listen on the go on the free c-span radio app. announcer: our live coverage of the presidential candidates in iowa continues. today, at 4:30 p.m. eastern, senator elizabeth warren from iowa, followed by senator bernie sanders at 5:30 p.m. in des moines. 2020 our live campaign unfiltered coverage of the presidential candidates this weekend on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen from wherever you are on the free c-span radio app. host: and on this mlk day, we will take time to talk about impeachment and politics. big, big week, big month ahead of us. nathan gonzales is with us at the table. table, editor and publisher of inside elections. commentatortions from roll call. guest: good morning. host: this "new york times"

editorial, they are throwing their weight behind two democrat candidates for president. senators andy klobuchar and elizabeth warren, for various reasons. what do you make of this double endorsement? guest: is unique both in how they did it and also in endorsing two candidates, but it is something i have been thinking about for years. it is time for newspapers to stop endorsing candidates. for a couple reasons. first of all, i'm not sure how many people are waiting around for a newspaper to tell them who to vote for. i think that that time has gone. but also, you and i know that there are walls within -- the editorial board, the reporting side, i think most people either do not know that that exists or they do not believe that that exists. when an editorial board makes an endorsement, people assume that the whole paper is in the tank for that candidate or those

candidates, and i think that hurts the reporting, the journalism side. andow it is a big deal in "the new york times" is a well-respected paper. but overall, it would be better if newspapers said let's give as much information as possible but let the voters decide. host: this leads me to ask you about impeachment because these two senators, or 2 -- are two out of four senators who will be inside the senate chamber for the next two weeks, not campaigning in iowa or new hampshire, at least not a lot. what impact will the impeachment trial have on the trial? guest: i will tell you in a couple of weeks. the narrator of is that the senators will be trapped on the floor six hours, six days a week, and it will benefit vice president biden or mayor buttigieg. i am not sure it plays out that way. michael bennet is running. they will have access to scores

of reporters waiting for them as they enter the chamber, as they exit the chamber. it is different for those voters in iowa. candidates are not hiding from the voters. i think democratic voters are well aware of where these senators are. it is a job that they have to do. and they have staffs, field teams. they have a presence there even if they are not physically there. and most of them have been there for a year or more, so i am skeptical that their physical presence is going to matter as much as maybe what we have been seeing over the last few month. host: they think and solace has been following this for many years now. guest: it makes me seem old. host: you are not alone, but presidential politics and congressional races as well. which we will get to. we have lines for democrats, republicans, and independents this morning.

not just in 2020 but in impeachment 2020. press, junketsd 50/50 odds for reelection as prognosticators rethink models. so if it is 50-50, to what extent is impeachment impacting those numbers? not seen that specific model. i think the president's chances are slightly lower than 50/50. i think it depends on who the nominee is. i don't think it has to be president biden -- vice president biden to win. if the president wins, it would look similar to 2016. it will be an electoral college victory and not a popular vote victory. i am skeptical that impeachment is going to be a game changer. i think it is a historic event, but over the last year specifically, when you look at the media, we tend to treat everything as a game changer.

everything is breaking news everything matters, and when you look at the president's job approval rating, at the beginning of january 2019, it was 53% -- 43% approve, 53% disapprove. i believe at the end of december 2019 it was 44% approve, 53% disapprove. it was virtually the same, and i think from my standpoint, from a handicapping standpoint, i am going to assume nothing is going to budge public opinion one way or another on the president unless proven otherwise. we will not know that until we see how people, voters reacted across the country to him. host: let's hear from the n appearance did a last night in austin and took time to talk about impeachment. [video clip] pres. trump: we are achieving that no administration has

achieved before. what do i get out of it? i get impeached by these radical left lunatics, i get impeached. but that's ok, the farmers are sticking with trump. they are sticking with trump. [end video clip] radical left lunatics. is that a theme we are sticking with this year? host: these are terms that he has been using or he is going to use for the next 10 months. just within that clip, there are a couple of key things. one of them is that two things -- more than one thing can be happening at the same time, that the president is helping americans on one level, and that ukrainianith the president is inappropriate. both of these things can be the same at one time, but he also is going to -- he is going to try

