The Daily - The Latest: Country Over Party

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

As the House Judiciary Committee pushed toward a historic vote to send two articles of impeachment to the full House, lawmakers made their final appeals to the other side. Democrats implored committee members to vote with their conscience and put country over party. Republicans, in turn, asked for the exact same thing.“The Latest” is a series on the impeachment inquiry, from the team behind “The Daily.” You can find more information about it here.

It started with a whistleblower's complaint about President Trump's contact with a foreign leader. I had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Like, I mean perfect. Today, I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment. I now call up House Resolution 755, impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. Do you guys want me to say Nicholas, my violin, or can I say Nick? Okay, is that all right? Hey, it's Nick Fandos, congressional reporter for the New York Times. I just got back from Capitol Hill.

There's a bit of news over there this morning after some drama and delay. Mr. Nadler? Aye. Mr. Nadler votes aye. Ms. Lofgren? Aye. The 40 members of the House Judiciary Committee have voted along party lines to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Mr. Chairman, there are 23 ayes and 17 noes. Basically, what they've done now is finalize what the president's going to be impeached for, abuse of power and obstructing Congress. And they've done now is finalize what the president's going to be impeached for, abuse of power and obstructing Congress. And they've now voted it out of committee.

The resolution is amended as ordered, reported favorably to the House. So that sets up an impeachment vote of the full House next week. Without objection, the committee is adjourned. But the latest, what I've been paying attention to these last few days, is what these committee members said in their final arguments in the lead up to that vote, starting Wednesday night, all through the day and night on Thursday, and up until the vote Friday morning. Do you believe that we should allow this to go unaddressed, what the president did?

Ostensibly, what was there left to say, right? After two months of this inquiry, weeks of debate, the committee that's comprised of some of the most ardent members of each party, they've all made up their minds long ago. But in these last moments... Let's be honest. This is about our conscience. The conscience of the nation. The conscience of my friends on the the conscience of the nation, the conscience of my friends on the other side of the aisle.

They called on one another to reconsider their votes, and many of them did so by appealing to one another's conscience. Let's keep our eye on what really happened in this case and whether or not our consciences dictate that we do something about it. We can't let it go unaddressed. Democrats appealed to the Republicans to consider their better angels. And I ask my colleagues to let your conscience be your guide. To put party aside and think about this moment in history.

Reach deep within yourselves to find the courage to do what the evidence requires and the Constitution demands, to your our country above your party. And the Republicans. I appreciate that, Mr. Cicilline, and I was going to make a request of my colleagues and friends on the other side as well to put to put country over party also. We're essentially making the exact same appeal back to Democrats. We're looking at the same set of facts with two totally different ways. Look, the founders of this country

warned against a single-party impeachment. Put aside your partisanship. Reconsider your vote. Because they feared it would bitterly and perhaps irreparably divide our nation. A vote where everyone knew the outcome, where not one person in that room was going to reconsider their vote.

Mr. Chairman, there are 23 ayes and 17 noes. So here's what I think is going on. The members of the committee weren't really speaking to one another over these last few days. They were speaking to a small handful of Democratic colleagues, maybe a Republican or two, in the full House, who don't yet know how they're going to vote, or at least say they don't know how they're going to vote next week. These are people like Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan,

Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the Democratic moderates in swing districts or Trump districts, the couple Democrats who never came around to supporting an impeachment inquiry. They now have to decide whether or not they're going to impeach. And that's a very, very risky proposition. And to be clear, this isn't about needing the votes in a number sense. By all accounts, the Democrats have the votes they need to pass this on the House floor. It's about wanting every single Democrat to vote to impeach. Because that's another kind of message, one to the voters who aren't sure how they feel about impeachment, the same people who will have to decide whether to give Alyssa Slotkin

or Jeff Van Drew another term in 2020. It's a message to them that all of the Democrats, even the moderates, even the ones for whom this is politically inconvenient, are united on this front. And they hope that moderate Democrats taking a tough vote that might cost them their jobs will signal to Americans that it was the right thing to do.

So that's the latest from Washington. We expect the full House to take its vote next week, probably on Wednesday.