this is a huge, huge to-do list item for them, to try to get some of those female voters back. this does not help. >> dishwashers. that's how we ended today. it's really a remarkable thing. great to see you guys. reminder, the democratic presidential debate airs on cnn and your local pbs station tonight at 8:00. inside positive"inside poli right now. thank you, kate, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. the president has been impeached and now it shifts to the senate. the republicans call it rushed and unfair and say there's no way the president will be convicted and removed from the senate. impeachment is forever a stain on his legacy and he's lashing

out. nancy pelosi says democrats have a spring in their step this morning after those historic votes. what she does not have confidence in is the senate's top republican. >> we would hope there would be a fair protcessprocess, just asd hope they would honor the constitution. by the way, i heard some of what mitch mcconnell said today, and it reminded me that our founders, when they wrote the constitution, they suggested there could be a rogue president. i don't think they suspected we could have a rogue president and a rogue senator in the senate at the same time. >> we begin right there with a new chapter for the trump impeachment debate and sharp new salvos from all the key players. house speaker nancy pelosi says all democrats today are proud. >> it seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior. no one is above the law, and the constitution is the framed law of the land.

no one is above the law, and the president has been held accountable. >> but the speaker is not ready yet to say when she will officially deliver the impeachment case to the senate. president trump quick to tweet, she must be afraid. these are his words. quote, pelosi feels her phony impeachment hoax is so pathetic she is afraid to present it to the senate. the morning after positioning is so intense because the stakes are so high. the senate must now consider the two counts of impeachment at a trial and consider whether to convict or remove the president. the trial rules will be the subject of negotiation still to come. but the senate's republican leader, like the president, trying to get a head start on the politics suggesting the house democrats' case is weak. >> that's all their rushed and rigged inquiry could generate. an act at the house does not even allege as criminal and a

n nonsensical claim is somehow an impeachable offense. candidly, i think i'm the only person around here who realizes that. even before the house voted yesterday, democrats started to signal uneasiness, uneasiness with its end product. >> leader mcconnell had barely set down his microphone when the top democrat, chuck schumer, walked in to deliver his rebuttal. schumer saying it's the president and mcconnell who are afraid, unwilling, for example, to allow trump insiders to testify at a senate trial. and schumer noted that not once in his long speech had mcconnell defended the president's pressure campaign on ukraine. >> the partisan stem winder contained hardly a single defense of the president of the united states on the merits. almost none defended president trump, because they can't. >> manu raju live from capitol hill for us. manu, an important day before

and after, and you can see the tension. >> reporter: no question about it and the questions about how this will play out in the days to come. right now chuck schumer, the senate majority leader, is meeting with nancy pelosi behind closed doors. they're discussing their stra strategy. after that they will meet with mitch mcconnell. they'll discuss whether they can come to any sort of agreement on the rules of the trial. that's significant because what pelosi is signalling this morning is that that rule needs to be cut. before the d -- before the democrats send the rules over from the house. when i asked about the press conference and the immediate vote to impeach the president, i asked, is it possible you'll never send over those articles? she sidestepped the question and seemed to indicate she may never

send over those articles until they get, quote, a fair trial. she tried to turn down the temperature saying this is essentially a process issue, that the house senate needs to make a move first, because in her view they need to decide who the impeachment managers are in the house, the people who would actually prosecute the case in the house, and there is no way that she says she can name those impeachment managers until they know what the rules are in the senate, and once they name those managers, that's when the articles can be transmitted. so these making it sound like there's more of a process fight than a fight over getting exactly what they want in a senate trial, which is those live witnesses that chuck schumer wanted. we'll see how the process and the rules play out, john, but one of the final days they can have these discussions as congress wraps up for recess before the holidays, john. >> it's pretty clear leader mcconnell does not want those witnesses. we'll see how that shakes out. with me here in the studio to %-p

