The Daily - A Third Grader’s Guide to the Impeachment Hearings

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

This morning, the House of Representatives begins public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Before those hearings get underway, we sat down with someone who’s unafraid to ask all the questions we’ve been too embarrassed to say out loud. Guests: Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times, spoke with Bianca Giaever, a producer for “The Daily,” and Leo, a third grader, to answer his questions about the impeachment inquiry. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: In the first nationally televised hearings of the impeachment inquiry, Democrats will look to make the case that Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.These will be the first presidential impeachment hearings in more than two decades. Here’s how this inquiry is likely to be different than the last.Meet the public officials likely to be most prominent in the inquiry.

So, Bianca, you're a new journalist at The Times. Yes. So what's happening? So it feels like people have been getting a little bit exhausted from all the impeachment coverage, and the hearings haven't even begun. Mm-hmm. But I actually found someone this week who is excited to hear more. Really? Yeah.

And I recorded a call with him, so let me play it for you. Please. Hello? Hello? Hey, Leo. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. So I heard that you are interested in the impeachment. Is that true? Yes. I'm trying to figure out a lot more about it so I can, yeah, I'm very interested in it. So on Monday, I went to Leo's house and we talked a bit more.

Where are you with understanding the impeachment now? Do you feel like you understand everything that's going on? Most of it. Most of it. And where was this? In New Jersey. No, Macy, stop, stop, stop. Leo doesn't really have other kids he can talk about the impeachment with So I came up with an idea

I was thinking that since you have more questions You could come to the New York Times and talk to one of our political reporters I can ask my mom about that I talked to her and she said it's okay. Okay. And then, yeah. I was thinking the person you could talk to is this political reporter named Mike Schmidt.

Okay. And we started doing research. Mike Schmidt. S-M-I-T-C-H The New York Times We were checking out his accomplishments Polit... Politzer

Politizer We spent 45 minutes coming up with his top questions What is quid pro quo? How many people are listening when the president makes a phone call? What are the hearings? And then we spent another 45 minutes picking out his outfit. What's the temperature out tomorrow? Expect a high of 50 and a low of 21.

And what did he end up going with? Long sleeves. I'm going to wear a long sleeve and long pants. Hi, Leo. Welcome to The New York Times. Thank you. How are you feeling? Good.

Did you work on your questions anymore? He did. I practiced them once. Great. Well, so Mike is on a train from Washington, D.C. that gets in right at 10, and he's going to rush here. And so, yeah, do you want to come in? Great. And so, yeah, do you want to come in?

Great. So, are you feeling nervous? Yes. Do you remember the name of the host? Michael... Let's start with a B. Michael... I forget. Barbarb? Start with a B. Michael, I forget. Barb Barb. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro.

This is The Daily. Today. The House of Representatives begins public hearings this morning in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Before those hearings get underway, Mike Schmidt sits down with someone who's unafraid to ask all the questions we've been too embarrassed to ask. It's Wednesday, November 13th. Bravo. Do you feel like you're at the right height? Do you want anything?

I'm okay. Okay. You're a very unfussy guest. So how is it that you got interested in the impeachment? Well, I was in the car with my mom and I was driving to my grandma's house and she was listening to the radio and I heard them talking about it on the radio. I asked my mom about it and I think I asked, like, can you explain what's happening to me? Because I don't really understand. There were a lot of words I didn't really know.

At first, I didn't know what the whistleblower was. That word. Yeah. And she explained it in a really good way. So now I know. What's your understanding of what a whistleblower is? It could be anyone. A whistleblower can be anyone who was either in the room or doing something that let him hear what the president was saying to the president of Ukraine. And he knew it's very bad. He can't threaten another president to help him win the next election. So he reported it to the House of Representatives. Do you know where that phrase comes from, whistleblower?

Do you know where that phrase comes from, whistleblower? Oh, because, for example, in sports, if someone does something wrong, like breaking the rules of the game, they would blow a whistle or something like that. And they would say, you can't do that. That's wrong. Right. Yeah, I have the image of being at a pool with the lifeguard and the lifeguard's like, hey, knock it off. I was at Delaware Beach once and we saw dolphins. Someone tried to go swim after them and he had to blow his whistle and say, you can't go that far. Come back. Right. Same concept. Do not chase after dolphins.

Do not ask the president of Ukraine to do you a political favor. Right. Leo, do you want to show Michael the drawings of the impeachment you made? Okay. Yeah, what do you have in this bag? I only did one, but... Leo, what's out of this? Hey, can you tell me what this is from your backpack?

This? Yeah. It's a book about the parts of the government. What's it called? What are the parts of government? And where did you get it from? The library. Was it in high demand? Was there competition to get it?

No. No. Barely anyone was even in the aisle. Do you have other people in your life, friends, classmates, who are also interested in the impeachment? No. No. Like your brother, right? Yeah, he doesn't really care.

