1787. the founders create the american constitution. they asked, do we need impeachment? james madison answers, you bet. if men were angels, he wrote, no government would be necessary. james madison, meet donald trump. >> there are no bribes. they're impeaching me, and there are no crimes.

>> donald trump rages. >> two flimsy, pathetic, ridiculous articles of impeachment. >> while nancy pelosi stays the course. >> this is about the constitution of the united states. so don't mess with me. >> at issue, a phone call with the president of ukraine. >> my call was perfect. >> no pressure, no pushing, no quid pro quo. >> others heard much worse. >> he had a desperate man on the phone and he asked a desperate man for a favor. >> corruptly abusing the office of the presidency. >> the debate gets ugly fast. >> they dislike us so much they're willing to weaponize the government. this is scary stuff. it's dangerous for our country. >> come on, get real. be serious. we know exactly what happened here. 17 witnesses. it's uncontradicted. these people are stone cold crooked. >> then a verdict that turns a political divide into a chasm.

>> the president is impeached. >> history becomes the only guide. bill clinton, impeached when he lied about sex. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman. >> andrew johnson, a troubled president. almost removed from office. >> the impeachment effort against him failed by a single vote in the senate. he did not deserve to be president of the united states. >> five men were nabbed in the democratic headquarters. >> president nixon. a criminal conspiracy. >> he's thinking, what am i going to do? >> a grave and profound crisis. >> i had to impeach myself.

>> there is no greater fall from no greater height. good evening. i'm fareed zakaria. bh our great-grandchildren study the presidency of donald trump, among the first things they will learn is this. he was impeached. it is a historic judgment on a president that cannot be erased. we don't yet know the rest of trump's story, but we do know he's part of an exclusive club. only three presidents have ever been impeached: trump, bill clinton and andrew johnson. richard nixon resigned when he saw that impeachment was inevitable. each impeachment drama has had its own plot twists. but all spring from the same source: article ii, section 4 of

the american constitution. the impeachment clause, written by our founding fathers. remember, they were men who had just fought a revolution to escape the tyranny of kings. their goal was to keep the president from becoming an elected monarch. together they carefully weighed what the grounds for impeachment should be. they agreed on the two worst crimes a president could commit, treason and bribery. also proposed, maladministration. but james madison said that was too vague. impeachment was not a remedy for a bad president. george mason from virginia came up with a broader phrase. high crimes and misdemeanors. scholars note that the word "high" was used in british law where it comes from to describe crimes committed by people in high office. and that is the impeachment clause. there have been moments in our history when it saved american democracy. at other times it's been hurled

at opponents as a weapon, a cheap political trick. how will it end this time? >> from the moment he stepped onto the political stage -- >> we're going to win so big. thank you very much. >> -- donald trump has been the most controversial, the most polarizing figure of modern times. just one day after he won the election, americans were taking to the streets. >> thousands are in the streets out here this evening. >> impeachment proceedings against donald trump. >> we begin impeachment proceedings. >> some democrats took up the call. >> i say impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment. >> but through the constant upheaval in the trump white house, the mueller investigation, the firings, the indictments, the convictions. house speaker nancy pelosi fought the push for impeachment.

>> it will divide the country. unless there is some conclusive evidence that takes us to that place. >> three times she had the house vote down an impeachment inquiry. but then came that phone call between donald trump and the president of ukraine. >> i would like you to do us a favor, though. >> feverything has pointed towad a quid pro quo here. >> trump had told the president of ukraine, investigate the bidens or we won't give you what you need. >> he attempt extortion and bribery. >> we know exactly what happened here. it's uncontradicted. there is no rival story! >> finally, nancy pelosi was on board. >> the president leaves us no choice but to act. >> at his impeachment hearings,

trump's own officials gave troubling testimony about inappropriate behavior in ukraine. >> there was a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. >> donald trump insisted he had done nothing wrong. >> i'm the first person to ever get impeached and there's no crime. i feel guilty. >> the vote against the president -- >> we passed two articles of impeachment. the president is impeached. >> reporter: -- revealed the stark and even frightening divide between america's political factions. >> read the transcripts. there was no quid pro quo. no bribery. no extortion. we all know that what president trump did was wrong. we all know it's wrong to withhold foreign aid. >> they don't just hate donald trump, madam speaker, they hate the 63 million americans who voted for this president. >> when you see something that is not right, not just, not

fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. >> we have been through periods of polarization before. the difference now, i think, is that we don't have a common baseline of facts. we disagree on reality. >> to understand today's crisis, we need to go back to the last time america was shaken this profoundly by a political scandal. we now think of watergate as a time when america came together and forced a crooked president out of office. but to richard nixon and the republican party, the watergate scandal was a partisan war. >> it was of a front war with a fifth column. i had a senate committee staff, special prosecutor staff, media, we had a part an judiciary

committee staff in the fifth column. i gave them the sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. >> the real story of the war nixon describes is one that few americans know. it's a story of a small group of men who turned impeachment into an act of patriotism. it all begins on june 17th, 1972. >> five men were arrested early saturday while trying to install eavesdropping equipment at the democratic national committee. >> why was someone breaking into the democrats' campaign offices? >> i again proudly accept that nomination for president of the united states. >> well, richard nixon won the presidency in 1968 by promising to get america out of vietnam.

♪ >> are you listening, nixon? >> but as the war dragged on, the anti-war movement exploded. as nixon campaigned for a second term, he feared vietnam might give his enemies the ammunition to defeat him. and so his men planned a seize of dirty tricks. to cripple the democrats. one of them was the watergate break-in. in 1972, nixon won reelection by a historic landslide. >> i, richard nixon, do solemnly swear. >> but the watergate story was still growing. so just weeks after the election inside the oval office, richard

nixon declared war on the press. nixon hated the press because it was digging into the very story he was desperate to hide. that the white house was deeply involved in the watergate cover-up. his campaign seemed to work. early in his second term, nixon's approval ratings soared. but then came the first crack in the white house defense. in the summer of 1973, all of america was riveted by the senate watergate hearings. >> what did the president know and when did he know it? >> as the country watched white house counsel john dean turn on his president. >> i began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the

presidency. >> dean testified that the watergate burglars were blackmailing white house aides. >> the white house was now being directly subject to blackmail, and i didn't know how to handle it. >> i told him i could only make an estimate that it might be as high as a million dollars or more. he told me that that was no problem. >> it was john dean's word against the president of the united states. >> nothing less than richard nixon's presidency may ride on whether the public believes john dean or not. >> most republicans continued to stand by their president. but then from a little known white house aide, a dramatic twist. >> my name is alexander porter butterfield. >> mr. butterfield, are you aware of any listening devices in the oval office of the president? >> i was aware of listening

devices, yes, sir. >> it was a bombshell. >> the pressure is on the president to produce those tapes. >> he fought subpoena after subpoena. >> i have never heard or seen such outrageous, vicious, disturbed reporting. >> even as he tried to convince the american people that watergate was a press creation. >> what is it about television coverage of you in these past weeks and months that has so aroused your anger? >> don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. one can only be angry with those he respects. >> mr. president! >> finally a drastic step. >> nothing like this has ever happened before. >> our offices have been sealed by the fbi. >> a mass firing of the men pursuing the tapes. the saturday night massacre. >> the news calls the sensation in the white house press room

and sent reporters scrambling for their telephones. >> a grave and profound crisis in which the president has set himself against his own attorney general and department of justice. >> does it have to do with the resignation of the attorney general? >> it might. >> by the time it was over, the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and the prosecutor were all out. >> the bipartisan american outrage changes the politics of the situation for richard nixon. >> tens of thousands of teleg m telegrams flooded washington. >> western union was robbed. most of them demand impeaching mr. nixon. >> nixon was forced to appoint a new prosecutor. and as the months went by, bit by bit, he was forced to hand over the tapes. they were as damning as he had feared. white house counsel john dean's testimony turned out to be entirely accurate.

