tonight on kqed newsroom. house decrats begin drafting articles of impeachment against president trump setting the stage for a shredown with blicans on capitol hill. also, don't let a spark turn into a flame. we talked through the best tactics for diffusing family holiday tension . and the nancy pelosi way. from building bridgeg to tearwn walls. a new book ascribes the leadership stpoe of a tical powerhouse. good evening, and welcome to kqed newsroom , i am risa lagos. we begin tonight with the thursday, speaker nancy pelosi said the house of representatives would begin drafng articles of impeachment against president trump. a day earlier,tufour constional law scholars testified before the house mm judiciary tee. that the president had stified

committed impeachable offenses in pressuring a foreign power to open an investigation into a political rival. also this week, california senator, harris announced she is dropping out of th presidentice. harris had gotten off to a rong start with an impressive performance with the first presidential debate held in june. since then, her campaign was ma ed by infightid muddled messaging on key issues such as healthcare. with us now is l.a. re times politicarter melanie mason. she joins us via skype from los angeles. thank you for being here, melanie. >> thank you for having me. >> in the studio political writer carl m iannucci. carla, i want to start with you. it has been a big week in the impeachment inspiry. we know ker nancy pelosi announced yesterday she has directed the house committees to draft these impeachment. can you quickly walk us through what happens now. >> now we have got come in the

house judiciary committee, they will take up these articles of impeachmen we may hear from president trump, from some lawyers of the house intelligence committee starting monday. there is an issue with a federal judge and subpoenas up on tuesday. but i think the big news is today, the trump admistration basically said the president is not going to participate in this. >> which is what we have se all alonone of the attacks on the process but no eagerness to jn the process. do you think this wedecision end or strengthened chumps hand in this whole thing. >> i think everything about this impeachment process will be seen through a partisan lens. cheer chump on and say this is a phony process any witchhunt or the democrats are going to say there goes again complaining about a espr to participate in it. i think we are back where we started and this is still going to get more and moredramatic. we will see the house will be able to wrap this up by

christmas which is what they nt. but who ows how this is going to go. >> i want to turn to the prbuident soon. before we get there, you have covered nancy pelosi a long time. she really has become the driver of this process. so much control and she re ly resisted until the ukraine what political calcns you think the speaker has made in the last few weeks? >> to this point, as you said, she wavery careful in the beginning talking about how this is going to affect her members. how devices divisive it would be for the country. that was a bler and the ukraine revelations changed everything for her. as she said this week this is about thconstitution, no about the election anymore. it is about protecting congressional rights of oversight d it's also about issues like obstruction of justice. we are going to see how r these impeachment articles go. are they going to include obstruction of justice and the corruption, and maybe the russia investigation. so we will see how that goes. but what pelosi is, is now the

driver. >> want to bring melanie in here. we now support for impeachment is really split upon part lines and the country is very split on this. i'm curious, as someone covering the 2020 race and out how do you think this stdi inis playing in for the presidential candidates but also for congressional democrats who might be defending their seats against republican attacks essentially. >> i think to take the congreional question first. carlin's carla's statement about this being seen through congressional linens, t changed polling very much. even as we have seen all of ne this being in the house intelligence committee before that. i do think we have seen some outside groups coming inly particulto the aid of president trump and i think trying to scare off some of these house democrats. particularly if theyare in some of these more purple districts. it doesn't seem like so far anyone has beenosening in

their resolve. i think, on sithe other of the ledger, in the presidential race, there is a real practical implication here that if the house dedes impeach the president and it moves over to the senate, there could be an impeachment trial happenin right in the mile of numberth of candidates who are senators who trail on the lead up to some of these key contest because i have to be in washington dc for an impeachment tria if you are senator elizabeth warren or bernie sanders or amy klobuchar. you're probably looking at this anmysay does january look substantially different than i thought it would a couple months ago? >> a lot of naflights. one r who does not have to make that calculation is, let harris from california. she got out of the race. you hang been covehers and she launched this campaign in january. what went wrong? it started off so promising for kamala harris. >> i think those expectations that were set from the very beginning, that's really sort of dazzling lunch rally in oakland, really strong first debate performance against joe biden set expectations that