What does he care about? He really likes animals, especially reptiles. Which is why this is exactly the right place for you to be. Because we are very interested. Yeah. reptiles. Which is why this is exactly the right place for you to be. Because we are very interested. Yeah. If you want to look at, do you want to look at the questions? Yeah, sure. Let me review them for you. These are

questions for Mike Schmidt. These are questions for Mike Schmidt. So it's the original one, but then I typed it. Smart thinking. Great. These are great questions. So I think Mike is close. So maybe we'll have you do the we'll be right back thing. Do you want to try that?

Okay. We'll be right back. Nice job. Mike Schmidt. Hi, guys. Hi. What's happening? How are you?

Good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming in. You're welcome. Thanks for waiting for me. I'm sorry I'm late. It's okay. Yeah.

Good to see you too. Welcome. Leo, Mike, Mike, Leo. What grade are you in, Leo? Third. Third? What do you learn in third grade? I learn division and

um... Division is in math. Yes. Not the division of the country. No. Leo, you have these questions for Mike. Do you want to read some of them? Yeah.

Go ahead. So, first, how many presidents have been impeached? I think it's three. So, it's two. It's Clinton. Oh, yes. Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton.

And it's Andrew Johnson. Yeah. I think I know why you think that it was three. Because there was this other president, Richard Nixon, who... Yeah, he did something very bad, and he knew he was going to get impeached. So he quit being president because he knew even if he didn't quit, he would be impeached. Nailed it. He quit before he could even get impeached. Right.

Do you know what a quid pro quo is? That's actually one of my questions. But now I know I heard it on a podcast. It means this for that. That's right. Yeah, it's the Latin. That's right. Yeah, it's in Latin. Favor for a favor. I don't really think it is because the president of Ukraine is really just doing a favor for Trump.

He just said that if you don't, then he'll stop giving you money. So he's basically threatening the president. So you don't—it's interesting, Mike, I wonder if you'd agree with this. It feels like what Leo is saying is, I'm not so sure this is a quid pro quo because it's more like a threat without a favor back to Ukraine. Quo because it's more like a threat without a favor back to Ukraine. No, you hit on one of the biggest criticisms of how this thing is described, which is essentially that a quid pro quo doesn't really capture what it's all about.

A quid pro quo is like, hey, if I do this for you, you know, I'll give you, you know, my Cheez-Its and you give me half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This is not that good of a deal. This is more like I've been giving you lunch money every day, but if you want me to keep giving you lunch money, you have to go throw this banana peel on the ground so this person I don't like will come along and slip and fall. Yes, it's not fair to the president of Ukraine.

And when you heard about it, what was your first reaction to it? What did you think? I thought that, well, it's a bad thing to do, what Trump's doing. And also, I thought about who the whistleblower was, like if it's a boy or a girl or who. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? No, that's actually one of my questions. Okay. But you do know?

I do know. Really? Yeah. It's a boy. Okay. The whistleblower worked for the CIA and at one point worked inside the White House. Yeah, one of my questions was, does the whistleblower work for government?

He does. So, Leo, why do you think that it is that Ukraine isn't saying they're upset with Trump? Well, the president of Ukraine might be kind of scared because they need the money. And when Donald Trump threatens the Ukrainian president that he's not going to give them money anymore, they get kind of scared.

If he says that and reports it and Trump gets in trouble, he'll get really mad and he can say, while he Trump gets in trouble, he'll get really mad. And he can say, while he's still in office, he can say, I'll stop giving you money, which I think the president of Ukraine is scared of because he wants the people in Ukraine to be safe and feel safe there. That's really smart analysis, Leah. But this is a question does other other countries other than america ukraine and russia do they know about this they could also like go to trump and do what ukraine could do totally it's almost certainly being heard around the world by other countries but you raise a good question which is, if this is going on with Ukraine,

why wouldn't it go on with any of the other dozens or hundreds of countries in the world? And also, has this happened to other countries before? We don't know. I mean, the funny thing is that we even forget that in the middle of this whole story, Donald Trump came out and basically said that the Chinese should do the same thing that he wanted the Ukrainians to do. But I had forgotten about that. Which is to investigate connections between Joe Biden and China.

Correct. And Hunter Biden. He said it right outside the White House. I didn't. Well, that's new to me. I didn't know that yet. What do you think of that? So he's trying to get China to do what he tried to get Ukraine to do?

Yes. Investigate Joe Biden. Joe Biden's son. All right. Um, when and why did America start giving Ukraine money and all the other countries too? So a few decades ago, there was this big thing called the Cold War. And the United States wanted to help the Ukrainians. Ukraine had been part of the USSR, which was the old version of Russia.

And the Ukrainians were sort of going out on their own and trying to become their own country. And the United States went to them and said, hey, we can help you. We can help create a democracy in your country, and we can give you money to get off the ground to sort of build yourself up as a country. And protect yourself from Russia.