"washington post," michael shear with the "washington post," melanie zanono with "politico." the president was impeached last night on abuse of power and obstruction of congress. the result of the senate is not in doubt, at least based on any evidence before us today. there are not enough republican votes to convict skpand remove president. the question is, what will this look like and how and when will they figure it out? >> we're in impeachment purgatory right now. there have been whispers about pelosi and democrats holding the articles. trump is still putting his defense team together. there is talk about bringing some of his house allies over. they haven't decided what the senate trial is going to look like. schumer and mcconnell will sit down today, but it doesn't look good considering they've been on the floor giving these dueling

speeches. pelosi has said we're not going to show you what we're going to do, we're not naming our impeachment managers until we see what this will look like. >> right now this is about will the senate convict and remove the president of the united states. nobody expects that to happen. argument number two is this is about five or six or seven republicans who might break from the republicans on leadership issues and say we want these wnt witnesses or these procedures or rules. leader mcconnell just said this off camera. it's beyond me how the speaker and the democratic leader in the senate think that withholding the articles of impeachment and not sending them over gives them leverage. frankly, i'm not anxious to have the trial. if she thinks her case is so weak she doesn't want to send it over, throw me into that briar patch. thl this is pelosi trying to signal,

st stick with me, let's get this over quickly, right? >> you've seen some of those republican swing senators be turned off by the democrats so far. we asked questions about the witnesses, particularly when leader schumer announced those in a letter to mitch mcconnell on sunday night. while she had gentle criticism for mitch mcconnell when he said he was in complete cooperation with the white house, she had pretty strong words for schumer, too, and said he didn't sit down with the white house and talk about this privately. i was talking to schumer yesterday and he said a lot of that tactic rubbed our members the wrong way. he is one of the top republican leaders so he has a messaging role here. but what you're seeing spill out on the senate floor right now through comments to the press, it does not -- clearly does not bode well for any bipartisan

negotiations between chuck and mitch at this point. >> the attorney deputy is respected among his colleagues. he said, something like this really needs to move forward in a way that builds upon some sort of bipartisanship that suggests it is not just chaos around here. there is nothing to build on. >> look, that's what underscores the dramatic difference between what's playing out now, what played out in the last several months as impeachment marched forward, but also what played out in the aftermath of the vote and what played out with president clinton. there was partisanship 20 years ago but it wasn't a complete lack of ability for the two to get together. in the clinton years, the procedures of the signal tritri worked out. everything is sort of upside

down. you would normally think the party of the accused would be the one saying, you know, we want fairness. this is sort of upside down and i's all politics and it's all going to play out not in coordination with each other, not in cooperation with each other -- >> it gets forgotten sometimes about the clinton days. they did have a 100 to nothing agreement on the witness rules. it did become contentious during the trial and the compromise was recorded. we lived through that day, and the difference was the way the president kept the democrats with him was through contrition. he said, i'm sorry. what i did was horrible and wrong. i don't think it's worthy of impeachment. this president has a very different approach. he says, i'm perfect. republicans are unified. don't you dare, is essentially what you hear from the president. >> and the most dangerous moment for clinton is when he lashed out on television in front of the grand jury. a bunch of democrats called up and said, what the [ bleep ] do

you think you're doing? stick to contrition. there was bipartisanship, which is difficult to think of 20 years later. they had much more of a calling for witnesses than impeach and remove. the public will tune this in and say, why aren't they calling people who know what went down? i just.net know th don't know t holidays it will happen. >> john bolton called this a drug deal, and he hasn't testified to that. john bolton would testify that he thought it was a drug deal. the others would say it was quid pro quo. but can they reach public opinion -- >> i know one of the fights was about live witnesses versus videotape. i wonder if one of the fights here is can we show the mulvaney briefing on the senate floor? can we pull all the attention back to him saying, get over it.

>> that's an excellent point. as we go to break, this is a conversation around country. voters in boston last night weighing in on impeachment of the president. >> i think that he actually should be impeached. nobody is changing anyone's mind which is, like, really disheartening to me. >> i think they're tearing us apart right now. they're not getting anything done. they've been after this guy for three years now. >> they might be blowing their effort on an impeachment when in reality they need to be finding someone to win in 2020.