would be high for any t politician to and particularly someone like kamala harris , she had the kind of raw attributes that should make a strong politician. but the truth is, it ver quite clicked into gear. i think for those of us, all of us have covered her in she was presidential candidate. i think wesaw some of the tendencies that may be hampered her career sometimes in california really playing out in the presidential race. i think particularly sometimes this instinct for caution, maybe th-senator seco guessing her in thanks her thto make nga core pitch about why her in this very crowded presidential field. i think a lot of people generally like kamala i think she made a good impression on democratic primary voters. when you ve so ma juicomann red as for soa whhaal winning or for running, she could not offer a counter argume that swayed enou people. >> carla, i want to bring you

in here too. this was a racewhere you had mohammed saeed alshamrani harris's sister cochairing the campaign. a lot of upheaval, as melanie mentioned, within that campaign. but also ouese questions who kamala harris is. someone who has covered her so long, what do you think was the biggest challenge here? >> i think e learned th running a presidential campaign is a whole different thing from running a sti ewide campaign. have never seen a campaign that was so focused on a ciular firing squad. she had internal divisions going on in that campaign that didn't help her. an then her messaging was issue.she didn't seem to know w issues like medicare for all. she came out of the box talking t abhow strong she was as a prosecutor. kamala harris for the people, that was her motto. yet when she took fire from progressive democrats about that role in scrutiny about that role, she seemed to back away from . trying to please everyone, as mel id, sometimes too

cautious. all of those things came to therand the coverage covered that. >> we saw castro, another candate of color really the m kamala harris was held to a different standard because she i kind of wonder if she held herself to a different standard because she knew how hard, she has known how hard it is to run. maybe that caution, but what do you make of that attack? wh cannot remembe she came out of the box she had some very glowing coverage all over the country. she did wehave, there some hurdles and i have to say she took some heat that other n' candidates dtake. say with her relationship with willie brown. there were a lot of trolls out negative coverage onthat. ot of that is not the kind of coverage that a lot of male candidates get about thr dating history. think on that, yeah. there may be an issue. but with regard to how her campaign fell down. the issues, the internal debates. i think we were straightforward

in the coverage on that. the l.a. times, other media organizations looked to this úcampaign in a critical and fairway. >> you are running to for president, y are going to have some tough questions. melanie, i want to come back to you. the l.a. times told us this ucweek with berkeley saying that the democratic race in california is still very fluid. it did show warren losing some supporrnie sanders now in first place. pete buttigieg really doubling his support over the last pole. biden still in the mid teens what is it going to take fo something happen in this race and for someone to break out? it feels it is so up in the ila so late. >> my account, bernie sanders is the fourthperson to w lead in a statewide california primary poll which just goes to show the leaderboard really is trading off. i think to the point of what is it going to take? i think there are a couple of factors here. t the fi, as much as we have been following this obsessively for the last year, it is still early.

people have not started voting yet, i think there will be a tuning factor after the first of the year. i think for california as we keep reminding voters all the time our primary is earlier this time of round, we can make our voices heard earlier than 2016. i think you might get people firming up a little more of their preferences there. i think the other factor is when arcampaigns really to flex muscle here in the state. caouvastgnafmpf s haaiin the state. he really hasbaked on california as being crucial to his strategy. joe biden doesn't have any paid staff based in the state at all. focusing on california. i think you see that discrepancy. and then there is the question t se who are coming and taking to the airwaves. we all know that california tv is king when it comes to political campaigns. we have already seen tooustier on the airways and michael bloomberg the formne mayor. he has the resources to blanket the state with ads and that's exactly what he's doing. i think our pulp captured the

very ginning of thbut i don't think that we have fully seen wt the impact of this deluge os will be. >> of course apple did not show a lot of love for chael bloomberg in this state. but we will we have time yet and people are just beginning to watch. millie mason frlitical, thank you very much. pe is the most n powerful womain america. in january, she became speaker a second time after democrats flipped control of the house and set a record number of women to congress. in recent weeks, nancy pelosi has championed house democrats impeachmeninvestigation of president trump and made a case to it to a skeptical public.a w christine, describes the political and gotiating skills have made speaker pelosi such a formidable leader. joining me now is author and chair of the cafornia democraticparty women's caucus christine pelosi. thank you so much for . coming

