committee. read the letter to the president on our website, c-span.org/impeachment. follow the impeachment inquiry live on c-span three, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. we welcome professor back to our desk. he is the history professor at american university, author of the book the case for impeachment. it predicted that donald trump would win the 2016 election and eventually be impeached. take us back to those 2016 predictions. what were they based on? >> first, i managed to get everyone mad at me, trump supporters and anti-trump supporters. winy production of a trump was based upon the keys to the white house that i had developed in 1981 and that has forecast all american presidential elections since 1884.

1984.esis -- the thesis is simple. look at the big picture. auge the strength of the party holding the white house and determine wether an election is a change election. i determined regardless of the republican nominee that 2016 was going to be a change election and any generic republican was going to win. i was that i got this little note on my washington post interview which said congrats. i do not think he read far enough to get to my second big prediction, that he would be impeached. how did i reach that? it was not a formal model. it was my study of his entire career and his campaign. who,nd this was someone

starting back in the early 1970's when he was sued by the department of justice for discriminating against minorities in his real estate company, this was someone who had no regard for the law. this was someone who had no regard for the truth. reality was whatever served him at the moment. this was someone who had spent his career enriching himself and promoting his brand with no empathy for anyone else. those are characteristics that i thought would lead him into an impeachment process. you wrote a book in 2017, the case for impeachment. what was your argument then? what was the case and how much just a line with what is happening now in the impeachment inquiry? >> it aligns almost perfectly. i had a chapter on lies. i had a chapter on the russia his russia how connection is not recent but goes back quite a long time with

his attempt to do various business deals in russia. >> it is not like you predicted a ukraine phone call. >> of course not. but exactly what i wrote about in the book, the fact that this onlyomeone who had concern for himself, who did not care about the truth, who did not care about the law and was totally self-serving and had manifestation in his attempt to shake down a vulnerable foreign nation to help him cheat in the 2020 election. that is absolutely the kind of individual that i talked about in the case for impeachment. >> what was the reaction when you put this book out? >> people said you are nuts. how can he be predicting impeachment or talking about impeachment? he has only been in office a few months. that was the same reaction i got when i predicted that trump was going to win. or pollstersts

have a different way of looking at it. i tried to get away from the conventional wisdom and use my knowledge of history, my training as a historian, to get at a deeper reality. that is what the book reflects. are happyviewers, we to take your phone calls. democrats, (202) 748-8000 is the number. as folks are calling in, your takeaways from the five days of open impeachment inquiry hearings. >> the case is open and shut. it is owned -- it is in his own ands that he was extorting bribing president zelinski of ukraine, who was totally dependent on the united states. the very survival of his nation depends upon the united states. every witness builds the case that not only when you ask

someone that vulnerable and dependent for a favor, that is not a request. you can hear the voice of the godfather -- i have been very, very good to you, but you haven't returned much, so i have this little favor i want to ask you. it is a favor you can't refuse. plus, it was quite clear that he withheld the aid and withheld the meeting to pressure the ukrainians to help him cheat in the election by investigating his political rival, joe biden, on a transgression that has been totally disproven and pushing, astoundingly, the russian propaganda line, the line pushed by vladimir putin and the russian intelligence services that it really wasn't russia that intervened in the 2016 election, it was a hoax concocted by the democrats and the ukrainians, as if it would be in the interest of the democrats to hack their own server and release all this detrimental emails about the democrats and hillary clinton.

