that happened in 1998, with trent lott, the majority leader and tom daschle from south dakota, the minority saw trent lott the other day at the capitol and we were talking about that concept. you don't know if those senators may not be here, and that poses a very interesting question. two thirds is the vote, but it doesn't mean 67. so if you have senators who would be absent, it actually lowers the threshold because it's an unqualified two thirds. >> it seems to me that the politics of this are shaping up much like the politics of trump's reelection in general, in that you have huge numbers of democrats nationally supporting impeachment and removal. a majority of independents and almost no republicans, and when you start looking at those kind of battleground areas, wisconsin districts, michigan districts, pennsylvania, you have the same sort of, you know, low 40s approval rating of the president and about there and maybe a little bit higher for impeachment. so i think we should all just wait and see what public attitudes are when this testimony is public because otherwise we're just specula

center of the impeachment probe of president bill clinton, rowan wick and trent lot and democrat tom daschle running an op-ed today that the candidate can hold a fair impeachment trial this time around. let's ask from the independent women's forum, democratic charges, and "the wall street journal"'s james freeman. james, what you think? >> i think what the senator's intended -- i that whole piece is an implicit review of the house process. they are talking about how they came together and settled on a big, long, open inquiry, how they look to the traditions, the presidents, and how they came to a bipartisan agreement, not on the activity of bill clinton, but how the process all was ran and it was basically the opposite of what we are seeing in the house right now. >> charles: i think this is something that nancy pelosi herself has pulled into, kicking and screaming, she finally said okay, let's go to a come after a harsh weekend of aoc tweets, and now they are in the midst of something and not quite sure how to roll it out. >> i would slightly disagree with that because i think the way that

tom daschle organized it, just 100 of us in the room before the trial.ided we were on trial needed to conduct ourselves fairly well. the country was watching, not to mention the american public. i think the leadership of the senate did a good job reminding everybody we did not want to end up like a caning of the sumner case but trying to work through this intelligently and calmly given the volatility. guest: let me pick up on that, because i was involved in planning that in the leadership. guest: i was also speaking at it. guest: there were very high passions on both sides. senator daschle and the democrats did not want anything. they did not want to give the house the chance to present any evidence or call any witnesses. republicans were like, we want a full-blown trial and we want to bring the president up. talking about how contentious and how hard it is to get bipartisan agreement, it is hard , but i feel proud of the fact that we found a middle ground. it is not everything the house wanted in a trial and not everything the democratic base wanted, wh

. >> in that chamber trent lott and tom daschle brought us together in the old senate chamber.ne else present, no staff and no press and said we have an unbelievable responsibility here to protect the institution, the country, and the constitution if we're going to do this right. and despite all the elbow pushing out in public, in private people were very protective of the institution. >> the big difference, of course, is bill clinton wasn't running for reelection at the time. this president is and that changes everything politically, don't it? >> the fact we're in the electoral process changes a lot. many people will say there is an answer. if you think there is an offense the answer is called an election. that's one. second, with all deference to my friends in the democratic house leadership, they are getting out ahead of the facts. there is a lot we know and it is very troubling. no one has yet heard from the whistleblower, rudy giuliani has yet to testify himself. we have this review of a transcript. but there are many facts still out there for people to be taking their pos