's rare that we get transcripts of depositions behind closed doors. how many of you have read fast and furious investigation transcripts? >> benghazi. >> in fact, in the final report of benghazi, they explicitly went after public hearings as a waste of time generating more theater. >> lindsey graham in the senate, former congressman trey gowdy in the house have said how important private depositions are, because you can take things behind closed doors and do the prot process, take your time, air it out. there are no cameras so the politicians are not playing to

the camera, and then take it public. that would be a better process, would it not? >> but they're going to argue that impeachment is fundamentally different because impeachment has the fundamental implication of affecting an election. we go to the polls, we elect people. the impeachment argument would be that has to happen in public because the voters, the people going to the polls, need to have confidence in the results and also the process. >> it's a key point because the republicans are making the argument we're now a year away from a presidential election, let the voters decide. any impeachment is about reversing the election. that's what the republicans were trying to do when they were impeaching bill clinton. that's what the congress was doing when they were impeaching richard nixon. that is inevitably what you're doing, reversing the last election. but the timing of this one, it is an interesting point, and it's clear today that as the republicans now realize a lot of

what the testimony -- they can't defend a lot of what the testimony is, that rudy giuliani was running a shadow foreign policy, that people appointed by the trump administration were raising objections saying, this is wrong, it might be illegal, and it has to stop. you can't defend that. so your point is let's have an election. >> if you go back and look at this, the turning point will have been that date, i think it was september 25th, when the memorandum about the transcript was released. that is the turning point we will never turn back from again, because it laid out in great detail with the exception of those ellipses, and those ellipses will be a serious discussion when we talk about the process. but the president has made this democrats versus republicans or democrats out to get the president. when you look behind closed

doors of the process that began several weeks ago, it is nonpartisan officials who, if they had to pick a side, might lean a little bit right, had implicated or called into question what the president has done. so far that process has played out behind closed doors. when it moves into the public, it will take on a really different cast. part of the reason why these conversations or interviews have gone on behind closed doors, sure, may have been to try to minimize a republican's ability to change the narrative, but there is no provision in place so adam schiff had to play that dual role. there has to be an investigatory part that precedes the public hearing part where you get enough basis of information to try to figure out if you're going forward. we're done with that now. this is what's moving forward. >> margaret has a point in that there is a pattern of white house officials, state department officials defying the

white house in order to provide this testimony, and so that's why the republicans have not been able to really attack any of the substance of this. we saw them starting to shift just in what they said right now after the vote rather than just saying, this process is horrible, it needs to move into the public realm. they say now the process can't be fixed at all no matter what. >> steve scalise trying to make the point that nothing has changed since the beginning of the year when speaker pelosi said the impeachment needs to be bipartisan. well, a lot has changed. he's right about that, the two sides need to remain polarized, but a lot has changed. the two witnesses, the call transcript, two witnesses on the hill today giving testimony. we'll continue to follow what's happening with the depositions and the process of impeachment.

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so you can... retire better. more now on the historic vote in the house of representatives today and the impact on the president of the united states, that full house now voting to formalize that impeachment inquiry, laying out the rules for going forward. the president of the united states calls it the greatest witch luhunt in history.

cnn's kaitlan collins at the white house. take us outside the deliberations there. are they nervous now that the democrats have taken this vote, which they demanded and now they don't like. >> reporter: yes, they did request the vote. but now, john, they're still complaining about the process here saying essentially that this is unfair to the president, talking about some of these proceedings that are happening behind closed doors. they expect some of them will continue to be behind closed doors before they go public. even though democrats have pushed back on that saying this is like a grand jury proceeding. we're doing this behind closed doors, the transcripts will be made public and maybe we'll take some of those people and do them out in the open for everybody to see. stephanie grisham, the press secretary, calling democrats unhinged and warning that it's more damaging to the american people than it is just to the president and his supporters. this comes as the president's

campaign is also issuing a statement saying essentially they believe they'll have election consequences here, that this will lead to the president being reelected when the voters going to the polls in november. of course, there is still a lot of time before then. we know back here in the white house there are some people who are frustrate because their main line of argument, john, is there hasn't been a vote. now that there's been a vote, they know that will undercut some of that argument some, and since nancy pelosi announced that inquiry, they still haven't hired any lawyers to the president's team to help spearhead this strategy here, defend themselves against this, but essentially they're waiting to see how the democrats proceed in the next steps. >> cnn's kaitlan collins live at the white house. let's bring it back to the room. let's just get straight to it. the president of the united states, he's up for reelection next year. we're in october, about to be november, in the year before the election year. if you were watching the world series last night or if you follow the president on social

media, you saw this. >> obliterating isis. their caliphate destroyed, their terrorist leader dead. but democrats would rather focus on impeachment and phony investigations. but that's not stopping mr. trump. he's no mr. nice guy, but sometimes it takes a donald trump to change washington. >> we could have a long discussion about how donald trump has changed washington in a lot of ways. but to the point the president is spending election money, he's got a lot of it, he doesn't at the moment have a significant primary challenge, and they are trying to work the jurors before the testimony goes public. >> and make sure that the numbers that you talked about earlier in the show of recan support, almost historic republican support that still exists for this president doesn't change. in large part that's what that is, reminding republicans that voted for donald trump that this is why he this put him in