it makes absolutely no sense, but here is the president of the united states pushing this idea and continuing to push it in recent interviews. host: since you are known for your predictions, will president trump be impeached in the house and convicted in the senate? guest: i am totally convinced he will be impeached in the house. i think it is unlikely he will be convicted in the senate, except for one possibility. one of the lichtman rules of politics is that for officeholders like republican senators, they have one priority -- political survival. if it looks like trump is going to bring them down, they could turn against him. the truth, as one insider said, if they could vote in secret they would boot him out, because they would rather see mike pence, a dependable, down the pipe christian conservative as president than the loose cannon donald trump. host: our first caller, an

independent. good morning. caller: good morning. we keep saying things in ukraine and russia have been unproven, debunked by our so-called intelligence agency. the intelligence agency you are relying on is crowd strike now. guest: crowd strike is a private company. caller: shawn henry, crowd strike, used to work for mcafee. when you bring in this group instead of the fbi and the fbi goes to shawn henry, who used to work for robert mueller, we've got some serious, serious problems here. william barr says he is going to get his arms around this. this goes to the atlantic

council, this goes to the state department under hillary, where we did not have a confirmed inspector general -- this is far deeper than what you are talking about. nothing has been debunked. guest: everything has been debunked. > it is not crowdstrike. crowdstrike is a private company that in fact has just been hired by the republican congressional campaign committee to work for them. a perfectly respectable company. it was the one that first uncovered the fact that the russians were hacking democratic sources and disseminating this detrimental information. who has confirmed it? 17 intelligence agencies. the mueller investigation. the bipartisan report of republicans and democrats in the united states senate have all confirmed it was russia, not the democrats or the ukrainians. as i have explained, it makes

absolutely no sense for the democrats to be hacking their own emails and releasing detrimental information to help donald trump. it is a theory that nobody seems to believe but donald trump right now. host: this is mary in las vegas, a democrat. caller: good morning, mr. lichtman. i agree with you in your entirety, everything you are saying. if i may say a few things before i go on, william barr is as much a threat as donald trump. he is the cover-up attorney general. december 1991, 1992, how he covered up the iran contra scandal. he's got mitch mcconnell, getting millions of dollars from his wife's family in china. he overturned sanctions and paska, who is into organized crime and connected to russia,

to putin, trump only supports dictators it seems, even in photo ops. helsinki was an embarrassment. host: ok, what is your question? caller: my question is, why are people watching some of these hearings -- why aren't they reading the mueller report? the man was found to obstruct justice at least 10 times. host: allen lichtman on the mueller report. guest: i had a lot of respect for mueller, i was crushingly disappointed by his report. not so much the substance of it, but the way it was presented. 435 pages, dense legalese, and he took no stand. he let william barr, an

appointee of donald trump, spin the report in a way that it seems to exonerate trump when the report in fact did not. history called bob mueller, but the call went to voicemail. what a waste, that investigation. host: we will see what the judiciary committee comes up with when it comes to its actual articles of impeachment. do you predict that it will be a narrow articles of impeachment focus on ukraine and the phone call, or could it be included to expand issues of obstruction raised by robert mueller? guest: one, i hope it will be expanded and two, i think the democrats are making a huge mistake in rushing to impeach. the nixon example shows you cannot put a time limit on impeachment. that investigation went on for almost a year and a half and started up with looking at the watergate burglary.

what did they find? illegal campaign contributions, illegal wiretaps, illegal attempts to rig elections. none of that was on the table at the beginning. investigation,al all the transgressions we may find of donald trump. i hope neither the investigation or the articles will be narrow, because i think if you actually read the mueller report, it is pretty damning. host: what are your expectations for next week? the judiciary committee holding its hearing, beginning its part of this process. what will we see from jerrold nadler in the judiciary committee? guest: i hope we see more hearings, not just a rush to judgment and a rubberstamping of a report. i think it does a disservice to the nation to believe that the transgressions of donald trump are limited to the ukraine scandal. they are much deeper than that. host: professor allan lichtman of american university with us for our last 40 minutes left in this program, taking your phone

calls. i will remind you of his 2017 book, "the case for impeachment," and a picture of donald trump on the cover of that book. jerry in mississippi, good morning. caller: good morning. happy after thanksgiving day. host: same to you. caller: the professor there, he must be kind of psychic, you know? he told people, people said he was nuts, and guess what, professor? i am psychic too. i believe everything you said. i think president trump will be impeached, he will be acquitted in the senate, and elected for four more years. have a good day. guest: one quick note on that --