to use impeachment to try to rally the base. i think the base will be with him and will be energized the question is, democrats already are convinced he is guilty. folks in the middle that are balancing -- they do not like the tweets, they do not like some of the circus that involves the president and the white house but they believe the economy is heading in the right direction, that is the key. his job approval rating on the economy is consistently better than what it is overall. but if he loses that over the next 10 months -- talking about farmers sticking with him. farmers have given the president , andprisingly long leash that should not back away in the next 10 months. that will make it harder for him. host: let's get a call in for nathan gonzales. mike from chicago, illinois. democrat, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

has destroyed the presidential in our country. in addition, trump has increased tensions with iran. for the first time since world war ii, our bases were hit by rockets. the trump administration has been caught in another lie. no innocentsat were harmed. -- youragon says commentary ec? host: to what extent do these issues affect the campaign? we have not heard questions about the debates until just this past one.

mike expresses concerns as a lot of americans have, particularly on the democratic side there it and we talk about foreign policy as an issue in the campaign, i think that it would require there to be more evidence of a specific threat on our homeland, or having significantly more troops involved in a conflict overseas for it -- for foreign policy push above the economy or health care in terms of priorities for voters on issues. those things could happen over the next 10 months. that is the key -- one of the things we cannot project as people who watch elections. what is the breaking news going to be like in the late summer and early fall? that is going to dictate a lot of the conversation. it might be about the economy and farms and jobs, but it could be about conflict overseas or threats to america.

tennessee,ng from republican caller. hey, cal. caller: the problem is the democrats have tried hard to overthrow this government. that is treason. , they allncy pelosi ought to be arrested and charged with treason because that is not right. my biggest problem, my biggest will hire someone to try to assassinate this president. this is a shame. this country is so divided at 50/50 or more. i support trump. i think trump is doing a great job. thank you. hopefully nobody goes to the extent you were talking about there. cal, you expressed concerns that many republicans have. you clearly support the president, most republicans do support the president for different reasons sometimes, but

the threat of what could happen if democrats are in charge -- that is a key rallying point for the republican party and president trump in this election, that even if they are not happy with everything he does or tweets or says, they do not want socialism, government takeover of health care, some of the terms the republicans will use. they do not want senator sanders or senator warren to be in charge for different reasons. gonzales, usa today in the new york times, democrats are pushing to tap witnesses, and it has a new urgency, an effort to fill in the gaps, they are saying, seeking to sway some of the gop before the start of the president's trial. theyn the gop are realistically thinking they could sway in this impeachment trial? senators who are

running for reelection in states int hillary clinton carried 2016, senator cory gardner and senator susan collins. it will be media event, but we have been watching these senators for the entire cycle. they have been vulnerable for the entire cycle. i am not sure how persuadable they are. i would suspect that gardner and collins would vote along with the rest of the republican party and support the president before acquitting because i think they have seen how some of their colleagues, when they have backed away from the president, have been hurt. set lender -- senator kelly ayotte of new hampshire -- they saw that when you back away from the president, you risk losing republican voters. i am trying to imagine, if senders gardner or collins or any of them vote to remove the republican president of the

united states, republican voters will -- enough republican voters will move away from them in the reelection, where it will be impossible for them to win. it is not easy because they still need some democrats and

never talked to her, never took one minute of her time, went on 45 minutes in the senate floor talking about garbage. that is why the people in maine did not vote for her. number two, she said she would fight to the death, that they would never be anybody taking away preconditions out of the health laws. and what happened there? she voted again and again to get them out. so the reason she has lost her popularity, it is just like mitch mcconnell. he is number two.

you lie to your constituents to protect your $174,000 a year job. host: thanks for calling, joe. guest: joe, if you are indicative of other independents in maine calling on the independent line, senator collins is in trouble for reelection. her vote on brett kavanaugh was clearly polarizing. millions of dollars of campaign funds from across the country that would be available to the democratic nominee in maine after that primary is over, senator collins -- she has proven that she has won tough races in the past, but this will be her most difficult reelection. host: we have talked about senator gardner here. the freeze-frame of senators that are tossup seats.