Correct. Well, it was to strengthen the country. It's not until many, many years later that we start giving them military aid, this whole thing that's come up in the quid pro quo call. But we were becoming friends with them. we thought if we could create more democracies in europe and next to russia we could contain the russians and help people have the same freedoms that we do all right what are the hearings the next one is good so the hearings? The next one is good. So the hearings start today. And the hearings are these public events where the Democrats are going to bring different witnesses, people that were working in the government on Ukraine issues. The Democrats are going to bring them forward in public on TV and ask them questions so they can say what they knew was going on with Ukraine and the aid

and Trump pressuring them. Does that make sense? Why are they public and why is that important? Why are they public and why is that important? The Democrats are trying to build an argument for the country that there is a good reason to impeach the president. And they think doing it in public where we can all watch on TV will have a greater impact. Yeah. Does that make any sense? I don confused too. I get confused too. What do you think about the fact that

the Democrats think they need to have public hearings to convince people that what Trump did was wrong? That a lot of people in the country don't think that's a problem. Because they think that it's just doing, like, one thing. They know it's bad, but they don't think it's bad enough for him to get kicked out of office. They know it's bad.

They definitely know it's bad, but I don't think they don't think it's bad enough. I think the most recent argument from Republicans would be that simply doing what he did is not enough to remove him from office. Do you have any more questions for Mike? All right. So when will we know if the president gets impeached? If he does get impeached, when will the public find out? My editors ask me this question every day. I think we may have an answer by December or January. So just a couple of months away. And if he's impeached, then this would be sent to the Senate where there would be a trial

six days a week, national television, the senators deciding whether to take out Trump. And when would that be decided by? Well, early next year. But the problem, Leo, is in Washington, But the problem, Leo, is in Washington, everything always takes longer than we think it's going to. So maybe it's the spring when we get some clarity. Leo, I want you to ask this question, which I think might be one of our last questions in this conversation with Mike. Do you mind asking that? What are we going to see this week in the coming weeks? We're going to see hearings. We're going to see the first one on Wednesday, where a senior State Department official who had big concerns about what Trump was doing is going to testify publicly. And then on Friday, another State Department official who was involved in all this stuff is going to testify in public again, and then next week we'll see the same thing but with different witnesses. And this will be the Democrats trying to argue to the country

why this is so important and why the president should be impeached. Leo, I have to leave and head to Washington to cover the first hearing that Mike just described, but I'm curious, what has been the most interesting thing that you have learned here today from Mike Schmidt? I think it's... I learned this and I didn't know it until today. I didn't know about the Cold War between America and Russia.

I found that really interesting. Yeah, it's a big part of the story, actually. Leo, what's your prediction about what's going to happen at the hearings? Yeah, I think he's going to get impeached in the House, but he'll be okay. He won't, not enough people will vote in the Senate. So you think he's going to end up staying in office? Yes. So that's your prediction? Yes. That's what I think too, unless something big changes.

Yeah. Leo, I think you know as much as I do now. So I think we're done here. You say some of this stuff in a clearer way than anyone else I've heard. Do you want to show Mike the impeachment drawing? Okay. Oh. Do you want to show Mike the impeachment drawing? Uh, okay. Oh. It's a person in a suit blowing a whistle.

With Donald Trump's hair. That's Donald Trump's hair? I don't know, I thought so at first. So, this is the whistleblower, and he's blowing his whistle. Anonymous, no more. With the words squeak coming out of his mouth. Mike, thank you very much. Leo, thank you so very much.

It was a pleasure to meet you. And I look forward to someday coming on your podcast. Get it. We'll speak soon. Thank you. Thank you. The first public hearing of the impeachment inquiry is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. with the joint testimony of Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe,

both of whom observed the president's pressure campaign against Ukraine. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that President Trump has repeatedly discussed the possibility of firing the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, out of frustration that Atkinson found the whistleblower's complaint to be credible and then reported its existence to Congress. Such a move would be reminiscent of the president's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, whom he judged to be disloyal during the Russia investigation, and, if carried out, could be viewed as an attempt

to obstruct the impeachment inquiry. And during oral arguments on Tuesday in a case about DACA, the Supreme Court's conservative majority appeared ready to side with the Trump administration in its efforts to shut down the program. The conservative justices indicated that they were reluctant to second-guess the president's reasoning for terminating the program and considered the president's explanation for doing so to be sufficient. The case before the Supreme Court revolves around whether the White House acted legally

when it shut down DACA, since it provided no policy reasons to justify the decision. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow. Is there anything you want to do when you're in the studio that you haven't done? Do you want to say something into the mic just because you can? Sure. Fire away. There it is. Sounded like a dinosaur.

Sounded like a reptile. Sounded like a dinosaur blowing a whistle. Okay.