Speaker 1: It's wrong for president of the United States to seek
Speaker 1: help from a foreign power in a presidential election. That's
Speaker 1: not okay. So let's be frank, and national nightmares upon us.
Speaker 1: The basic rules of our democracy are under attack from
Speaker 1: the president again tonight, with a series of admissions by
Speaker 1: the President that all but assures his impeachment and the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives, but assures his impeachment in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives, A national nightmares upon us. His Chuck Todd
Speaker 1: just realized. Nobody ever holds anybody to anything crazy they've
Speaker 1: said in the past, so he's grandstanding. Lan he Chen
Speaker 1: is the David and Diane Staffy Research Fellow with the
Speaker 1: Wover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University,
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Crossing Lines with lanh Chen joins us, Now,
Speaker 1: lan he how are you, sir? I'm doing fine. Top
Speaker 1: of the day. To you, you wouldn't think it would
Speaker 1: be possible that we could have another conversation with you.
Speaker 1: Where we're at like a higher volume of stuff than
Speaker 1: we have in the past, But it just keeps going there. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the volume keeps going up, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear to me that it's really affecting how anybody feels,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's the staggering thing about all
Speaker 1: of this is that the outrage meter uh continues to rise.
Speaker 1: And you know, people who think that the president is
Speaker 1: a crook still think the president is a crook. People
Speaker 1: who think the president is a savior still think the
Speaker 1: president is a savior. And it's not entirely clear to
Speaker 1: me that evidence that comes out of this current inquiry.
Speaker 1: I mean, unless there's like a dead body somewhere, it's
Speaker 1: not clear to me that that any of this matters
Speaker 1: to how anybody feels. And it's such an amazing thing
Speaker 1: that that's where we are in our political system. I've
Speaker 1: been saying that all week long. I've yet to see
Speaker 1: a pundit I like, or a person in my personal
Speaker 1: life change sides. And until I see at least one
Speaker 1: person actually changed their mind on this stuff yet to
Speaker 1: that point on here, I think there are two constituencies.
Speaker 1: Number One, the truly persuadable is the traditional Democrats who
Speaker 1: voted for Trump and all so the crowd that a
Speaker 1: lot of friends of Armstrong can getting you're in. They
Speaker 1: say Trump's a loose cannon. He does stuff that just
Speaker 1: gets in his own way. But I love what he's doing.
Speaker 1: And now he shouldn't have said what he said about
Speaker 1: the Ukraine. That was dumb. But I'd rather have him
Speaker 1: than anybody else. You've got to move those people, don't you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, you know, there's two different
Speaker 1: theories about why Trump won the election. In one is
Speaker 1: that you had a bunch of people who said, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll give something a try that we've never tried before
Speaker 1: and see how it goes, and and and and so
Speaker 1: it was truly sort of a new kind of voter
Speaker 1: that came in that crossed over to vote for him.
Speaker 1: And the other theory is just look, Democrats didn't show up.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, depending on which those theories you
Speaker 1: believe in, that's going to drive how you think this
Speaker 1: next election is going to turn out. But but to
Speaker 1: get to the Trump constituency for a minute, I think
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who look at all this and say, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't particularly care for the guy. I do think he's
Speaker 1: kind of a jerk, he's probably a little crooked, But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we have a three
Speaker 1: and a half percent unemployment rate, the economy in the
Speaker 1: US is doing a heck of a lot better than
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the world. And there are a number
Speaker 1: of things, from Supreme Court nominations to regulatory reform to
Speaker 1: health care policy where you think, you know, I do
Speaker 1: like what he's done, so you hold your nose and
Speaker 1: pull the lever form again. I think that dynamic is
Speaker 1: absolutely there. Yeah, and I wonder I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: your opinion on where Nancy is on this at this point,
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, if she really wants impeachment or not, because
Speaker 1: if it comes down to a choice between Trump and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, Trump is gonna win, and she might know that.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe at this point she thinks our only hope
Speaker 1: to get him out of here is impeachment. I don't
Speaker 1: know what she's thinking. I think she is giving herself
Speaker 1: some optionality. I think she's going to see how this
Speaker 1: inquiry plays out. She's gonna see where the evidence goes.