speak to them and their races and plug-in impeachment. guest: tillis represents north carolina. north carolina continues to be the emerging battleground state. republicans have done a little bit better there, but stilton is likely to face a democrat named cal cunningham. i expect that to be a close race, when he was first elected was extremely close. it is also going to be expensive. north carolina has multiple media markets and those will be flooded. senator mcsally of arizona -- i would put her as the second most vulnerable republican senator, even ahead of susan collins. she lost the senate race in 2018. she was an appointed that she -- she was appointed to the seat. i am not sure why we would give her an advantage. she has proven to be a good fundraiser, but she is running against mark kelly, the retired astronaut husband of former

,ongresswoman, gabby gifford who is maybe the best democratic fundraiser on that side of the aisle. so she has a tough race. she has clearly chosen to go all in with the president. the president won arizona in 2016. there is no guarantee that the president will win arizona again in 2016. she got into this back and forth with one of the most respected cnn reporters on capitol hill, calling him a liberal hack, and instantly turning it into fundraising. i'm sure some people agree. and a lot of people do not like cnn and some of the reporters but to pick him, i don't know how authentic it looks. i think her reelection chances will probably rise and fall with the president's standing in arizona.

host: we are talking with nathan gonzales, analyst from roll call. publisher of inside elections. diana is on the line from oak hill virginia, democratic , caller. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am a long life democrat voter. it is not that i prefer democrats over republicans, but they have their equal positives and negatives. my concern is today with this election, i have been involved from day one with donald trump as president of the united states. my concerns are very severe with donald trump, and i did not vote for him. i voted for hillary clinton. my concern is, she won the popular vote, and lost the election due to the electoral college voters.

i have since learned that mike pence, the vice president, was also a member of that electoral college voting. my concern is that if it happened once, cannot happen again this time? -- can it not happen again this time? it saddens me that i can vote and put my personal opinion, who should be vice president of the united states, and it is wiped away with the electoral college votes. why should a person be so involved in electing a president of the united states when it is taken away from this electoral college voting process?

guest: specifically about mike pence being an elector, i will have to rely on email or twitter feedback in checking in after the fact. to your other question, you are not alone in terms of people who believe that the electoral college is a flawed and antiquated system. the system was set up when our country started in order to make sure that the smaller states or smaller populations were not dominated or overrun by areas and states that had more population. i leave it up to everyone else to decide what is the better system. where i could concerned is that if voters -- where i get concerned, is that if voters view the presidential race as illegitimate because of winning

through the process that is laid out, that becomes problematic. one of the hallmarks of our country is that we have elections and there is a winner and a loser, and the loser licks their wounds and moves onto the next one. but if we cannot all agree on the outcome of the election or agree that the election is legitimate, i think that becomes a much deeper problem than the specific results itself. host: continuing campaign 2020 coverage on c-span with various candidates events, especially in iowa and new hampshire. as the voting begins in early february. david is calling from newgate -- from gaithersburg, maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am glad to follow the woman talking about the electoral college because i am calling the independent line. i am way to the left, always have been, but i cannot stand the way the liberal elites and democrats act on things like this issue of elections. they want to complain about the electoral college.

harvard law review just published something ridiculous about busting d.c. up in a bunch of states just to reform the constitution. it is about states. we are the united states. i'm sorry, but states control the elections. that is what it is. the electoral college, if you want to complain, get involved at the state level. statehouses control things. i'm sorry, mr. gonzales, i believe it is going to become a liberal talking point about small states. it is to protect the entity and sanctity, if you will, of the state. i was living in new york until i came back to maryland here, and working there in the city, the city hall there and the statehouse even in new york, they are accessible. i can find them in the community. liberals have the illusions of grandeur and they want to scale up all their ideas and make them federal and everything. but if you want to change the way your electors vote, you can

do that at the statehouse. i just wish -- there is a chance to connect on the two sides if we meet in our states. that is a point i want to make. guest: you bring up a lot of good points. one of them that i can envision coming to pass is that if we get to october, november of this year and voters do not like the choices that they have, they do not like president trump or they may not even like the democratic nominee, there are other elections going on in races for the u.s. senate. all house seats are up, there are 11 governorships across the country. even working down to the city level. those are all important elections for the reasons you laid out. with the electoral college, sometimes democrats are coming at it from a couple of different perspectives. one is that they believe the system is antiquated, old and we