no president who has been impeached, including the two acquitted by the senate and adding richard nixon, who resigned to avoid impeachment, in none of those cases that their party win the next election for president. andrew johnson, a democrat, was impeached in 1868. his party lost that election year. richard nixon's republicans lost in 1976, and bill clinton's democrats lost in 2000 in an election that they easily should have won at a time of peace, prosperity, foreign and domestic tranquility, and with a president whose popularity was close to 70%. it was the cloud of scandal that defeated them. i think republicans ought to be pretty wary of the idea that if trump gets acquitted by the senate, he's going to have an easy time getting reelected. host: the caller began his comments by saying he was

impressed by your predictions. do you want to let folks know your track record? guest: yes. i developed my system, keys to the white house, in 1981, in collaboration with the world's leading earthquake predictor. we developed this model, 13 keys which gauge the strength and performance of the party holding the white house. the idea is that presidential elections are essentially votes up or down on the party holding the white house, and these projections have been correct for over 30 years. nine consecutive presidential elections, 1984 to 2016, and you can imagine, 90% democratic washington, d.c., i took a lot of heat when i predicted trump would win in 2016. host: when are you going to put out your 2020 prediction? guest: i don't know yet. sometimes the keys fall in place

early. i called a hard to call 2012 election in 2010. i did not call the last one until december -- september of the election year. things change overnight, so i'm not ready to make a prediction yet. host: what is a key that seems like it might be in place at this point. 13 different ones, but what is one aspect? guest: the economy, two economic keys and it looks like trump may hold both of them, but we do not know if the economy will hold in the election year, so he could lose the short-term economy key. host: harold out of washington, -- westwood, new jersey, a republican. good morning to you. caller: i am a veteran, 104tt -- 104th infantry division. guest: god bless you. caller: for thanksgiving, we put

love is the only way. forgiveness is the solution. i would like the president to go to the nadler committee and forgive them what they are doing, for the motion of what they are doing. it is based on hate, and hate is the opposite of love. we should love our constitution. we should be thanksgiving -- very, very thankful that we have the founding fathers who brilliantly put together the only and the best formula for success of people to live in freedom, not like in hong kong, not like in any other -- venezuela, any other place. guest: how about russia or china? caller: [laughter] our division was with the russians in world war ii, a little town about 40 miles from berlin. they had a gigantic cathedral, i understand.

the russians came to watch us play baseball. their trucks were so dilapidated, they had no doors on their trucks, they were fighting with nothing. unfortunately, roosevelt was a sick man and gave them austria and so on. the miracle of many of them, austria, the german army, the russian army that occupied austria peacefully left. host: harold, thanks for sharing your story. guest: i agree with harold about the constitution. let's not forget, it was the framers who put impeachment into the constitution, quite advisedly, as a legal, orderly, and in peaceful means for dealing with a rogue president, as opposed to the mechanisms of their time, which was assassination or revolution. so jerry nadler, who by the way

was my high school debate partner in the 1960's, is doing the house's constitutional duty. the house has the sole responsibility for impeachment. i agree -- i would love to see donald trump sit-down for the house judiciary committee and tell his side of the story. he was invited. he was invited by mueller to tell his story. not only has he not told his side of the story, he has blocked every one of his former aides from testifying and they have not given the house a single document they have requested. this is beyond the stonewalling of richard nixon, for which he was impeached. host: he has not been shy about talking about impeachment, tweeting about impeachment, tweeting about witnesses during open impeachment hearings. do you think we will be seeing more of that from the president, and is that a good idea? guest: it is a terrible idea. even richard nixon didn't do that. he stayed out of the impeachment

process. all it does is demean the president. it wasn't bad enough, and instead of just firing ambassador marie yovanovitch in the ukraine, which the president could have done in five minutes, they had to orchestrate a malicious, false smear campaign to destroy this anticorruption ambassador so they could deal with the corrupt elements in the ukraine. that wasn't enough. the president has to continue attacking and besmirching marie yovanovitch. he is the only president i have seen to use the bully pulpit to maliciously attack and damage individuals.