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aveeno® skin relief. get skin healthy™ the president is angry, using his tweets and his words to lash out at the house for impeaching him. he does see a silver lining in the republican unity, noting that the house republicans voted for impeachment and insisted his party is more united than ever. the do nothing dems on their continuation of the greatest witch hunt in american history. now the do nothing party want to do nothing with the articles and not deliver them to the senate, but it's senate's call. he made this speech just as the impeachment votes were being cast. >> it doesn't really feel to me i'm being impeached. the country is going better than ever before. we did nothing wrong.

crazy nancy pelosi's house democrats have planted themselves with an eternal mark of shame. it really is, it's a disgrace. democrats do not believe you have the right to select your own president. the republican party has never been so affronted but they've never been so united. >> it was interesting to watch, because no president -- he can say he thinks this helps him politically -- no president wants the stain of impeachment. you cannot remove it. it will forever be in the first sentence of his legacy. he started out saying, it doesn't feel like i'm being impeached, almost like he was going to stay calm about it. but the more he talked, he worked himself up and got angry. >> part of the desire to counterprogram, to schedule a rally was because -- i mean, it's not like they didn't know this was going to happen, it was obvious. but i think they were trying to do what he always does, which is

to give all of us and all of the country something else to talk about. and they did succeed to some extent, because we're talking about his rally, we're talking about his reaction, we're talking about some of the sort of nasty things he said about people during the rally, and that is part of the effort to keep the country and the conversation in a place that he wants it to be rather than the historic nature of what just happened. >> the challenge going forward, again, the math today is in the president's favor in the senate. that is not to defend the president's conduct, defend what the president did, but as of now, there is no evidence at all. if the republicans voted to remove, you would need more than half. we don't even know if one or two will. the democrats are hoping that even for a voter out there who thinks they have the right to impeach, by next december they continue to see this erratic behavior and it all becomes part of the same, we don't like this

president, so okay. you mentioned his insults. the president likes to insult when he's mad. john demming was the longest serving congressman in the world. he died and his wife is now serving. he talked about when john dingell died, debbie dingell called the president to help, getting him to lower the flag at half staff. >> she calls me up like eight months ago, her husband was there a long time. but i didn't give him the b treatment, i didn't give him the c or d. she called me up. it's the nicest thing that's happened, thank you so much. john would be so thrilled. he's looking down. i said, it's okay, don't worry about it. maybe he's looking up, i don't know. i don't know. >> the president thinks it's funny that a member of america's

greatest generation buried at the arlington national cemetary may be looking up. you can connect the dots what the president is saying, but this is trademark. we can go back in history to john mccain, we can find other examples of this. when he's mad, he decides to callously insult others. >> nothing is off limits for this president. i was talking to debbie dingell yesterday and she and her colleagues were actually joking on and betting, who is is president trump going to go after at the rally. i don't think anyone expected her to go after her husband. she tweeted that this is her first holiday without him. she was watching the rally last night, snippets of it, during the votes. this is just another example of trump going after his critics. perhaps this is just another distraction. >> it's the rorschach test of trump. they see a president who is unhinged. his supporters watch it and they see a president that is entertaining. >> they want to be so politically correct, so they don't grab her wrist lightly and

get her out. they say, oh, will you please come? will you please come with me? then she gives the guy the finger. you got to get a little bit stronger than that, folks. i get a baron trump to go into central park and he'd get a crowd. remember a dishwasher you would press it, there would be an explosion. five minutes later, the steam powers out and the dishes. now you press it 12 times. they give you four drops of water. >> in the middle of that he mentioned his son, saying his son could get a bigger crowd. the first lady knows that the white house has bristled, understandably so, when anyone in politics has brought a teenager, the child of a politician into the conversation. the president there not being best. what else? >> there was a lot there, obviously, in the snippets, but this is what the president has

done. when there is something going on, he puts a lot out there to distract. his staff is doing it in a more measured fashion. when some of his top aides were on the hill yesterday, they asked about impeachment, the reporters, but they also talked about domestic work he's getting done. they are looking forward to when there is a democratic presidential candidate to have someone to contrast the president with. i think there is a strategy here. the president just kind of takes it to his own level. >> if you look at the campaign, which is the more disciplined and professional part of this messaging machine, they're making the same argument more cleanly than he did at the rally. the final arg ument at the rall is us versus them. on instagram he said, they're not coming for me, they'r coming for you, i just happen to be in your way. that's the core of this message. on a lighter note, what is wrong with the appliances and plumbing at the white house?

