robert byrd followed in his footsteps, when this country was having incredible conflict across the country on a whole host of issues, intense conflict, the senate had one of its most productive legislative periods in history. i may not agree with everything it came out with but the constitution wasn't written to make any one person happy. what i think we need to focus on is how we make sure the senate as an institution stays healthy, ensure it can do the same thing. with regard to the electoral college, i would remind you that the way in which we vote in this country is we have a popular sovereignty but as john marshall tells us, the people vote in states and that is where they are organized. there is no national popular electorate in the sense of one person being elected by everyone. maybe we need to have that, but that is a debate that can be had. i would submit to you that when you have a situation where the majority of the country can vote for one person, it is a lot easier for the country to fall into this cycle, this destructive cycle that the framers were trying to get out of, tryin

period in washington, it was the reagan administration and george scholz serving a lot of leadership robert byrd and robert dole were the two leaders, republican and democrat. they appointed a committee that ted stevens and i cochaired, we were the two leaders. ted was a republican from alaska and we looked at the treaties as they were being negotiated. i bet i had 10 meetings one-on-one with george scholz in the secretary of state's office talking about the various opportunities and dangers of that period of time in arms control. at the kind of thing that has to happen. you have to have people communicate before there's a crisis because when there's a crisis, decisions have to be made very rapidly so those are some of the things that could be done. another thing and i'm advocating right now and i hope the biden administration will tackle this and that is a failsafe review of our nuclear systems, our command of the control systems and warning systems. not a treaty, not a multilateral but having our own department of defense go through our systems, look at the cyber threats and warning and comman

once you get the governing and i'm dealing with mitch mcconnell and john weiner and ben nelson and robert byrd and sometimes progressives in particular overestimate the degree to which high rhetoric is going to actually move votes. because. >> and what i wanted to add to that and where i wanted to go from there is young people. you said your writing this book explicitly to younger people. so what is your diagnostic for the unfinished business that they have to take up as they move along side and as they come to that end? >> i am so excited to see this generation coming up. if us old folks will just get out of the way and that's true culturally. it's true in terms of our politics. i think their instincts are reallygood . it is second nature for them to believe that all people have intrinsic worth and dignity. it is second nature for them to not discriminate against people because of their differences in race or gender identity or you know, who they play too. and they're sophisticated, they are smart. they're taking their culture not just from all across the countrybut all around the world . and

that long ago because we recall it vividly, the two most powerful democrats were ted kennedy and robert byrdeared to ted kennedy left a young woman to drown in a drunk driving accident, the other wass a recruiter for the ku klux klan. democrats were not bothered by any of that. they praised kennedy and bird at every turn including at their funerals. no, democrats are not actually outraged in any moral sense by donald trump, they never have been. they are too cynical to have feelings that authentic bearded to prove that point, they've named as one of their impeachment managers, ericc swalwell of california who's a sitting member of congress who had with a chinese spy. please spare us the self-righteous indignation. it was happening instead is old-fashioned hard eyed politics. democrats have practical reason to seeing jump impeached in his final days of office.ap the first is to make republicans weaker, every loss diminishes a political party, impeachment is a loss. there's also another thing, democrats need to keep talking about donald trump, next weekend forever if they're going to keep thei

robert byrd followed in his footsteps, when this country was having incredible conflict across the countryn a whole host of issues, intense conflict, the senate had one of its most productive legislative periods in history. i may not agree with everything it came out with but the constitution wasn't written to make any one person happy. what i think we need to focus on is how we make sure the senate as an institution stays healthy, ensure it can do the same thing. with regard to the electoral college, i would remind you that the way in which we vote in this country is we have a popular sovereignty but as john marshall tells us, the people vote in states and that is where they are organized. there is no national popular electorate in the sense of one person being elected by everyone. maybe we need to have that, but that is a debate that can be had. i would submit to you that when you have a situation where the majority of the country can vote for one person, it is a lot easier for the country to fall into this cycle, this destructive cycle that the framers were trying to get out of, trying

at least one senator who's the guardian of the senate rules, robert c. byrdconvened in essence without authority. we discussed the need for some authority, something that would give the two leaders of the senate the same kind of authority that every school board has when two feet of snow is approaching to either cancel school or delay the beginning of the school day. the senate did adopt a resolution several years late they are basically authorizes the two leaders, if they believe circumstances warrant it, to, quote, modify a convening time. >> so, yeah, to your point, if there's a will, there's a way. that's exactly -- that seems to be exactly it. before i have to let you go, can you just give me your opinion on what an impeachment trial after trump's term expires would look like? >> well, the senate has in fact conducted an impeachment trial of the secretary of war in 1876 after he resigned. and so a trial can occur against somebody who is no longer in the office from which his impeachable actions emanated. it would be unusual. there are -- we have obviousl