host: what should viewers know about jerry nadler as a debate partner? guest: he was fantastic. we were in high school in new york city and helped establish competitive debate in the city of new york. host: taking your phone calls this morning with professor allan lichtman. kelly in garden grove. you're next. caller: good morning. happy after thanks giving everyone, and i just wanted to thank the gentleman for coming out with this book. this is just 2.0, you know? all roads lead to putin with trump. he has a long history with them. deutsche bank and all of his appointments -- i will not say all, many of his appointees have their fingers in the pie. mitch mcconnell has strong ties to kentucky coming in and having funding for a lot of their -- i guess it is an aluminum oligarch that has invested quite a lot of money, and leningrad lindsay has

jumped into that pool as well. i think they have aligned with him, and they have their agendas that they want to push through, like their evangelical and pulling women's autonomy from their -- sorry -- from their reproductive rights. i want to say to the last guest who was on, hearing some of the callers on the other side of the aisle, i appreciate that they are actually listening now and somewhat coming around. it is encouraging. guest: one of the striking things about the polling on impeachment, which found about half of the american people favor not just impeachment, but impeachment and removal, is the enormous gender gap. 61% of american women, 20 points higher than american men, favor

impeachment and removal. the other point i would follow up on is remember the watergate mantra? follow the money. well, follow the money here. i think if the house ever gets their hands on trump's taxes and financial records, there will be a lot of corruption for them to follow. host: questions from our texting service, from frances in texas, why do you think trump's approval numbers are up after the hearings? guest: they are not up. they are about the same as it has always been. trump's approval numbers has been frozen in time. i have never seen anything like this with the president. 538 -- they have about 41% to 42%, unmoving. host: that chart, if the viewers cannot see, back to january 2017 -- you can see those numbers do not move very much. guest: no they don't, because people seem fixed in their

positions, which is another reason why i have been preaching to the democrats, don't rush in impeachment. one of the reasons numbers haven't moved, no one has heard of any of these people who has testified, so it does tend to blur. but if you get some people to testify like john bolton, mick mulvaney, mike pompeo, and the man who will command the biggest audience, rudy giuliani. you cannot get the president, but you could get all those others. plus, there could be real bombshells in the president's financial records. they have not made the case strongly enough yet. they need to get 55% to 60%. they don't have to move a lot of people. 5% to 10%, but we need more if you are a democrat.

host: out in california, this is jp, independent. good morning. caller: good morning to you. this is a waste of our time. trump is doing a hell of a good job, give him that credit, and we need to stop looking at the impeachment inquiry. we are basically spinning our wheels. we have a president doing a hell of a good job, we have to stop recognizing 1950, 1960, because the road that we drive on has been crooked ever since. now that the road is out, trump needs to fire more people and get rid of these people, because the road has been crooked. if the american people cannot realize that -- host: who would you like to see president trump fire? caller: half the crew. half the crew trying to impeach him for the longest. guest: i don't think he can fire members of congress. i know he wants to be king. caller: do you think congress is going to tell you actually the truth? [inaudible] that has a problem saying the accuser -- i cannot even

subpoena the accuser, i want to see my accuser accusing me. host: professor lichtman, what about the whistleblower testifying? guest: look, on one hand, president trump makes threats to the whistleblower, suggesting that we should deal with him in the old-fashioned way, which is execution. on the other hand, he is pushing to violate the protections traditionally given to whistleblowers. the whistleblower is irrelevant, because all of these other witnesses have dealt with the accusations made by the whistleblower. i was pretty shocked by the caller saying trump should fire members of congress. as much as trump wants to be and -- be an autocrat and disregard the system of checks and balances, we have checks and balances, and it is congress' job to exercise oversight over the president. if trump has nothing to hide, why is he blocking all of his

