leg. oh. it's just so.

very well now can see you watching us and see us. you. know my. name because it was a bit. more about. what we were doing the same. scene that i'm going to him but i'm before. him but. you know now i'm a body i'm not obama. oh

and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle well it's finally begun the impeachment of donald j. trump the president and his supporters say the process is nothing more than a political witch the democrats and the liberal corporate media say trump is a national security threat and must be removed but in the end it would seem to mock or see itself as being impeached. across talking impeachment i'm joined by my guest on washington she's a former g.o.p. strategist as well as co-founder of women's public leadership network also in washington we have. he is a g.o.p. strategist and in monterey we crossed to spencer critchley he is a former communications advisor to obama for america 20082012 as well as managing

partner of the communications consulting. boot road group all right crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciated i'm only going to go to you 1st in washington ok the whole process has started we've been waiting for 3 years because they've been planning to find a way to impeach the president and they finally got in there they've crossed the rubicon and the senate will pursue prosy it's proceedings but as i said in my introduction i'm i'm i'm a politico i like politics i'm a political junkie i follow a lot of stuff ok i really can't get my hands around this one ok i get i don't know what the crime is ok i do know that there's a lot of animosity and hatred towards this president if i and everyone can have had their taste in their opinions here but the way i look at it is this whole process in is impeaching democracy itself i mean this is such a severe remedy particularly when we have an election a couple 100 days from now how do you react to this go ahead in washington. you

know it's absolutely worth acknowledging that the democrats planned not since trump's actually an arguer ration but since he was elected in november of 2016 their goal was to make him a one term president so what we're seeing now from democrats it's really an extension of that you know the what we heard from nancy pelosi and democrats is that you know the president actually represented a x a stench of threat to our democracy and so they carried out these impeachment hearings which ones are in articles of impeachment which interestingly enough none of them were actually criminal the obstruction of congress charge i think people kind of confuse that obstruction of congress charge with an obstruction of justice charge well that's not what happened and i think that it's probably you know what the unfortunate thing that for me is that when there is a democrat in the white house which is that will happen you know it didn't know if

ands and buts about that but when there is a democrat in the white house the republicans are going to do the same thing that democrats are doing now with this president and i don't think that it's something that's ultimately good for our country what spencer would would you wait on that here because it is an extension of what we just heard here i mean it just ends up being a political tool not a remedy and i think that's the danger that we all face here and you know i'm a conservative and i thought the impeachment process again against clinton was wrong ok for it was for the wrong reasons and he's a moral person yes but he didn't reach the stature of impeachment and i think it was wrong to do that to him in this case as we just heard there's no crime here and it seems to me this is just a political. match against the man the boy in the oval office that you just don't like and i understand why people don't like donald trump how do you react to that spencer. i feel like it's a rhetorical shift that's being made not necessarily just by republicans because i

don't really feel this is a partisan issue but certainly by pro trump people to say that this is a question of democrats just not liking president from what they don't like is the assault on democracy and of course they feel passionately about that as do you know many leading conservatives people like george will for example. feel exactly the same way as so many democrats do. i hope if we have a democratic president in the future who behave the same way that president trump has i certainly hope they're m.t.h. to no be at the head of the line demanding their impeachment just like we. just used to work for the havior you used the word behavior is that impeachable is bad behavior impeachable you know that a crime had spencer and there's a few of those in terms of behavior the definition of what's and p. h. well so another rhetorical shift that's going on here among the pro trump folks is to say that it's not a crime and of course that's not relevant it's like claiming you do you just don't