you have to flush 15 times, you have to press the dishwasher button 12 times. >> it's an older building. you've been there many, many times over the years. coming up, yet another house republican heads for the exits. but first the house minority leader responding a short time ago after the president attacking the late john dingell last night. >> john served his country very well, very proud. we may have been different philosophically in principles, but no, i considered him a friend. but you don't feel good. with polycythemia vera, pv, symptoms can change so slowly over time you might not notice. but new or changing symptoms can mean your pv is changing. let's change the way we see pv. you track and discuss blood counts with your doctor. but it's just as vital to discuss changing symptoms as well. take notice and take action. discuss counts and symptoms with your doctor. visit takeactionpv.com

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word today of one of president trump's most reliable allies of the house is ready to move on. congressman mark meadows in the house says he will not seek reelection in 2020. he also says it's quite possible he'll resign his seat earlier to take a job at the white house or with the trump reelection campaign. his actions speak volumes of the turmoil in the trump years. 25 republicans have announced they will not seek reelection next year already. 41 republicans left the house to retire or run for office or resign in 2018. we talk all the time about the turmoil in our politics, these disruptive times. what do we make that so many members of the president's own party in the house want out? >> it's no fun being in the minority, it's no secret. i think with meadows in

particular, he was irrelevant in t -- a relevant in the minority. he was a little irrelevant in the impeachment fight, but now that it's almost over, i'm not surprised he's looking for his next step. with some of these other members, they don't have a lot of optimism about taking back the house. they voted to impeach the president. they're constantly asking about this controversy and this controversy and what do you think about the dingell comments we heard before? >> a lot of them came in in the tea party years in 2010 and 2014. they were going to stop the bailouts, they were going to balance the budget, they were going to shrink the government. the president makes a spending plan that makes barack obama look like a fiscal hawk. it includes a new paid family leave for federal workers advocated by his daughter, not a democrat. it is not what the tea party ran on in 2010 or 2014. it's not even in the same galaxy as what the tea party ran on.

>> no, because look, president trump is not an idealogically-based republican like many folks in the house were. he has kind of embraced the republican positions along the way as sort of a way to maintain power in washington, but he doesn't fundamentally believe much of the things, especially, you know, folks like meadows who sort of have this very conservative point of view that, you know, trump is going to only embrace when it sort of helps him for other reasons. >> he was willing to forget everything he ran on to become an ally of this president. look at his ads, go back to his first campaign and look at his ads and look at what's happened on the domestic front fortunaof trump presidency. the leader of the house saying the party is just fine. >> the health of the party is just fine. when we had retirements, i was sad. i wish we didn't have so many.

the thing about the republican party, we don't believe this should be your entire life. with the republican party, we're healthy and we bring new blood in. >> there were 241 house republicans after the president's election. there are 197 now. so if they're bringing in new blood, they're bringing in less new blood. if you look at the governor's races last year, look at the legislative race last year. the obama presidency was very similar. the country seems to rebel against the president. every year the party suffers. >> mccarthy talks about bringing in new blood but you are losing several key members who were in line to regain their chairmanship had they taken control of the house back again and losing a lot of knowledge. you have mark conaway leaving, top guy on ag for a while. mike thornberry, house services. greg walden who has led the nrcc

and has a powerful name in congress. these are big names who decided for whatever reason in the trump era that it's time for them to go. >> and women minorities in the party are fleeing as well. >> and the party is meeting with jeff van drew who has been trying the last few days to decide if he is a democrat or republican and how he can survive a no on impeachment. a prince of a guy who knows exactly where he stands. impeachment in the house about to give president trump a very important win.