>> i would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years. >> you could get a million dollars. and you could get it in cash. i know where it could be gotten. >> would you consider it impeachable if you had lied to us? >> i also quit beating my wife. >> in july of 1974, in a packed hearing room, the house judiciary committee began to debate removing the president. >> make no mistake about it. this is a turning point, whatever we decide. >> committee chairman peter rodino was a democratic machine

liberal from newark, new jersey. he was new to the job. some doubted if he could handle it. >> a partisan prosecution if there ever was one. >> mato the nixon followers, impeaching him was tantamount to suicide. so they kept waiting for the evidence. >> the evidence must be clear, it must be convincing and let's keep to those two words. you can't substitute them for anything else. clear and convincing. but you cannot and you should not under any circumstances have to remove the highest office in the world for anything less than clear and convincing. >> but as emotions began to run high, the facts were calmly recited and documented. and something surprising happened. >> there is an obstruction of

justice going on. someone is trying to buy the silence of a witness. >> nixon republican larry hogan, the father of maryland's current governor, was moved by the evidence. >> the thing that's so appalling to me is that the president, when this whole idea was suggested to him, didn't in righteous indignation rise up and say, get out of here, you're in the president of the united states. how can you talk about bribery and blackmail and keeping witnesses silent? this is the presidency of the united states. >> one by one, residents who had revered the president put conscience over party. >> i cannot condone what i heard. i cannot and will not stand for it. >> i wish the president could do something to absolve himself. >> perhaps the most conservative

senator was wallace. he had served as nixon's campaign chairman. >> i wondered when going to sleep lately whether this could be some sordid dream. >> but he did go ahead and impeach, even though walter flowers said it gave him an ulcer. even the conservatives who stuck with the president reached across the aisle to say thank you. >> i must admit in all canned. the republicans understood that themp not going to carry their base if they voted for impeachment. and some did it. >> mr. dunahue. >> aye. >> aye.

>> aye. >> they called three articles of impeachment. obstruction of justice, obstruction of congress, abuse of power. >> aye. >> no. >> no. >> mr. rodino? >> aye. >> chairman rodino left the room and cried. official impeachment would come later with a full house vote. but it never happened. nixon's wall of republican defendants had crumbled. >> there is a countdown tonight, the expected end of the presidency. >> at 9:00 tonight, the president of the united states will address the nation. >> it was over. the impeachment the framers had imagined, it worked. democracy worked. >> there is the president waving

goodbye as you hear the applause. >> but the scandal itself triggered a loss of faith in government and in politicians. it would be 25 years before impeachment would come up again. >> your testimony is up against penalty of perjury. do you understand that? >> this time it was a completely different story kelsey. marriage? oh. okay. look maybe you should just show her this beautiful helzberg diamond ring? that's a better idea. yeah, maybe not in the bathroom. oooh! oh my word! geico. it's easy to switch and save. you have power over pain,

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>> in 1978, a bright-eyed, 32-year-old bill clinton was running for governor of arkansas. >> i've tried to bring out the best in people through politics, and i've been very happy doing it. >> he and his wife hillary were also investing in some real estate, a nice little patch of land in the ozarks called whitewater. a two-bit real estate deal that ended up losing money would change the course of history. >> did they read you your rights? >> decades later -- >> the whitewater controversy. >> political turbulence over whitewater. >> whitewater became a spiraling investigation that led prosecutors to a sex scandal. >> the ayes have it. >> there it is. >> william jefferson clinton is

impeached. >> that became the second presidential impeachment in american history. how on earth did that little corner of arkansas -- >> i hereby deliver these articles of impeachment. >> -- explode into a constitutional showdown. >> it was a two-bit real estate deal, and yet somehow one thing leads to another and we are on the house floor debating whether the president of the united states should be removed from office. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman, ms. lewinsky. >> when we think of the clinton impeachment, we think of a certain white house intern. but before there was monica, there were the mcdougals, jim and susan. clinton might not ever have been impeached if not for him. it was the mcdougals that convinced clinton to run for

president. so when there was slander, the clintons came under fire, too. >> questions have been raised about the clintons' personal involvement with mcdougal. >> nothing came of t but it planted a seed for something bigger, something that would lead to this constitutional confrontation. >> it led to a demand to investigate whitewater. >> we did nothing improper and i have nothing to say about it. >> clinton had a fateful choice to make. lock up special counsel and take a beating in the press. or give in, leave himself open to a potentially limitless investigation. the president gave in. >> i don't want to be distracted by this anymore. let them look into it. i just want to go back to work. >> years later he would call that decision one of the biggest miscalculations of his