aides and former aides from testifying, and why is he not giving any documents? this goes far beyond the stonewalling of richard nixon, which led to one of the articles of impeachment that the house judiciary committee voted against him, and that was an article of contempt of congress for ignoring lawful subpoenas. host: nathan out of florida, a republican call. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to wish everybody happy late thanksgiving, and i just have a couple key points that i want to address. one, i was a republican who voted for trump that deeply regrets my decision for a couple reasons. one, i was under the impression it would be a better nation. come to find out i voted for a dictator who supports white supremacist groups, who supports military personnel posing with

decapitated enemy heads -- since when does america support that? a couple more indicators he is a dictator, he had a meeting with putin versus a ukrainian president. when do we support dictators? he is closing our borders like we are china, secluding us off from the rest of the world. we are a nation that is united, not divided. my independence decision was based on the next four years that i am facing. if he is voted in again for the next four years, america, be aware that he is not leaving after those four years. he is going to change our democracy so we cannot vote him out or make a decision on what he is doing. host: professor lichtman? guest: i think the caller makes some good points. i do think trump has posed the greatest threat to our checks and balances, as i have explained, of any president in the history of the country. he sees himself as the ceo of

america and does not want to be bothered by a pesky congress or a contrary court. and what i'm worried about is not so much that if trump gets elected, he will stay on forever, i am more worried, what if he narrowly loses and then claims that the election was rigged and was the result of fraud? this is a guy who claimed that the reason he lost the popular vote in 2016 is that somehow 3 million to 5 million illegal voters materialized out of nowhere on election day, voted for hillary clinton, and disappeared just as quickly. if he is going to monger those crazy conspiracy theories, he may well claim the election was rigged and he was really the winner and it was voter fraud that defeated him. that is my worry. host: the caller said he changed his mind. in terms of the 2020 election,

how big is the swing voter block out there? how many people out there whose minds can be changed, will go to their polar opposites in individual parties? guest: most people will vote their parties, but you have 25% in the middle who are swale. -- swayable. host: you think it is that many? guest: yes. president trump won three critical states, pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin. it would not take much to swing the election the other way. host: maryland, jeffrey, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, cspan. i saw the report, professor lichtman, to [inaudible]

the previous guest said the reason the president makes outlandish statements, and [inaudible] the president of the united states releasing his tax -- professor lichtman, the president is making a claim that the democrats spied on the 2016 election campaign or whatever, and there is something criminal by the doj that disproves it once again. is there something the attorney general can do that will warrant disbarring him? it seems like he is lying as much as the president is doing.

guest: "the washington post" has documented over 1300 lies and misleading statements, and some of them are very big lies. for example, he lied about knowing about the illegal payments to the porn star and former playboy model to shut them up. said i didn't know. we have recordings, signed checks, he knew and he directed it, and by the way, his former attorney, for 10 years, michael cohen, who he says he does not know, is now in jail for those payments. he, of course, lied about illegal voters in 2016, lied about the president wiretapping his phones, the lies can be very, very big as well as small. secondly, doug wead is a friend of mine. but when asked about donald trump's financial records and

his taxes, to deflect to kitty dukakis' medical records? those were the most incredible deflections worthy of donald trump. they have nothing to do with one another. every modern president has released their tax returns. it is the president, not the wife of a presidential candidate. trump stands alone. in fact, he claimed he would release his taxes once they are out from audit, and he has many, many years of taxes that could not possibly be under audit anymore. so this is a very serious issue. the vast majority of the american people want to see trump's taxes. there have already been investigations which showed that he may have committed crimes with his taxes, deflating the value of properties on a claim to taxes, inflated the value when it came to getting loans. we need to see those taxes. absolutely no reason why trump should be the one exception among all presidents in modern

times that has not released his taxes. even richard nixon released his taxes when they were under audit. host: you mention the false claims by the president in "the washington post," the fact checker column keeping track. guest: i missed that, i said 1300. it is 13,000. host: gary from fletcher, indiana. good morning. caller: a couple things really quick. i am impressed by all the research that you do. guest: thank you. caller: given that you are a predictor, you seem a little bit biased -- guest: let me stop you right there. i have predicted more republican victories than i have predicted democratic victories. like any other human being, i do have my own views, but they do not affect my predictions one iota. if they did, i would be useless