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topping our political radar today, the house is set to vote on and pass the u.s.-mechanics k -- mexico-canada trade agreement shortly, handing the president a big victory even after he's been impeached. the senate likely to vote on that deal early next year after the impeachment trial. it's likely going to be months now before the supreme court gets a chance to decide on the

obamacare. getting people to buy insurance is unconstitutional, but it's getting kicked back to the district level on whether the rest of the affordable care act remains constitutional without that act. putin is telling reporters the president was impeached for made-up reasons. the russian president says he doubts that president trump will be removed from office since the republican office controls the senate. he also played pundit describing the impeachment process nothing more than washington infighting. >> translator: this is just a continuation of the internal political battle. one party that lost the elections, the democrats, is trying to find new ways of collusion of russia. it turns out there was no collusion. now they come up with pressure on ukraine. i don't know what is the

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the democratic leader chuck

schumer just finished a meeting with house speaker nancy pelosi. he says they are on the same page when it comes to the articles of impeachment. he's not sure when she will send those articles over. he also told us merry christmas. just six weeks to go before the first votes of the 2020 race. who on the stage has changed? it's a smaller and most notably diverse field, but who is leading the pack has stayed pretty consistent. in our latest cnn poll just out this morning, joe biden continues to hold the national lead. he gets a quarter of the vote. sanders is second at 20%, elizabeth warren at 16%, pete buttigieg at 8%, michael bloomberg at 5%. last debate of the year, iowa just around the corner. what are we expecting?

>> reporter: so much has changed. it's only been a month ago impeachment dominated the headlines. but the contour of this has changed. at center stage joe biden. he's still there without question, very resilient as we end the year here. pete buttigieg and elizabeth warren have been going back and forth about health care and fundraising. tonight the question is will pete buttigieg actually show he can take a punch? will the candidates deliver one? they have largely shied away from doing so. the center of this conversation is still about health care, certainly given the ruling yesterday, what is the shape of health care? elizabeth warren has been changing her message on that as well. you'll remember she always said, i'm with bernie. that has slowed her candidacy. she lately has said she wants to give her voters more of a

choice. the biggest tonight are those not on the stage. kamala harris dropped out. cory booker is still in. not on the stage tonight, but here's what he said in a new campaign ad. >> you'll only see this ad once because i won't be on the debate stage. this election is not about who can sling the most mud, it's about the people. >> so senator booker is clearly trying to draw some attention on this, but of course he wishes he was on that debate stage. john, another person we're looking at tonight, amy klobuchar. she's done very well in these last several debates. she's the one who started to raise the questions here about the reality of health care. so look for her to try and come on strong tonight as well, john. the final debate of the year, 46 days until the iowa caucuses. john? >> i thought i was the only one counting. jeff zeleny counting the days to iowa. what a shock. jeff, see you soon. it's interesting because the

coverage has been clouded out, if you will, by impeachment, which has -- i just want to show you the race -- which has the race pretty static at the moment. we have joe biden still on top. ee he's at 26%, down a couple points. bernie sanders is at 20%, plus five. elizabeth warren at 16, pete buttigieg, 8, michael bloomberg 5%. he is banking on biden faltering and there is an opening for him. 26%, there's joe biden. he's the leader. that's not strong enough to call him a frontrunner, is it? >> he's literally running in front. we can call him a frontrunner. but he's definitely not running away with it, is the way i would say it. we've seen undecided voters, that number shrink, but there

was a marist poll not long ago that had a staggering number. i think it was 80%? it was still a very fluid race. it stops becoming fluid when you have to vote. these folks are all wrangling for that last-minute, maybe i can pull some people away, maybe the 10% undecided will come to me if i have a strong show. >> i don't know the answer, what is the impact of impeachment? the first question is on democratic voters in the short term. 46 days until iowa, rhode island and new hampshire, the big election after that. maybe they think this could help trump. who knows what could happen ten months from now. in the short term, does it help joe biden if you ask the democratic supporters which candidate has the best chance to beat trump, and that is an overwhelming lead. 40%.