>> my pleasure, thank you. >> this book is aimed at giving young women the choice to become leaders. one chapter is entitledm to clur seat at the table. late80s that basically she was asked to give a list of priorities to the male congn and told to. how does sh that and what do you take from g?thshe handled that kind of dem>>ocratic y women and 11 republican women in the entire 435 member ngress. imagine 23 women in a field of 435 . so she o of the 12 and the , they became very close friends and allies and they quickly realized when they would have conversations with men, they were never asked their opinion. even one night when the men were talking about childbirth. surely you're going toask us now and they still didn't. we need more amma we need more women at the table, we need more people of color at the table and now with nancy pelo

as speaker there are 90 democratic women, only 15 republican women so they've got some work to do. but the idea being that not only do you claim your seat at the table buu yo coreinss who b only a head of the table, you are the head of the table with the gavel. ac>>women anymore diversdemocratic caucus haa set track with what she learned early in her career. both as party leader he in san franciscmabu t also. >> will, nancy pelosi raised five kids. we were born six years apart so there were a lot of us. of a lot logistics. a lot of every day, every night making sure that we were prepared for school. four of us went to e sacred heart for a combined 48 years. that meant every night checking our homework, making sure our uniforms were pressed, ki wed ra

ber bu organized every day. she would say proper preparation preventsor performance. child you know if every morning they had to be fed and clothed and off to school and prepared,e it's the thing when you are a member of congress. you know there is an election season, a transition ason, a dg appropriation ason. you have to be ready for all those things. they are not surprises and they should not deliver so much of san francisco because she knows the to get things done. ss and >> your book has, on hothw e co a photo of speaker pelosi. the book opens with the ory ofat photo which is now this infamous 2018inmewhere the speaker pushed back to president trump on stmera. just day we saw some of that personality on display again in washington e speaker was asked by a reporter if she quote e erhits thpreside trum let's take a look at how she reacted. >> do you hate the president, speaker? >> i don't hate anybody. i resentyou using e word hate

in a sentence that addresses me. i don't hate anyone. i was raised in wa that is a heart full of love and r always pray the president and i still pray for the i president. pray for the president ss with comes to words allike that. >> sanancy pelosi saying i dopr thaest tell you about, oran thher daughtere , as someone wh knows well the way she reacted to that >> i would not mess with nancy pelosi. i learned the hard way that is but also, nancy pelosi nowas raised in baltimore maryland in a little italy community, saintly roast parish. shnuwas raised by . in fact when she was growing up she had these brothers that were groomed for politics and ht they thoshe might be non- which would make this conversation impossible. but the fact of e matter is, she does go to church every fah. y, she is

staunch devout catholic by nancy pelosi is motivated out of anything other than loves deeply, deeply offensive to her and that is what you saw yesterday. anthat is what we constantly see. we are the city of st. francis, when she is attacked for having e city of saint francis, the values of healthcarefor the values of peace, the value of community that she is very proud to reent saw some of that yesterday and we saw a little bit of righteous anger when she puts up that finger. that mom finger, you know trouble iscoming. >> i know you talk to your mom every day or almost every day. this is not unusual for her to wesaw tens of thousands of ads run against her. sometimes by people in her own party in th2018 cycle. republicans, the president often takes to twitter in the