like him no that's not the case here it's certainly there are many people who don't like him on the left and the right but of course i cannot grounds for impeachment. and it's the same here is this is just another one of these rhetorical shifts on fortunately his behavior is impeachable it would if if. and madison were to arise from the grave and look at this they would say this is what we were talking about just the simple i mean confession on on paper and on camera so what he's going to do with ukraine is impeachable and there's a long list of things before them but i mean it's you know ok well you know that's a that's a good point a long list maybe for that ok let me go to reno ok and that's exactly it the stormy daniels thing didn't work out and then they had rush a gate that didn't work out now you have ukraine gate which is not make any sense at all this is just an extension it's a continuum and it is about you hate this guy in the white house which is again is turning ugly fine ok but is that grounds for impeachment go ahead reign in

washington. peter may think it may not make sense to you but the reality is this impeachment has always been a political process and people really need to see this for what it is this is democracy working we have 3 branches of government that share equal power and what they're doing right now is exercising that power and the president now that the impeachment articles have made their way to the senate the president can defend himself this trial is going to be democracy in action because we have representatives of the people essential e able to be that impartial jury now i know that senator mitch mcconnell says he's not a part of their team which aren't really sad if we didn't publish you acting on american it's going to be impartial another hold on how is that ever going to be impartial not going to riddle me this 1st of all you already defined yourself by saying you don't understand this ukraine situation do a little bit or reading under

a candidate right now and i know i know i have got your letter a let me finish i've been to ukraine it doesn't times also i understand the language i understand the politics i understand the political figures let me finish my i actually. thought i saw that panel. talking about ukraine and none of them really knew what they were talking about whatsoever so don't lecture me or i would have already in my right panel don't i mean america you know we're going bar and i'm going to entertain showing up here and they were very. very park well don't you know i didn't tell you let's go get my point across go ahead did you yeah i'm going to insult your intelligence when you say it doesn't make sense that is not the only thing an objective journalist need to be objective listen here's the reality of an american president should not be asking a foreign government to look into their political rival that's un-american ok if you want me but i don't really care you would understand how did this on the right finish your point let's share time with everyone else on the panel here. in

washington i'm going when i'm in the other is because the thing is we've all are you're saying well ok don't filibuster please ok go ahead and watch. i'm very good at that so let's yeah let's be clear on the ukraine situation here according to the ambassador all of the really all of the ambassadors and even our intelligence community the ukraine this situation that was happening in ukraine that was an actual that was an actual valid point of investigation that the everyone knows that there is and there were problems and there have been problems with the resume over the years now the question is whether or not donald trump should have asked for that favor now we can make the assumption that of course in my opinion i actually think that whether joe biden was running for president or not donald trump would have asked for that same investigation now if you're going to make the argument that well this is i don't i don't necessarily agree with the argument that this is really democracy in art and in action i think it's actually an attack on our democracy because what we have if we get to the point where we

decide to act on it we wanted to the right we're going to decide if. well if we get to the point where we decide that the behavior of a president is a reason for impeachment because that's essentially what we're talking about here is the president's actions now people say well it really has nothing to do with whether or not you dislike the president this is really about saving our democracy well if that's the case then please explain to me why is it that every essentially everyone who is affiliated with donald trump whether it's his family whether it's cabinet officials they've been attacked in public they've been attacked in public they've been attacked online and everyone says that this is just about well we're trying to save our democracy i actually disagree with that what we have we have 2 articles of impeachment that as we all acknowledge that are not criminal if we get to the point where we say that you do not have to have committed a crime you can say something we don't like you can ask and in fact we can actually bring up the end up struction of congress charge which is about the president.

agreeing with subpoenas sending over documents you know those are process arguments so the abstraction of congress charge which ironically is the very same thing that republicans could have leveled against barack obama when barack obama decided to not cooperate in the fast and furious investigation and with that fast and furious investigation he did not comply with congressional subpoenas and that went to court what democrats could have done they could have gone to court they chose not to do that because they said that donald trump was an ex does that existence was true for an. essential threat and then they sat on it for what a month or so again that's kind of you know playing politics here spencer i mean at this point in time you know we don't have to get all again our hair on fire here i mean it looks like you know that it's going to go to trial and. be acquitted i mean so what's the whole point of the process if we know what the outcome is going to be go ahead in monterey. and really it comes down to just