and is he still viewed that way? i guess he has to prove it in the debate tonight. >> the timing, the exact timing of the senate trial is a little bit in question given what we've been talking about today. but assuming the senate trial were to happen and that the acquittal, essentially, were to take place, what, a matter of days before the iowa caucus, i mean, that does have the potential to send a message to democratic voters that if you were counting on some other constitutional process other than an election to get rid of donald trump, you know, that's not going to happen. and refocus people's minds on the question of who can beat him. and that could benefit. >> i want to remind people of what i call the blur just around the corner. enjoy hanukkah, enjoy christmas, enjoy your holiday celebrations, because we have a debate, then iowa, then new hampshire, then

super tuesday. the blur starts before you know it. tonight's debate is the "politico" debate. it will be live from los angeles right here on cnn and your local pbs station. don't miss it. up next, almost every democrat voted to impeach the president. the question now is will that help or hurt next november? can you heal dry skin in a day? aveeno® with prebiotic triple oat complex balances skin's microbiome. so skin looks like this and you feel like this. aveeno® skin relief. get skin healthy™ the ones that make a truebeen difference in people's lives. and mike's won them, which is important right this minute, because if he could beat america's biggest gun lobby,

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related news here. you might remember impeachment witness bill taylor. he's the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine at the moment. he's been told to leave the country, headed by mike pompeo. he is set to visit kyiv in january. taylor, who already planned to leave his post in january, is being told not to be there when the secretary goes. you might recall he offered some quite damning testimony against the president, questioning rudy giuliani's role in ukraine and he thought it was crazy that u.s. military assistance was being withheld from ukraine. why? are we that thin-skinned as secretary of state that -- at a time, number one, mike pompeo is likely to leave in january to run for senate even though he says that is not the case. he is doing behind-the-scenes work to build a campaign. number two, there's been a morale problem. why not stand up with this guy? >> if the reporting is correct,

it does suggest that there is a desire that these two kind of opposing 40s don't collide, the opposing 40s being what bill taylor represents to the president of the united states, which is part of the deep state bureaucracy, deep state foreign policy folks who essentially helped create the impeachment mess that he's in, and, you know, pompeo. they don't want that picture together, and if donald trump were to see, if president trump were to see that picture, i think the fear is, according to the reporting, that that is something that could set the president off and they don't want to do that. >> president trump who met again the other day with rudy giuliani at the white house doesn't like the guy who told congress this. >> there appear to be two channels of u.s. policy making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular. as the acting ambassador i have authority over the regular formal diplomatic processes, including the effort to support ukraine in a russian invasion

and help it defeat corruption. at the same time, however, i encountered an irregular informal channel of u.s. policy making with respect to to ukraine. unaccountable to congress. a channel that included then special envoy kurt volker, u.s. arm to the european union gordon sondland, secretary of energy rick perry, white house chief of staff mick mulvaney, and as i subsequently learned, mr. giuliani. >> it is the meat of the democrats' impeachment case that this alternative channel was helping the president do his personal political business in ukraine, not u.s. national security business in ukraine. so the foreign policy establishment likes ambassador taylor, i think likes secretary of state pompeo. he's a west point grad but persona non grata? >> i guess. this is the second diplomat in ukraine mike pompeo hasn't supported. they stood on the sidelines

while they pushed out yavonovitch. i think it's a totally mismanaged stage. i think not plausible to think that pompeo wants to keep him at arm's length. >> to your point at the state department, throughout this whole ukraine saga, they were so disappointed how these officials and diplomats have been treated by the trump administration, and to see them stand up and ask them to leave early i think is going to hurt a lot of folks over there. >> why do you want to poke the mitt romneys, the susan collins, the gardners of the world who respect bill taylor, who served our country? >> when he has spoken out is when we've seen these perhaps unnecessary attacks against these diplomatic officials, and i think that is one way to kind of rub them the wrong way, especially when he needs support of the republicans in the

senate. >> this is an administration that does things his way. that's his call, i guess. thanks for joining us at "inside politics." see you back here this time tomorrow. don't go anywhere. brianna keilar starts right now. have a great afternoon. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn washington headquarters. a man who once called the impeachment of a president an embarrassing horror show and president trump is unleashing his anger. now a standoff erupts between speaker pelosi and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell over whether the house will even give the senate the impeachment articles. plus the president's pattern of attacking veterans who have passed away along with their families escalates when he suggests that a late congressman is in hell. and among the events, the republicans are comparing this impeachment to pearl harbor,