airways to attack her. how k you thshe feels about those attacks? how does she talk to you guys, as growing up, how to deal with criticism? >> she always had, and we talk about this the nancy pelosi way. criticism and effectiveness go hand-in-hand. when you go out there and are it effective they ize you. and you are not affected they don't care and will ignore you. rather than empower you to do things yourself. when she first rarefor co in san francisco she was viciously attacked by some of the other candidates. she would say they can'mytake children from me so they can't give me any harm. now, when you look at the 18 campaign cycle, 137,000 negative ads, including a handful by democrats, most by the reblicans. but her focus is the fione to children in america who live in poverty and due to guof children who re mue violence. his children were tak from them. you can't really look apparent in the eye that has a sick child who has lost a child and say well, trump treated me mean

today i can to work for you. >> from all the lessons you have learned from your now very famous mother, what is the most valuable on a professional and personal level >> to have your own authentic self. as nancy pelosi always says we and show yourwife. book, no you have to know your call to service, your purpose. why are you there, what are you doing, how are you there to help people? power only matters if you are using it to help other ople. a lot of people have tremendous problems in politics by the hazing, the bullying, very active in fighting sexual harassment in politics. people think that the trappings of power are such that they allow u to lordit over other people. nancy pelosi would tell you that the way to have power isn't to have the trappings of power but to constantly give it away by empowering other people and ing your power to make progress in the lives of other people. >> we will have to leave it there. much. na pelosi, thank >> my pleasure, thank you. we are well into holiday season. a time year whwe gather

with friends and family to enjoy good fo and goodtimes. but we are not all alike. family members come in all stripes. how do we stay connecosd with we love despite political and religious differences? here to help us now is marriage elle amily therapist daniel er thank you for coming in. >> my pleasure. >> let's start with a look at the problem. you conduct workshops in dealing with diffi conversations. one of the toughest topics these days honestly is politics. cahon we about things like the impeachment inquiry and democratic primary without making it personal? >> it's nearly im pole not make it personal beca how we are wired as human beings. when you think about it, the ole believes you shouldn't talk about religion or politics , bethat has around for many, many decades if not centuries. >> before is time right now. >> way before, way bere. if you look at how the brain forms, it forms around our identity and pewile identified a particular way of being.

there are certain values and visions about if you are democratic or republican. which is not to say there are just two camps. thre is a wide pathway there. the people believe that's who theyenare. so you question someone's beliefs aboutyou believe this? there is a sense of what is wrong with you? >> it feels personal. >> it is personal. so to really step away. e stead of saying it's just politics, itav weis hactually personal. so that is part of the problem because people do tend to take things personally. when they e estioned about something with a look why would you believe something iotic like that? then they tend to feel threatened. >> that feels like, maybe nobe th way to frame something , but yeah, are there better ways tothings? inevitably these conversations do come uplk. even if you try t avoid them. >> i have changed my tune about

this. i tend to be an outlier in terms of my willingness to bring things up and i courage úpeople tobe open and direct. what i have seen in the last three years, frankly has me far more circumspect. my approach right now is like f mares u lydiwannaler, there is a high likelihood that talking about politics is not going to lead you there. what is the strategy for not feeling attacked yourself, not getting defensive people are not taking your advice and are bringing it up. is there a way we can check ourselves to think about how we react? >> there are two different parts of th. one ofthem has to do with how you look inside yourself. basically, as human beings, we are wired for a survivstate or should thrive straight thrive state. when you feel reatened you tend to become defensive. when i got is something you ca feel sometimes, right? >> absolutely. you just need to tune into yourself about that. you notice your heart is racing, your throat has gotten

try. you castart to speak to yourself and say it's okay, you are going to get through this. and brthing, as muchas we hear it is good toak a long, full breath, actually it is. because that tends to trigger what is called the parasympathetic nervous sytoem which tends make us feel more calmer and more connected. rather being ghin the or flight reaction of the sympathetic nervous system. the other part of it, when someone blindside to you, you have come in their, yove got a great plan, i'm not goingoto there, absolutely no way i'm going there. you come in and someone sa gosh, what about that trump or what about pelosi or what about whoever. why would you believe something like that. they come up in a ve comfortable way confrontational way to you. i think it's good to have a plan going in if you decided you are not going to go there, you say hey, want have a good time and i'm sure you want to ve a good