presidency. >> once you have independent counsel appointed with no budget and no limits, prosecutors will keep looking for the crime until they can find it. >> the first special prosecutor, robert fiske vowed to wrap up his investigation quickly. >> would you guys get down? >> but he was replaced, and his successor ken starr was far more aggressive. >> our job is to gather facts and get at the truth. >> expanding the inquiry way beyond whitewater. >> the investigation kind of leads in all these different directions. >> this is truly a wildly historic night. >> no one could have been happier with starr's aggressive approach than newt gingrich and the republicans. >> there's been a sea change in american politics. >> they had swept into congress in 1994. >> this is an earthquake. >> preaching the new gospel of

strict orthodox conservatives. >> newt gingrich reshapes the republican party. our base wants this, we do this. we do not compromise with democrats. >> president clinton became the democrat the republicans despised the most. he was morally corrupt, thety said. >> he experimented with t. >> i experimented with marijuana a few times and didn't inhale. >> the law is the law. the law is sacred. >> meanwhile, ken starr had been digging into the clintons for more than two years, to no avail. >> are you going to be working for congress or the courts or the public? >> his investigation was winding down. then out of the blue, some explosive tape recordings came his way. >> i never expected to feel this way about him. >> conversations with monica

lewinsky -- >> we fooled around. >> -- that was secretly recorded by her coworker, linda tripp. >> if you get to orgasm, that's having sex. >> no, it's not. >> yes, it is. >> no, it's not. >> starr expanded his investigation even further, to look into lewinsky. >> i thought, that was nuts. i couldn't believe starr was going down this road. >> do you understand, sir, your answers to my questions today is testimony being given under oath. >> yes. >> starr was testifying about lewinsky in another matter. >> it's just humiliating what he did to me. >> a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by paula jones. in his testimony, the president was not truthful about lewinsky. >> i've never had sexual relations with monica lewinsky.

i never had an affair with her. >> there are new allegations of perjury with president clinton. >> all hell broke loose. >> charges of sex, lies and audiotapes. >> clinton kept denying the affair. >> there was no sexual relationship. the allegations i have read are not true. >> but starr was asked to get the dress that had clinton's dna on it. >> indeed, i had a relationship with ms. lewinsky that was not appropriate. >> there was dna on that dress. >> starr released a detailed explanation of the scandal, listing 11 grounds for impeachment, including lying under oath and obstruction of justice. it's hard to understand in hindsight, but bill clinton was

in danger of being pushed out of office. many of his fellow democrats were furious with him. >> may justice be done, let the heavens fall. >> if they had come out of office like nixon did and said, your time is up, that would be it. >> but clinton was able to rally the party and the country back to his side. >> i will continue to do all i can to reclaim the trust of the american people and to serve them well. >> his behavior may have been reprehensible, his allies said, but he was hardly a threat to the republic that impeachment was designed for. the american public agreed. the democrats scored a shocking upset in the midterm elections, gaining seats in the house. >> the lewinsky issue didn't carry any weight. >> newt gingrich, who had predicted a big republican victory -- >> we have a chance to win some very startling victories all over the country.

>> -- lost his job as speaker. >> shouldering the blame. >> impeachment is a two-edged sword. you may choose to use it against your enemy. but it may hurt you even more politically. >> president clinton was thrilled, thinking he was in the clear. but house majority whip tom delay was hell-bent on impeaching him, anyway. >> we have witnessed history. >> the house impeached bill clinton almost entirely along party lines. >> the president resigned and his legacy will forever be scarred today. >> in the senate he was easily acquitted. >> william jefferson clinton is not guilty. >> in retrospect, the 1989 effort to impeach and remove clinton was a huge endeavor.

they said, we really don't want to impeach this president. >> they took away what was left of ken starr's job and let it die. but bipartisan enrollment, things had gone too far. but today, in the me, too, era, trump is being seen in a new light. democrat kirstjen gillibrand, who holds clinton's old senate seat said a long time ago bill clinton should have resigned. >> that behavior could not be tolerated and should not be tolerated today.

