these 6 democrats debated each other last night they all want to defeat us president trump in november if trump remains in office and i say if because the impeachment trial of donald trump is set to start next week and the verdict could change everything tonight the split screen reality that is u.s. politics the race to be the next u.s. president and the trial that could remove the current president i burnt off in berlin this is the day. what is at stake here is the constitution of the united states and this is what and impeachment is it that this is a test of the constitution the president's conduct violates the constitution every

single one of the closely and the house at cooperation down a dangerous road. for the hoaxers of this is a decency check on our government this is the petri dishes and check i took enough to up hold the constitution of the united states of america it says that no one is above the law that includes the president of the united states. also coming up crimes against its own people 30 years ago tonight in east berlin crowds stormed the headquarters of the secret police just in time to stop the shredding of a dark past. then with a fight to save the files was far from one that took a hunger strike and huge effort to convince west german elites and politicians who want to keep a lid on this for various reasons. viewers on

p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome we begin the day with the vote that sets in motion the trial which could mean the end of the trump presidency last month the u.s. house of representatives voted to impeach donald trump on abuse of power and obstruction of congress's power to investigate that abuse well today the house voted to send those 2 articles of impeachment over to the u.s. senate now that is where beginning next week for only the 3rd time in u.s. history a sitting u.s. president will stand trial senators acting as jurors deciding yes or no to convict and remove trump from office the republican controlled senate is expected to do anything but that. the always about marking history. using time on december 18th house of representatives and page the president of the united states and impeachment that will last forever and this

time has given us the ability to. show the american people the necessity of a fair trial to expose the degree to which mcconnell is working hand in hand with the subject of the impeachment the president to essentially turn what should be a trial into a sham. well we already know how 3 u.s. senators will most likely vote they happen to also be democrats who are also candidates campaigning to become the next u.s. president it will soon be make or break for most candidates in less than 3 weeks voters in iowa or cast ballots in the 1st primary of the election season last night was the final opportunity for all 6 candidates to debate face to face a last chance for 6 remaining candidates to make their case before the democratic primaries begin and the candidates used their chance to attack president trump on his foreign policy decisions and right now what i fear very much is we have

a president who is lying again and could drag us into a war that is even worse than the war in iraq trump offered his own counter programming at a rally in milwaukee in battleground state wisconsin he defended his decision to kill soleimani. saw a man who was responsible for murdering and wounded thousands of americans it was actively planning new attacks but we stopped them cold. and frankly they already started the attack as you saw in baghdad on a very large embassy in baghdad that was already started you know a moment to remember was a standoff between bernie sanders and elizabeth warren warren accused sandor still have said a woman could not be elected president of the united states look at the men on this stage collectively they have lost 10 elections the only people on this stage who

have won every single election that they've been in are the women but bernie sanders rejected the allegation the real winner did not emerge good news for joe biden who avoided a blunder this time and that could consolidate his position as the front runner up at the. and the talk about this potpourri of political action i'm doing here the big table tonight by times and barker he is with the aspen institute here in berlin he also once worked for the u.s. state department tyson's good to have you on the show i want to just stop for a moment and consider the events that are playing out right now at the same time we've got the race for the white house that is about to get very serious right and at the same time we've got an impeachment trial which could end the trump presidency begins next week these are as i said like a split screen reality that we have rare we rarely if ever experienced in the history of the u.s.