a question of constitutional duty nancy pelosi as everybody knows was extremely reluctant to go ahead with this despite many voices do you think i really let her in to go ahead do you think their reluctance she asked the staff of the was she had to impose a great deal of discipline over her caucus to quiet some of the voices because she was so reluctant to do it again we have the rhetorical shift it's not a crime it's about behavior of course it's about behavior how can anything be inoffensive it doesn't involve some kind of behavior unless it's some one of the rare examples of speech that isn't allowed. and of course it's and teachable to solicit help from a foreign power to interfere in a u.s. election this is was at the top of the founders minds when they were discussing impeachment they were most concerned as a brand new country that angle and would interfere with the government of the united states and they were concerned that other countries like france might do that even though france had been our ally during the revolution alliances are

always shifting this is one of the core reasons we have impeachment is to protect our democracy from foreign interference and certainly to protect our democracy from president acting like a king another of their top concerns by using the public resources for his personal benefit a good mental attitude and just imagine i have to jump in here and say sorry i have to arrive to jump in here we have to go to a hard break and after that hard break we'll continue our discussion on him pietschmann stay with. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics. i'm showbusiness i'll see that.

and i must lead people by as keep the slime due course new focus on the stuff you still. want. to see in the. most good moment you. were really. young. boy. you. know what. welcome back to crossfire all things are considered i'm peter lavelle too good to remind you we're discussing impeachment.

ok let's go back to reno in washington. the election is coming up here why go through all this process why don't you just ask the voters to decide what they want don't you think that would be a more democratic way of doing it go ahead. well it's going to come up anyway and i think this is this is what our founders wanted if it any point in time if anybody in an elected body such as the house of representatives has a problem with the president's actions with his behavior yes then we should be able to bring it up in the process should play out so it doesn't matter when the election is frankly it just matters more so that the house of representatives have voiced their concern and the democrats have the majority so of course those articles were voted on and and approved and now it's over the senate and listen here's the reality behavior matters it was the same thing with clinton it really gets under my skin when people are like what clinton did was not impeachable 1st of all if we don't ask our presidents to act in

a proper manner which is again do not engage foreign governments in our business i find that to be treasonous in a way and i mean that's defined different everybody and then also acting improperly sexually which is what clinton did i know that this does not make a lot of people happy this is the 3rd time in u.s. history we've done this nixon of course didn't count but we need to let the process play out this president needs to be on trial he said so a month ago he wants us to go to this that he wants witnesses in the senate what's so wrong with that nothing well ok. fine but you know why go through the process let me go go to my only q. again you know i'm kind of dumbfounded why do you have to go through the process of you know what the outcome is going to be and how it's not going to affect governance afterwards ok i mean are these are the democrats going to look for another impeachable offense and just do it over and over and over again i mean it's seems to me that you have a very weak case in talk about election meddling i mean the democratic party the d.n.c. was all over ukraine when it came to trump ok i mean you make it sound like it's

a one way street everybody was doing it if you look at it that way go ahead. in washington so. to that question about why not wait until the election while they're not comfortable that the confident that they can actually win in the election without that stain on the president's history the. speaker pelosi has it has said that you have many democrats who are now in effect they were cheering the fact that the president will now have an asterisk by the by its name so let's not confuse let's not fool around and just act as if that this but the political part of this is not calculated democrats cannot win if they don't believe that they can actually take donald trump down they could have very well waited until the election again i go back to and i've asked many people this over and over again the obama administration obstructed congress period that's what they did they obstructed congress in the republican party republicans did not decide then to file articles