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they shouldn't be having appearances, it's a hoax. >> from the start, president trump refused to cooperate with the impeachment trial. >> president trump is absolute and without in american history. >> the president leaves us with no choice but to act. >> mr. chairman, there are 23 ayes and 17 no's. >> the articles are agreed to. >> the constitution says it's up to the house. it's not up to the president of

the united states to tell the representatives, a separate branch of government, how to vote. >> article i is adopted. we passed two articles of impeachment. the president is impeached. >> donald trump became the first president to be impeached while running for reelection. >> it doesn't really feel like we're being impeached. the country is doing better than ever before. we did nothing wrong. we are going to keep on winning, winning, winning. >> but he is not the first to use impeachment to rally his base. in the last few decades, impeachment has been increasingly used as a political weapon by both parties. >> impeachment went from being something that you use only in moments of constitutional crisis to something you use for

everyday partisan. that is horrible for the american people. >> tamerican wanted to impeach president bush as he took americans into battle. but there were none. and war was a tragic mess. an anti-war movement grew quickly. it had used impeachment as a weapon. >> bring down these criminals like bush. he needs to be impeached! >> back then, nancy pelosi, the leader of the democrats, wanted none of it. >> impeachment is off the table. >> disagreements over policy were not intended by the founders to be the bases for a serious attempt at impeachment. >> it's not a crime or a misdemeanor under the constitution to make a mistake.

>> after bush's mistake, the country was totally polarized in its view of the president, and the partisan gap was the widest ever recorded. >> the president of the united states and the vice president. >> impeachment fever would only get worse under the next president. >> change has come to america. >> in 2008, barack obama was elected on a promise to help heal the country's extreme partisan divide. but the candidate who had campaigned on "yes, we can" ran into a wall of republican opposition. >> hell, no, you can't. >> the tea party formed an almost fanatical position to barack obama. in 2010, it propelled a wave of new republicans to congress. >> what does it feel like?

>> feeit feels bad. >> this new hyperpartisan congress resided over a growing impeachment movement. >> when you decide you're out to impeach the president, you can make a name for yourself. you can raise money. you can rally the base. >> impeach him. really? >> impeachment is not supposed to be used as a rallying cry to get people to vote for you. both sides played around with it. >> impeachment campaigns against presidents bush and obama never gained legitimacy or real legislative support, but there was another serious consequence. >> if you play around with impeachment that way, over time the american people are going to misunderstand its constitutional power and its necessity. >> when barack obama left office, he was more popular than george bush. but the gap between the people who loved him and who hated him was even larger than it had been with president bush.

the deep polarization of the last few years is the worst in american history, with one exception. the period around the civil war. on april 15, 1865, president abraham lincoln was assassinated. the country was still deeply divided over the civil war. enter andrew johnson, the vice president who succeeded lincoln. johnson was a southern democrat whom lincoln had picked to create a national unity ticket. there are few things historians agree on, but that was one of them. andrew johnson was one of the world's worst presidents. >> he was a neo-confederate who was dead set of congress' program to recreate the south. >> republicans despised andrew johnson. >> he represented a man who

sought some. they decided to wage an impeachment war. >> they set a trap for him. >> that trap was called the tenure. >> they said he could not fire his members. >> the house pursued 11 articles of impeachment against him, one of which accused the president of bringing congress into ridicule and disgrace. >> their entire approach to impeachment was partisan. no matter how battered a president andrew johnson was, there were no grounds to impeach him. >> the senate was one vote away from removing president johnson essentially because congress did not like him or his policies. >> johnson basically agreed to cease all the behavior that had

been so problematic, to go along with the reconstructional program. >> historians today regard the impeachment trap as unconstitutional. johns johnson's impeachment would serve as a warning about the consequences of partisan impeachment in a sharply divided country. >> it raises blood pressures, and in some perverse ways, it actually makes impeachment hard to use when you might actually need it. >> when donald trump faces trial in the senate, it remains to be seen whether anyone will remember the lessons of history. before they're gone. now in-network with vsp. visionworks. see the difference. (thud) (crash) (grunting) (whistle)