need to change it. but some of them, i believe it is political opportunism. they think they have identify the demographic trends of the country and are tired of multiple elections but it does not take a lot for, in this case, president trump to win that popular vote. if there were to be a left of center third-party candidate who took just 3% away from the democratic nominee, that hillary clinton won by more than two percentage points in 2016 in the popular vote, but if you had a left of center, third-party candidate who took a few percentage points from the democratic nominee, president trump in this case would have a plurality. then i would come back to the demographic and say you wanted to change the rules. was it because you believed in that or because you thought democrats were going to -- it would be advantageous for the democrat party? host: the house seats -- we will put a list on the screen of tossup seats. beginning with that georgia

seventh district which we know that is an open seat. some of the names out there, rodney davis, lauren underwood, mets pros, kendra horn, joe cunningham, you had mentioned ben mcadams. talk to us about which of these races are most interesting to you and which might be most impacted by the impeachment story. guest: joe cunningham of south carolina, ben mcadams and utah -- they represent some of the most republican districts currently held by a democrat. when we get into the impeachment process, as the impeachment process conversation really heated up, there was -- what is notable is that even though they are in a vulnerable -- they are in vulnerable districts with vulnerable reelection races, they have chosen to support the impeachment or the removal of the president along with the rest of the democratic party. one race that is not in the top that is indicative is congresswoman slotkin of

michigan, representing suburban detroit. when the inquiry started, the rnc was trying to hold some of these new members, their feet to the fire, by airing advertisements, trying to be active in town halls. on one level that is fine, but in this case, republicans do not have a top-tier challenger. they have got a candidate who got into the race in the fourth quarter in the fall of last year. we will see if she develops -- on the flipside, elissa slotkin was able to raise more than $1.2 million in the last three months of 2019. so there is this kind of -- i

feel like more of the narrative was about democrats particularly facing a blowback on impeachment, and then it is going to be a backlash like it was to republicans in the 1990's with clinton. in this case, it is energized democratic donors and it is putting congressman slot -- congresswoman slotkin -- she is able to be in a strong financial position heading into this race. host: let's take a look at how some of these is playing out on tv with ads early in the impeachment process. you can see the republican national committee launched a "stop the madness" campaign, featuring tv ads that targeted house democrats. >> this has absolutely nothing to do with politics. >> i would like to impeach the best right now. >> this is about preventing a potentially disastrous outcome from happening next year. >> he really should be punished. >> that charlatan in the white house. >> i am not running for anything except the impeachment of trump. >> we cannot accept a second term for donald trump. >> if we do not impeach the

president, he will get reelected. >> it had absolutely nothing to do with politics. host: nathan gonzales, anything more on that "stop the madness" campaign? guest: there were somewhere there are credible challengers, and whether are not, maybe that would inspire someone to get into the race -- i did know my -- i did not know my congresswoman or congressman was voting that way. we will see the end of the year, financial campaign, finance reports are due at the end of the month. we will see if republicans, republican challengers have been able to capitalize in the same way we have seen some of the democratic numbers -- we will see what that looks like and what that means for the election

going forward. host: let's go to las vegas, independent caller jim. caller: it is actually tim. i am a retired marine. we bounced all over the last 15, 30 minutes. the initial thing i was going to talk about was the military aspects, one person with the hispanic voice who was saying trump doesn't know anything about the military. but let's forget that. the initial thing is impeachment, correct? my problem is, the commercial you just put on. what are we supposed to believe? this stupid thing -- that is where it comes to us to individuals to do our homework, which most of us are too lazy to do our homework. we let the idiot box decide what we are going to do, and we do not really know that pelosi -- i thought big game hunting was illegal in the united states. pelosi is handing out her pens to people, and people were taking pictures of her with her pens after she signed the license to kill the big

president. correct me if i am wrong. isn't it -- is it not the house of representatives' job to do all the investigating and bring all the evidence together? once they have that together, then they proceed to bring it over to the senate, and back when billy bob got impeached, bill clinton, how did they take him over? they ran him over at night in the hallway so it was not a big parade, the macy's parade. but is it not the house of representatives' job to do all of the investigating, so that when they bring it to the senate, they then use -- they