of impeachment against barack obama for up struct ing congress now down there in boston in that mallinckrodt was shame on the republicans than ok but but it did not have i been talking about press that and it did not happen it did not happen and i have one all right that we have not meant to day at all one word we have not mentioned today and you have not heard it in weeks is quid pro quo that is where we started the whistleblower said that the trumpet minister ation was at engage in a quid pro quo with the youth with the ukrainian president there that did not happen apparently because there is not and neither one of the articles of impeachment deals with the initial claim that this was a quid pro quo so now we've morphed this into protecting our democracy and other things and i do believe that all of this is really designed to take donald trump down because of a personal dislike of the president of the united states it has very little to do

with protecting our democracy it is about protecting attacking the president of the united states because you don't like it and there are valid reasons to dislike plenty of them plenty of them to dislike any of them absolutely but whether or not you should take our country through an impeachment is another story and i just v.t. mutely disagree with that you know spencer and we you know have the ass trick there . to his name that's a very interesting way of putting it but if you look at the polls it just galvanizes trump's base and recent polls have shown that independents which are very many independents in the united states they're not keen on this as well i mean we all agree impeachment is a political process is this good politics as you go into the election cycle go ahead in monterey. i think all to mostly the politics of course are they always have to be considered and always will be considered but i think the politics have to take a distant 2nd by this point a constitutional duty so really politics one where the other i just don't see how

there is any choice here if we are thinking about politics one lesson i think the democratic party could stand to learn is the value of simply being seen to be standing up for what you believe in instead of looking like your web side this way and that way by polls i also want to counter a few just outright incorrect assertions that have been made and remind people that there's a very big difference between an assertion and an argument that supported by facts and logic an assertion is just whatever we want to believe this is not just because people don't like donald trump and i agree there are endless reasons not to like him but it's because yes his behavior is clearly impeachable as far as the claim that other people have done the same thing with the claim that obama supposedly obstructed congress 1st of all if we go by there's a lot about ism standard then a behavior sellout as long as you can find some malefactor who's done it and say well he did it and so therefore your true argument when you're using the word about as an argument is i'm fine behavior i just want to be done by my guy and obama did not obstruct congress they released untold documents in the fast and furious

scandal which turned so called scandal which turned out to be nothing as did so many of those made up scandals and you can look it up on line see the results of the multiple investigations of fast and furious which completely collapsed and where attorney general holder disagreed and it was attorney general holder who was at the center of that not president obama where the attorney general disagreed with their demands for some documents he thought at the legitimate way through the legal process he didn't simply deny the authority of congress that denial that congress has any oversight authority over the president rests on the assumption the president is essentially a minor and it is one of these attacks on democracy where. talking about we have who we will branch of government who fundamental to design if we don't we haven't. and in america the whole point is we don't have to be. ok you know rina they're

talking about democracy here i mean i was watching the last democratic debate and i was watching bernie and i was wondering if he his primary is going to be stolen from him again i mean you prize democracy so much but within the democratic party they don't have it is a very high priority if we look what happened in 2016 and if you look at the the antics of c n n i mean that was just absolutely atrocious their behavior in dealing with and i'm a conservative i'm defending bernie because you know he's out there peddling his ideas good for him that's what we need to do we need ideas i mean is the democratic party so wedded well democracy then i mean they really don't want to come to terms what happened in 2016 and that's why they want to impeach trump because they miscalculated in this guy got in the white house and they can never forgive that that's what this is all about go ahead you know it's not surprising that you say that you're defending bernie i have the the mag of folks that i've hung around with and love bernie why because these are 2 extremes are strong over here there's

bernie over here it's no surprise that both the trump and bernie camps always scream that everybody is being unfair to them that the system is rigged it's real that how our country is so polarized these days and people are so quick to rush to the fringes people do not want to look at things and say let me take off my part of the glasses for a moment you know i mean my career in the republican party and i'm ashamed to say affiliate with this party today because that thing is that the mob rule seems to make its way on both sides and make you know basically games with both sides republicans but i don't think they're going to want to say all the time does it pietschmann make this worse this polarization. you know what i don't think so because there's some polling out there right now that this shows a and there has been for many months that shows the country is really split now do i really believe all the polls not quite because 2016 taught is that lesson it's really hard to capture the sentiment in various demographics these david but the