as a predictor. more republican predictions than democratic. caller: you are defending something that i am accusing you of, i am saying you are a little biased. i have a hard time with the lies. some of the lies you are talking about are personal things in his life that do not affect politics too much with me. i know women have been chasing him down forever because he got a lot of money. guest: violating finance laws does not bother you? michael cohen is in jail for that. caller: it might bother everybody else in the world, but i just care how the country is being run. if he is cheating with money, i do not understand that life because he's got a lot of it. i have a hard time finding some of the lies. i get put on the spot all the time and i don't know -- if you got some better ones.

guest: lying about barack obama committing a felony by wiretapping the trump tower during the election is one? i don't get it. i am baffled. you can explain away everything. if you want to defend trump and say these weren't really lies, fine. but to say these lies are insignificant, that hillary clinton rigged the election, tried to rig it with 3 million to 5 million votes, barack obama committed a felony by wiretapping his phones at trump tower, or lying about criminal violations of the campaign finance laws, lying about so many other things that violations of the campaign absolutely have to do with running of the country and affairs of state. host: 15 minutes left with professor allan lichtman. icy on twitter asking if you can come back in six months and see what has changed.

guest: i would be happy to. host: we will book it. jacob in kansas, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to touch on all the talk we have been doing about lies and stuff. i think sometimes it is interesting to see how things that are fact are presented as rhetoric, or how people on the other aisle and the other side do not believe the impeachment should be going on, oh, that is democratic rhetoric. i really appreciated the republican caller from florida, because he seems to be somebody who just looked at the facts and looked at what was going on, and took evidence at its worth instead of just saying, i automatically disagree with that. guest: great point. you know, i am a professor. i have spent my life on research, analysis, data trying to find the truth.

i teach my students that, and i think one of the most corrosive aspects of the trump presidency has been the war on truth. the president not only lies, it goes deeper than that. he has created, in effect, his own reality. reality is whatever serves trump's purpose at the moment, and that is really scary. it has without truth, democracy and freedom die. host: kathy in washington, good morning. caller: good morning. i got up early to listen to c-span, but i would think anyone that is supporting trump or any candidate, for that matter, would do their research. for one thing trump, to me, is following in hitler's footsteps and mussolini. all you have to do is listen to his speeches, how he riles up

the audience. hitler's did the same thing, by making people think, poor me. another thing is long ago, we never had fox news. you didn't have hannity, jeanine, and tucker carlson and laura ingraham spewing out such hatred and lies about the democrats. people do believe that. they want to be lied to. that is the only thing i can figure it out. host: patsy in washington. we want to come back to the first part of her statement, the hitler comparisons to president trump. what do you think as a history professor? guest: i avoid the hitler comparisons.

hitler was the epitome of evil, and i think while trump has problems, you can criticize them without the hyperbolic and comparing him to hitler. but the caller makes a very important point. the american people are not fact checkers, and the lies come, as you said, 13,000, one after the other. sometimes five or 10 in a day and you cannot expect the american people to fact check them. i will give you a little plug, it is so important we have programs like c-span that do probe the lies and try to find the truth, on whichever side. host: your predictions, you said you started doing this in the late 1980's? guest: early, 1981. my first prediction was ronald reagan. anyone who thinks my productions are biased, forget it.

host: has the media environment impacted your predictions? is there a key now in your system that has to do with how the news about the president plays out in the media? guest: the answer is no, because my system is a very robust system. we developed it by looking at every election -- this is 1981 -- from 1860 to 1980. the system goes all the way back to the horse and buggy days, no computers, no airplanes, we were an agricultural society, african-americans and women did not vote, the new immigrants were not here yet. while things always change, the system is a very robust one that stands the test of time. i am loathe to change it. i have only made one change and it was not in the keys, it was in the interpretation. i used to look only at the popular vote, because when i developed this there was no divergence between the popular vote and electoral college. now there is. two of the last four elections we have seen that kind of the divergence.