office. yes, he was on a phone call, and this is what they argue, he was just trying to call about corruption, he was doing what upped him to do when you said donald trump would be a different kind of president. they're trying to say rules and norms and protocols be damned. and whether or not that is going to play with the base, okay, maybe, but it still is the suburban vote that the republicans lost big time in 2018 that is going to decide likely what happens in the election. >> so as we enter this next phase, it's a political process, here's the president. his overall approval rating 42%. that's pretty steady. his approval rating has stayed right around 40 during his presidency. sometimes it goes down, sometimes it goes up a little bit. but if you look at it, 85% of republicans approve of the president's performance.

only 37% of independents do and 7% of democrats. the question is to watch particularly where the independent numbers go and if the republican number moves. >> that's what's key is the independence. they're key in pennsylvania, they're key in ohio, they're key in iowa. there was a poll that came out in pennsylvania that found that 17% of pennsylvanian registered voters there actually support the impeachment inquiry. but if you look closer, that falls along party lines. >> we talked about this before, there is not a war room in the white house. the campaign is the war room. you have an argument from the clinton years. i'm at work, and in clinton's case, it was a focus on the economy. but the trump campaign seems to have learned the lessons of '98.

>> i think there is another group we haven't been talking about much but is real. trump would call it the deep state, but there is an infrastructure inside the security council, inside the state department. a bureaucrat serving decades of presidents of both political parties who are deeply concerned about what went on, and they don't have to run on reelection, their fate doesn't hinge on it, they're in a completely different place than these republicans are. that's mostly a quiet conversation, a quiet debate, but it is happening every debate, every resolution, and they are the tipping point of this vote. >> i was told by every trump official that what they are watching is to see if it gets

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democrats had resisted it, republicans demanded it on the floor of the house of representatives. it played out this way. >> today's resolution fails to give the minority the same rights as were present during the clinton impeachment and it fails to offer the same due process protections that were given to presidents nixon and clinton. >> i don't think there was any process that we could propose that republicans who prefer to circle the wagons around this president and prevent us from getting to the truth would accept. >> this is a travesty. no one should vote for this. this is a sad day. the curtain is coming down on this house because the majority has no idea about process and procedure. they're simply after the president. >> this resolution sets the stage for the next phase of our investigation, one in which the american people will have the opportunity to hear from the witnesses firsthand. >> speaker pelosi and chairman

schiff long ago abandoned the due process and fairness that was guaranteed during the clinton impeachment. i know because i was here in congress for us. >> having been through this before, i know how painful impeachment proceedings can be. i hopewell continue to vote for this simply so we can be clear on all the facts. >> when you go back to the american public with the achievement of more subpoenas than laws, that is not why you ran. >> it's about the truth, it's about the constitution. on this vote, the ayes are 232, the nays are 196. the resolution is adopted. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. >> wherever they stood in this debate today, everybody understands this turns the page. we're in a different phase now, right? >> it turns the page and we're in a different phase, but things

just got a lot more politically complicated for democrats, too, and i think they had both a politically strategic choice to make but kind of a foundational choice to make which is like they could lose the house for doing this. but if they don't do it, what is the point of being there? this is a fundamentally different conversation for them since the notes of the transcript came out than any previous discussions. >> to bring it about in a compelling way. >> i think it's clear how speaker griingrich handled that impeachment. she doesn't want to be known like that. >> and speaker gingrich lost his seat after that. but yes, democrats have passed, i guess, the rubicon, if you

will, and they are on a path they're not going to veer from. >> yes, and you can't underestimate how much the audience is public opinion as senate republicans as they are going to be watching these hearings and questioning whether or not they feel it is an impeachable offense or it is the middle ground, which is what you're hearing from, say, a rob portman which i call the yeah but. yeah, it's bad but it's not impeachable. >> we're watching the republicans and the handful of senators in different states. they don't want those senators to be tempted, even briefly, to endorse this process. >> not to get the cart ahead of the horse, but you watch these senators, because they will listen to the house, and it looks inevitable that the house impeaches, then the senate has to decide as we head into a campaign year as the majority leader himself is on the ballot. publicly he complains about the

process, privately he's complaining to the president, don't beat up my guys. i appreciate you being with us on "inside politics." stay with us. brianna keilar picks up our coverage right now. have a great afternoon. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, a monumental day for the fate of the trump presidency, the househo holding its first impeachment date on the way to a public investigation. plus the president's top russia adviser abruptly quits before his testimony today as he tells congress what the president was trading for an investigation into the bidens. and perhaps one of the most important figures in the ukraine scandal refusing to testify until he gets subpoenaed. then rudy giuliani, thean