right and then we also have you know the trade to toggle between the u.s. and china that's of course the narrative that the white house is putting out there but let's be honest that we have action taking place in russia and you know everything that happened with iraq in iran now seems like ancient history i mean everything keeps getting crowded out where in such a saturated environment and honestly that kind of what the trump white house wants is everything to continue to get layered over so that we forget about things like impeachment but you know one thing that has changed since the original vote in the house and today when the articles were sent over is 1st of all we have the willingness of john bolton to testify and 2nd of all we have new information from left pardon us who will be giving an interview in the united states i think today or tomorrow linking giuliani rudy giuliani to actual perhaps spying espionage on the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine so a lot of developments are still happening in this case and with all that

considering all of that do you think when the trial starts next week that we're going to have a screeching halt to all of these things happening and the world will then be able to focus on this impeachment draw well the one thing we know for certain is that we have 3 acting senators sitting senators who are taking place in the democratic primary and they all take their jobs. it seriously will and they've all indicated that they will be there for the trial they will be there to submit questions and render judgment so they will not be on the campaign trail in iowa and we'll see how much that draws attention back to washington but the campaign continues to go forward and we've never seen a constellation like that either have we were we've got actually more than 3 senators several senators when you consider the ones who dropped out of the race who will be acting as jurors and who also would like to win in november and replace this president right i mean let's be honest that gets back to the fact that this is in essence not a strictly criminal trial it is

a political exercise it's written to the united states constitution and people could say well that does present some sort of conflict of interest but on the other side of the aisle we have mitch mcconnell and and members of the republican party who have said that they've already come to a conclusion of what the verdict will be and shift today you know he would he would say to you no that's not true this is a trial the 4 volumes one of them to be a trial the way we expect a trial to be evidence witnesses documents do you think all those things will be. a well. well it's trending in that direction there are several republican senators who are kind of seen as the make or break for whether or not witnesses and evidence will be able to be presented and we've already had for example mitt romney come out and say if john bolton wants to testify i'm going to be on the side that has done bolton testify we're already seeing movement towards a majority to have witnesses the republicans themselves are looking at

constellations that would kind of in their opinion level the field on that saying if we allow john bolton for example to testify we need to allow hunter biden or have hunter biden testify as well but we're just at the beginning of that negotiate from all of this in the presidential race i'm thinking of for example he doesn't have to go to washington next we. keep campaigning in iowa right and theoretically vice president biden as well he will be able and tom styer they'll all be able to be present in iowa new hampshire of course the trial is focused on it least as a side matter on hunter biden's seat on the border. and just one more developing story that we should note the service of bristol were hacked there's likely russian by the russians so this is another developing i mean there's just so much news in this very live investigation still taking place the debate last night for you came out what would you say on top i think it was

a draw i mean really there was nobody who landed a super meaningful punch that the main kind of optical takeaway was a live elizabeth warren zinger about you know every woman on the stage her and amy club which are having one all of their elections that i'm in collectively having 10 but generally i don't think there were any real knockouts what was interesting is the infosys on foreign policy that took place at the start and what the candidates but all tried to do was say you know who has the judgment for this role there's a lot of engagement fatigue abroad and you know a lot of desire to bring troops home to. was a lot of attacking on trump for the incident in iraq and the tension with iran and a lot of you know nobody noting that he ran to end these endless wars president trump and that he has actually deployed more troops in the region rather than withdraw them so a lot of critique on trump for his his position the middle east will go on will be as important as iowa will would like to see. i mean what about if

mayor peter some said he will say he will pull off a surprise when will that help him or he could do well i don't know is not a microcosm of the united states it's quite rural it's quite white. iowa new hampshire both have demographics that are not reflective of the democratic party more broadly both states could render a victory for somebody like pete or elizabeth warren and to be honest it's still very fluid and there's kind of a 4 way tie between the 4 way front runners in both states the super tuesday that really matters right right exactly so then after the 1st 2 caucus and the 1st primary you do a sweep of the south where a preponderance portion of the population is african-american the democratic primary and what the polls are currently showing particularly among older african-americans is they are solidly behind by you know we'll see we'll see if that keep him through because

a lot of commentators were not impressed by his performance last night so i said barker is always ties we prefer your analysis thank you thank you. you know it but for the 1st time let me stress for the 1st time in the entire history of the existence of missiles and nuclear weapons including the soviet period and present day history we are not catching up with anyone and on the contrary other countries have yet to create weapons that russia possesses but i see . that was russian president vladimir putin earlier today delivering his annual address to the country's federal assembly the weapons that he was referring to are new hyper sonic missiles they can fly it 27 times the speed of sound and it's claimed they can evade any and all and then he defends it in other words russia is winning the arms race has said that the new missiles were developed