now i do not interpret the same way, the democrats are going to win the popular election because they get 5 million to 6 million extra votes in new york and california alone. what do they count for in the electoral college? zero. there are no comparable red states to offset that. host: kevin from north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. i have appreciated all of your predictions about donald trump. i am a republican, but i am a never trumper. i have a couple things i want your opinion on. adam schiff has done such a good job with this investigation, i am thinking he is going to be the next speaker of the house. two, my next prediction is if trump is reelected, he will be impeached again and maybe a third time. i think his legacy is going to be, he is going to be the most

impeached president of the history of this country. [laughter] guest: i will comment on those. number one, i think you are right. i think there is a very good chance adam schiff could be the next speaker of the house, maybe a senator from california if he chooses to go in that direction, and maybe someday a presidential candidate. absolutely if democrats keep the house, which is quite likely and trump gets reelected, some of these court cases might take a year or more, and in the next trump term, all kinds of new stuff will come out that could be impeachable. i am not predicting that, but you could not be far off. host: oregon, john, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to say that i appreciate what you said about impeachment being a peaceful means of removing a president,

which i, watching the inquiry hearings, i was getting the impression the republicans are trying to turn it to not view it in that manner. the other thing, i feel donald trump is going to face three judgments. one, the impeachment. two, hopefully when he gets voted out, crimes against humanity and also his financial crimes. then, the final judgment. that i do not have anything to do with. along with being a democrat -- guest: i don't either. [laughter] guest: i hear you, and i am glad that you brought up crimes against humanity, because i have a chapter in my book on that, and it is the most controversial chapter in which i say, the most serious thing trump is doing is committing a crime against humanity by putting us all in

peril for our lives and well-being by forfeiting america's leadership on combating climate change and adopting policies here at home that throttle back the efforts against catastrophic climate change. the international criminal court has no jurisdiction over us, but has nevertheless said a crime against the environment is a crime against humanity, and donald trump knows better. in 2009, there was a businessman's letter sent to president obama saying the science is irrefutable, unless we take strong action against climate change, the consequences for humanity will be incredible. do you know who signed that? ivanka trump, donald trump, jr., eric trump, and donald trump senior. the only thing that has changed is donald trump's cynical conclusion that by becoming a

climate change denier, that is the way to succeed in the republican party. and he is helping us, pushing us along the path of destruction. no one seems to buy that argument because they said it was a policy difference -- i don't think so. i think it is putting humanity in peril. if you can prove that, that is impeachable. host: i will let you chat with as many callers as we can get in. john, jupiter, florida, independent. good morning. caller: yes. i would suggest not interviewing a person who is just another new york liberal professor. guest: i live in bethesda, maryland, not in new york. caller: you probably were indoctrinated in new york, because you are from there. guest: i left when i was 16, so it must have been a strange indoctrination.

but go ahead with your ad hominen attacks. caller: i have been watching this show for the last hour and a half and it is so biased it is unbelievable. [laughter] caller: i would hope c-span would get somebody, the gatekeeper who allows these calls to come through, be an independent person. the bias is -- any fair-minded person can see that if they watch this show, it is so biased. host: did you think the previous guest was biased? caller: i believe the whole trend of this morning show is biased against trump. if any fair-minded person would play it back and listen to it. host: john, i invite you to watch doug wead's section from less than an hour and ago. his book "inside trump's white house" was part of an hour-long discussion, and now we are talking to allan lichtman. guest: and doug was a very eloquent defender of the president.