reality is this is that impeachment has to play out and it's incumbent upon a pair of americans to look at things and say you know what look at the democrats right now they're very fractured does nancy pelosi really think they can win in november with such a fractured party with so many people throwing their hats in the primary i think they're not serving themselves well and similarly i don't think republicans whether they're on capitol hill or living out in the heartland of america serve themselves well when they say we should have witnesses at this senate trial i mean there's a resurfaced video nowadays playing on loop on twitter of center collins and senator graham talking about how we need witnesses back when president clinton was on trial so i just hope that most americans start to do this educate themselves on the issues vote for the candidates are not vote for the party because the ideal voter in a democracy right votes on the issues not along party lines ok well again it let me go to. washington and i can't get away from the point that it's all about one

person it has nothing to do with ideas and ideals ok it's called revenge and it's blind hatred and that's what it looks like you watch the media that's exactly what it is go ahead in washington. it's absolutely what it is and i'll bring up the point that i made earlier when people make the argument that somehow this is just protecting our democracy or we're you know this really about policies when secretary divorce was booed at but the when university her very 1st year in office that was about donald trump it wasn't necessarily about you secretary it was about donald trump when you see all of these politicians all of the members of the cabinet you see you know senators who are pretty much accosted harassed in public this is about donald trump and i just want to correct something on the point that i made about the obstruction of congress charge with well actually it wasn't a charge but the obstruction of congress with barack obama with the fast and furious case absolutely right that case went to court and it wasn't until after the court ruled that the obama administration had to turn those documents over from the

justice of from the department of justice is that's when they did that so i want to push back on this notion that somehow that it's not the same thing because in this way is it i wouldn't lie about anything stop what they're what about is them what what what what about what what what about is are a matter of my friend what a bouncer did and it's well over what about it does it matter now i'm sorry but what about ism if if if if what about isms did not matter or you would not have mentioned the tapes of politicians in the ninety's making a separate different argument than what they make now so what about arguments matter when it benefits your politics ok he's done so there and i think that they're going to dramatically the reason they're really hot is you're out there you know what about it telling it how dumb and. ok we. can sank it ok that's what i did ok we're not going to fire we're not getting a guy let me talk i don't want to know why but it's ok all right we've run we've chewed up all the time you know it's all the time we have here many thanks to my

guests in washington and in monterey and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. and remember. you are no offense p. you no longer a young woman in fact you are one of the last living survivors of the nazi yeah let me ask i'm aware of it. all you like. you can never forget there can no auschwitz was really like to be inhaled close you would never believe it but if you let it go to as a copy of a course for 32 years and most of the. very best it all seems so logical for by

your side to make it right when i get out on the farm saw you i want to take my song to the next deal so he can listen and hopefully bless her experience. good food descriptions sound up a tasing even for the owners so how to choose the pet food industry is telling us what to feed our pets really more based on what they want to sell us then was necessarily good for the pet turns out food may not be as healthy as people believe we have animals that have you know diabetes in our straightest they have auto immune disorders allergies we are actually creating these problems it's a huge epidemic of problems all of them i believe can be linked to fairy simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their purchase streets the larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving

the value of their food because they're already making it a $1000000000.00 on it and there's no reason to do that research. the 75th anniversary of the soviet union's liberation of warsaw for nazi germany and thousands who sent them death count or lost their lives in the city that suffered years of occupation during world war 2. around bronzes former e.u. partners washington's puppet from germany confirmed it caved in to donald trump threat to impose tariffs on european states if they don't quit the 2015 you put it the. british police knew but ignored the most profound sexual abuse by paedophiles in care homes a new report reveals a former detective who took part in the initial investigation told her side of the story. they were vulnerable kids feel we have to queue she could be tracked and the

old failed time.