because of u.s. efforts to develop a missile defense system that could be road russia's nuclear deterrent the u.s. says that defense system is not intended to counter russia's missile arsenal. all right to talk about this military boasting i'm joined tonight by bradley bowman he's with the foundation for defense is of democracies in washington he's also a former national security advisor to the u.s. senate friendly's good to see you again. what should we believe should we believe by the mere putin when he makes claims that he's number one in the world now. i think we should sprinkle our healthy dose of skepticism to everything that putin says there is a track or record their own exaggerating their capabilities but was defective these

hypersonic missiles these hypersonic like nichols was of the open guard system that they announced was operational in late december and there is no doubt that as a formidable weapons capability that would appear to be more advanced than what the us currently has fielded so that system is designed let's be clear to attack the united states here at home is designed to fly an extraordinary speeds and to in any interception this is a system designed to kill americans at home and so we should take it seriously but he's a metaphor you know in terms of military people that russia is tall but they are not 10 feet tall you know russia us economy is roughly the size of the state of new york's economy doubters russian troops lacks the combat experience american ships from pound for pound there's just no comparison between the us russian military but there are areas like this where they are ahead of us primarily because they've been working on a long time the u.s. is not lacked the ability for such a system just a lack of political will for

a long time or cut sleep at the switch for one yeah i'm going to say you know rome wasn't built in a day either and you don't build hypersonic missiles in a day either i mean the united states has not been caught by surprise with this type of weapon as the us stood by and watched russia move forward at least in terms of hypersonic missile technology and they willingly let themselves be beat by russia. it's a great question you know with with defense expenditures in defense investments research and development sorts of things there's virtually infinite threats and finite resources the problem for the united states sense at least since that is 1001 terror attacks is that we've simultaneously been trying to connect operations in places like iraq and afghanistan to maintain the readiness of currently defined forces while also modernizing our forces and not combine that with unpredictable

funding authorizations coming from congress late funding late authorizations we created the problem and when we had to choose between current operations and modernization we consistently chose current operations and as a result. china russia and summers leapfrog us and american military security in some areas if you're a creating the situation room now the good news over the last 3 years or so we've had more sufficient funding defense funding more timely resources and the u.s. is actively reestablishing its military sphere already but it's going to take time it's going to take time like you said these weapons not until today and i was and how does this fit into the global geo political picture especially with china emerging as a military power now i mean is the united states is the pentagon more concerned about what china will produce one day than what russia is producing now.

if i were asked to rank order that leaking threats to the united states i would but china number one i would put them as a more serious threat than russia you know russia serious they've got a modernized nuclear triad nuclear arsenal there on the un security council good as is often said it's plain he can't well china has a much much larger economy has a comprehensive system of strategy conduct of the markets that that intellectual property in human history china is a much more formidable threat but both of these authoritarian powers represent a threat to the us and our allies in europe and the us as we awoke to that fact in recent years our european allies and partners are waiting that's that too and this is not just that classic is martin machiavellian great power. competition here this is these are authoritarian regimes who are representing a fundamental challenge to our democratic way of life and international state system this facilitator prosperity and president prosperity and security since

world war 2 when china and russia they have also you know come together in certain times of war games and exercises that they've conducted jointly how concerned are you in russia and china joining forces to create some type of military monolith against the united states one day. it it's a great welcome question you know so that recently there was a joint needle exercise in china russia and iran you know you can judge someone by the company they keep oh that's interesting you know that china russia inducted major and in some ways on president exercise unless you're. energy projects going back and forth china purchasing russian air defense systems so there's a lot of point to be concerned about but there's also some historical sensitivities concerns between those 2 parts well so they're not going to be best buddies anytime soon but they clearly see it in their combined interests to stand up to the u.s.