host: to carol in michigan, republican. caller: hi. first of all, donald trump, number one, loves his country more than anything. he is a patriot. guest: why didn't he serve? if such a patriot, why didn't he serve? caller: immaterial. lots haven't. lots sitting in congress haven't. a lot of his story has been imbellished, not all are lies. he likes to put some with cream on those stories, and i think you are forgetting that obama spied on james rosen, the journalist. don't forget that. nixon, when he was impeached, was led out by his republican brethren. they told him, pack it up, you've got to go. you'd never see that among democrats, never. and marie yovanovitch, she will

wear this issue around her neck forever. where i worked for 35 years, the whistleblower had one thing -- they wouldn't lose their job, but everyone knew who they were. they simply had their job protected. host: carol in michigan. what do you want to take from that? guest: i don't know what to take from that. it is astounding that this caller claims to represent truth and unbiased and blames marie u -- marie yovanovitch for the mess in somalia? she was a third level diplomat there. that occurred before she even arrived. it is a shame to see the malicious lies that have been spread about this woman, this ambassador who was a corruption fighter. somehow, the lies stick and the lies continue. like bullets through the air. lies, particularly slanders

directed against individuals like ambassador yovanovitch, they are not harmless. they hurt. they wound. i would ask the caller to look a little more carefully into her career before the caller participates in the smearing of this very honorable person. host: back to las vegas, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. the trouble is, no one sees what donald trump is really doing. donald trump has gone and made the state of israel the country of the middle east. the state of israel, run by his son-in-law, and he also will be kicked out of office for a second term by vice president pence, who will become president. that's nuclear war number three, and we will get hurt in this country.

we have not forgot what we did in vietnam. 200,000 american veterans committed suicide. what they did to vietnamese women with chemical weapons and destroyed their wombs -- host: our caller from nevada this morning. guest: i am not sure what the caller was driving at, but it is possible, as i said, if republicans in the senate think trump is going to bring them down, they could boot him out of office, because like i said, they would prefer mike pence if they could vote in secret. host: when will you be ready to make that prediction? you are predicting the impeachment will happen -- guest: i cannot say, because i am urging the democrats to slow down the process. absolutely no reason to rush it. i think maybe 20% of the relevant evidence is out at this point, and i think the democrats are making a bad political calculation as well.

they think it is going to hurt them to have an impeachment in the spring, in the middle of an election year, because a lot of their presidential candidates would have to sit as senators, as jurors. but the real loser would be donald trump, who would have to defend himself in the senate while he is running for president and the democrats can appoint prosecutors who can make opening and closing statements, call witnesses, presents documents, cross examine any presidential witnesses. host: should democrats run on impeachment in 2020? guest: i do not think you should run on impeachment, i think impeachment is a separate constitutional process. host: could anything else fit into the media atmosphere if that impeachment trial is taking place in the spring? guest: i don't think democrats need to run on impeachment. the trial will carry its own weight. host: one or two more calls. valerie in florida, independent. good morning. caller: yes, that was a great

segue into my question. mr. lichtman, since you are great at predicting, which democratic candidate do you think will win this election? guest: that is a great question and i have no idea. i will tell you one thing -- no one can predict nominations because it is a dependent system. one primary affects another primary. at this point i think there are four contenders that could get it, sanders, buttigieg, biden, and warren. but who knows? here is a prediction -- i will go way out on a limb on this -- i think we are going to see the first brokered invention in over half a century, not one of these candidates will, to the convention with a commanding lead and we may see a broken convention. even michelle obama could become the nominee.

host: we promised we would get you back in about six months to talk about it then. professor allan lichtman of american university, distinguished professor of history, and the author of the 2017 book "the case for impeachment." thank you for your time. >> elizabeth warren holds a town hall in iowa. listen live with the free c-span radio app. the impeachment inquiry hearings continued when house judiciary chairman jerrold nadler holds the committee's first hearing into president trump focusing on the constitution and the history of impeachment. watch our live coverage wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. chairman nadler extended an invitation for the president and his counsel to appear before the committee. read the letter to the president on our website,

c-span.org/impeachment. and follow the impeachment inquiry live on c-span3, online at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. , president trump is expected to return to washington, d.c. after spending the weekend at mar-a-lago in florida. on thanksgiving, the president made a surprise visit to the troops in afghanistan and met with the afghan president. here's a look. president trump: you having a good time, everybody? >> what do you say to the troops. es