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on this crucial issue i know that many people have quickly taken up firm and unalterable positions. i did not. i think that impeachment is a nuclear option. to be undertaken in the most extreme circumstances. the best mechanism to remove bad leaders in a democracy is through elections. >> impeach donald trump! >> and in today's already deeply polarized climate -- >> why are you doing this? why are you working for -- >> -- an impeachment will only make the wounds worse and the healing more difficult. but the events of the past few months along with the gravity of the charges against the president have led me to support the impeachment of donald trump. let me explain why now and not before. >> russia, if you're listening -- >> i believe that donald trump's campaign did some shady things in dealing with the russians. but i thought that robert

mueller was right to paint a somewhat ambiguous picture. and ambiguity wasn't enough for me to call for impaecht. >> integrity and accountability. >> reporter: trump's efforts to pressure the ukrainian government, however, are different. >> it's a country i think with tremendous potential. >> it appears that acting as the president, not a candidate, using the power and machinery of the united states government, he threatened to withhold taxpayer funds for his personal political gain. that is the definition of abuse of power. even many of trump's defenders argue that what he did was undoubtedly bad but claim that it does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. what has been even more troubling is donald trump's refusal to cooperate with the impeachment process. >> they're pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bull [ bleep ] impeachment. >> other presidents have

contested a specific subpoena or request for document. donald trump effectively rejected congress's ability to hold him accountable at all. the rule of law has built up over centuries in the western world, but it's very fragile because it's based on a bluff. the bluff is that at the highest level everyone will respect the rules even though it might not be possible always to enforce compliance. and the rule at the heart of the u.s. system is the separation of powers. the founders' greatest fear was that too much power in the hands of government would mean the end of liberty. so they ensured that power was shared and each branch would act as a check on the other. the crucial feature for james madison, the chief architect of the constitution, was giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. as he explained in federalist

51, "ambition must be made to counteract ambition." but the system only works if all sides respect it. congress doesn't have an army or police force at its disposal. neither does the supreme court. when the supreme court held unanimously that richard nixon could not use executive privilege to withhold the watergate tapes, president nixon immediately agreed to comply. even though he knew it would mean the end of his presidency. >> there is the president waving good-bye. you hear the applause. >> all modern american presidents, both republican and democratic, have expanded their powers. and that expansion has been excessive in the past few decades. but donald trump is on a different planet. >> i alone can fix it. >> he has refused to comply with wholly constitutional legislative requests for documents, information, and

testimony. were his position to prevail, the u.s. president would become an elected dictator. a democracy can turn into a tyranny not all at once with a bang but over time. officials, even elect, even popular, can simply weaken and then dispense with constitutional constraints or legislative checks. liberty is eroded slowly but irreversibly. germany's weimar republic was a well-functioning liberal democracy, and within a few short years, using mostly legal means, it became a totalitarian dictatorship. >> [ speaking foreign language ]. >> i know that america is far from that grim scenario today. but we're living at a time when the constitution's laws, rules, and norms that sustain liberty and the rule of law are under attack across the world. from poland and hungary to

turkey and india the democratic fabric is fraying. in the long history of the world liberal democracy has been a brief fragile experiment. if we look away now as it is being undermined, unwilling to deal with the discomfort or the disruption, we might all live to regret it. those are my thoughts. but as we head into the 2020 elections, you should make up your own mind on this issue, which is really central to america's democracy and its future. i'm fareed zakaria. thank you for watching. this holiday season choose the longest lasting aa battery... (music) energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. matched by no one. denny's delivers for free whether it's celebrations. or silent night's. here...

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>> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. this is a scam. it's a whole hoax. >> they've defeated isis. >> we all know he does it. >> the whistle-blower has been very inaccurate. >> he's the babe ruth of lies. >> windmill. they say the noise causes cancer. >> this is a drug for him. >> there is no president that lied as if it were a form of breathing except donald trump. >> nobody's been more transparent than me. >> this isn't a partisan thing. he just empirically says a tremendous number of things that are just completely wrong. >> yes, exactly. >> in recent months, it's been