in our allies the focus in our eyes and trying to push us back in and change the international order as more of their liking is authoritarian powers that don't believe that their power comes from the consent of oh yeah who ever wins in november will have plenty of china and russia on their plate to deal with that's for sure bradley been with the foundation for defense of democracies joining us tonight from washington probably as always we appreciate your analysis thank you thank you. 30 years ago today people in east germany stormed the headquarters of the country's secret police known as the stasi the berlin wall had fallen just 2 months earlier euphoria was being followed by a reality check or real fear fear that the stasi would destroy the millions of files kept on most citizens evidence of a nation's crimes against its own people or today german president. visited the former stasi headquarters here in berlin to mark the anniversary he praised the

crowds who refused to let the stasi shred any race evidence and i'm going now here at the big table by my colleagues i mean the un peace covering this for it's going to do you so i mean the study was one of the biggest secret police forces in the world at the time how did it shape east german society well i think it was it was a massive part of east german society and in 1989 when these germany fell there were nearly 300000 people working for the stone in one form or another and of course it was a system of that operate it it's a network of prisons they had a sweeping powers to deal with what would enemies of the state locking people up to littering them and and so on and they carried out an enormous amount of surveillance of pressuring people in many cases to spy on friends and families and so that's a legacy of pain that has left behind but one of the useful things to come out of

the fact that they had these habits of documenting everything they did was that there's an awful lot of evidence is still around of people is still going through it now you know 30 years ago east german citizens prevented the destruction of the stasis surveillance files on millions of people one of those who took part in that storming 30 years ago tonight spoke with the w. news. he was there both gang temp lean a former east german civil rights campaigner 30 years ago he and other demonstrators pushed their way into east germany stars he headquarters it's still the resting place of thousands of files on citizens who were spied on the stuff is oh yeah i said so you know what we want this peaceful disarmament of our actual takeover of the whole thing will happen a lot faster there's no placebo was open the gate the

storming of no man in street was a key moment after the buildings and other cities had already been occupied in the preceding months several 1000 people now poured into the berlin headquarters of the was the staff the workers tried to destroy files up until the very last minute but the activists were able to rescue most of those files. from its border come from the uk. but the fight to save the files was far from one that took a hunger strike extreme effort on our part to convince west german elites politicians and those who wanted to keep a lid on this for various reasons and so. after all nobody knew exactly how sensitive the information that east germany state security had collected was in the end the files were made accessible to the public full temp lien applied to see his

own. it was certainly a unique experience i was part of the 1st group that got to see their files in 1900 . 90 u.s. an opposition figure it was highly unlikely that a very comprehensive file awaited me it was very thorough but there was also one from the 1st half of the 1970s that was classified as a perpetrator follow. for 2 years templin himself was an unofficial status the informant he ultimately quit and got involved with civil rights groups later he was arrested and kicked out of east germany after the fall of the berlin wall he returned and took part in the negotiations to dissolve the stasi but he still struggling to cope with what happened to this day. a lot of people say yeah well it was so long ago why bother. if we think about the nazi era

and i'm not saying that the same just comparing that to it took decades to process the monstrous things that happened back then. the stasi files will be transferred to the national archives from 20 to 21 as long as they remain easily accessible to ordinary people templin has no problem with fact. you know i mean germany decided to do to make these files public people can see their own files is that a template for other countries around the world that are coming to terms with their dark histories i think it is and it seems very successful still thousands of people even last year of lying to see their files and in some model it's been copied in the former communist countries of eastern europe but not only there even in places like latin america where they you know they're dealing with the legacy of injustice from military dictatorships or in other places in africa or even post apartheid south africa that all these situations can learn from the way that germany has

dealt with that legacy from east germany and it's all part of that process of truth and reconciliation someone young as always thank you. well the day is almost done the gover say she continues online you'll find us on twitter either at u.w. news you can follow me and bring golf t.v. don't forget to use our hash tag the day and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you then it.

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