time, this is probably not a conversation that is going to lead us into feeling particularly connected. maybe another time we can talk abouthis, but probably not around the christmas table. >> with everybody else. it's not just politics. use there's a lot about the holidays that are very stressful for people getting together with their families, spending extended time. is it the holidays oris it just that extended exposure to the people in your life? >> yes. >> all of it? >> i think it's all of it. if you think about families they have all kinds of issues and dynamicsbethat ve going on for years, if not decades. so it looked d like john mary had fights as a kid and there is a four year difference and john is always critical of mary. and she is dirustful of hi in some ways, doesn't feel safe with him. doesn't feel like she can really express herself and he will bcriticizing or sarcastic with her. it's not like that suddenly changes because you are sitting at a holidatable. al those dynamics are there . peand some le we naturally know we feel safer with and more connected with. other people e are more suspicious about because we

felt threatened by them and felt pain in emlation to ú>> rights, and you have that have kids the calculation ou changes around some of those. maybe something you are willing to take from a parent or a relative, you don't want to expose your child to. but i also wonder if there is a value to your kid saying you have difficult conversations resoluon. ly coming to how do yothink about that balance? >> there is a huge value to that. when it comes to having difficult conversations, the most important part is to feel at least relatively safe yourself. and part of that has to do with how curious are you to really understand the other person? if you can really step back and go how is itth you've come to that position? i really want to understand. it's what wife and i called the listener inquirer position as opposed to the listener defender position which how mostpeople listen. >> said to come with an open

heart and mind. maybe put yourself in someone else's shoes. want to talk about something a little more tricky tacky which is physically sharing space. i live in a two bedroom aparreent, my parents in town for an extended period of time and i love them dearly. but it's hard to gure out a way to get people to fit into your life when it's already so crowded. how do yotalk about broaching the issue of boundaries. whether they be physical or even tied emotional? >> what would be an example? are you saying on some level your mother coming into the bathroom when you are in the bathroom? or bringing too much stuff with her, packing refrigerator full of things. yeah, just literally physically sharing the space can be s.hard someti >> absolutely. i think the clarity isthe beginning of it, just noticing something is not quite working r you. sometimes it is really helpl to have these conversations in advance. you know, so if you want your parents rito b less stuff probably good to tell them

before they pack. obviously, when you have a good relation sense of what theidefensive patterns are. so, unsetts on some levels you can give them a little crumb. i love you much, love you being close. but can you give me a little more space right now? thismain thing how kind and compassionate you can be. >> having kids is a very different experience. i think sometimes lative have ideas about how you should w do you protect your kids from thkind of thing? laug>>ht perro in] te >> on some levels you are a rome model with your kids. you can say we don't speak exactly like that. d of course ery time you step out and you express yourselfin a way that is creating a boundary, you are taking a risk. on taps into our wiingness to be courageous. e because couris something showing up all the is always somelevel of risk ere

when you are setting a boundary. but what i found, the more people practice th and the more changes it brings, that over time shockingly enough, it gets easier. not sy, but easier. >> all right, we will have to leave it there. thank you so much daniel.>> that will do it for us as always, you can find more of our coverage at amed.org/newsroom. alicia lagos. thank you for joining us.

robert:the speaker pushes aheadp onchment. >> this is about the constitution of the united states and the facts that leads to the president's violation of his oath of office. >> president is a continuing threat to thatonstitution and our democracy.ro rt: and republicans fight back. >> impeachment hearings today reached a new low. president trump: it's a hoax. it's a big fat hoax. robert: what does it mean for president trump and the nation? announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- >> before we talk about your investments, what's new? >> well,udrey's expecting.>> tw. >> gndparents. >> we want to put money aside for them so change in plans. >>et