Speaker 1: I think what she also wants to do, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: is to give the progressive base what they want for now,
Speaker 1: in the hope that if this thing crashes and burns,
Speaker 1: she's got enough time net year to resolve or to
Speaker 1: to to figure out how she can at least keep
Speaker 1: the house or at least figure out some way to
Speaker 1: complete the to ensure the Democratic Party doesn't completely crash
Speaker 1: and burn. So it may be the case that she's
Speaker 1: sort of giving them a little bit of rope now
Speaker 1: and seeing where it goes. But I don't think she's
Speaker 1: completely committed to this thing. And answer your question, I
Speaker 1: don't think she believes a hundred percent and impeachment. I
Speaker 1: think she is sort of she she's signaling to the left,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you what you want for now, let's see
Speaker 1: where it goes. But she could very easily pull the
Speaker 1: plug on this if she wants. How do you like
Speaker 1: her whole she's so sad and peripheral, being drugged through
Speaker 1: this horrifying situation angle. Yeah, I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody honestly believes it, and everyone's cut everyone. Everyone sort
Speaker 1: of knows that Donald Trump was going to get impeached
Speaker 1: from day one. That was always what the Democrats wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and it was a question of you know,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine put it well, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: the verdict doesn't change, it's the charge that changes. So
Speaker 1: they have to figure out how how to change the
Speaker 1: charge to match the verdict. And I do think some
Speaker 1: of that's going on here. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't think Adam Schiff is a particularly good frontman
Speaker 1: for this whole thing's statement. Not to say that they've
Speaker 1: got better front men or front women, but he's not
Speaker 1: very good. Well, he told a four pinocchio lie yesterday.
Speaker 1: According to The Washington Post, Lanie Chan is online from
Speaker 1: the Hoover Institution in Stanford University a Lanie the White
Speaker 1: House in the last twenty four hours is announced that no,
Speaker 1: we're not cooperating with any of this stuff because it's
Speaker 1: not a real impeachment. You haven't had a vote. Um
Speaker 1: so so then then then, now, what do you think
Speaker 1: of that maneuver? Yeah, I mean at some point that
Speaker 1: there's a problem. At some point they are going to
Speaker 1: have to cooperate, or at least appear as though they're cooperating.
Speaker 1: Because the challenge is that as bad as what the
Speaker 1: Democrats are are doing is optically in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: what would be worse would be for the White House
Speaker 1: to appear not transparent, because then it appears like you're
Speaker 1: hiding something. So well, they make it loud and clear,
Speaker 1: we will be as transparent as your picture window as
Speaker 1: soon as they have a vote. I think it's a
Speaker 1: good strategy. Yeah, I mean and I and I think
Speaker 1: the Democrats. You know, it does force the Democrats to
Speaker 1: go on record, It forces them to do the procedural
Speaker 1: elements they need to do. But you know that, here's
Speaker 1: the challenge. If you say that, you better be willing
Speaker 1: to be transparent when happens. And That's what I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about. Is there any chance if this uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're leaving out the dead body scenario, you throughout you know,
Speaker 1: the stuff we know now that it would I could
Speaker 1: see the House saying, yeah, we got to impeach the guy.
Speaker 1: They pass it along to the Senate, and the conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom is Republicans have the votes to keep it from happening.
Speaker 1: But is there there's a crowd there? You know Romney, well,
Speaker 1: if he felt like there are other Republicans that would
Speaker 1: vote to remove Trump, I could see him saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it, let's get him out of here, start over.
Speaker 1: Are there are a number of Republican senators that in
Speaker 1: secret would absolutely jump on board if they could get
Speaker 1: together to Toss Tromp. Yeah, I thought about this a lot.
Speaker 1: I you know, the problem is you've got to get
Speaker 1: to sixty seven and I so it's going to take
Speaker 1: more than just a few. I mean, you would need
Speaker 1: it at you know, fourteen fifteen Republican senators to sort
Speaker 1: of say, yeah, let's get rid of this guy. You know,
Speaker 1: I can count maybe four or five for electoral or other,
Speaker 1: you know, personal reasons and are um you know, I
Speaker 1: think I think I think Susan Collins is you know,
Speaker 1: could be wobbly. Um, I think, uh, you know, for
Speaker 1: some for for electoral reasons, someone like Corey Gardner in
Speaker 1: Colorado or Tom Tillos in North Carolina. Those guys have
Speaker 1: really tough re election campaigns. But you don't think there
Speaker 1: are enough in secret that if they if they got
Speaker 1: the nod, the secret handshake, they'd go along with it. No,
Speaker 1: I just I don't. I don't buy it. I think
Speaker 1: that I think the President really has a lot of
Speaker 1: people in the Senate who aren't just with him grudgingly.
Speaker 1: I mean I think they they have to embrace him
Speaker 1: more than grudging. Well, then you really get to the
Speaker 1: what's the point angle? I mean, what are you going
Speaker 1: to get out of it. Democrats, if you go through
Speaker 1: this whole impeachment thing knowing he's going to stay in office. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's just to make a point. I think
Speaker 1: it's to make a political point, and I think it's
Speaker 1: to have an opportunity to to try and dominate the
Speaker 1: news cycle with negative information about Trump. The problem is
Speaker 1: that theory is flawed. You cannot dominate a news cycle
Speaker 1: by definition that Donald Trump is in And so now now, now,
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is you're trying to do
Speaker 1: something which clearly no one's been successful at so far.
Speaker 1: And I think this whole thing comes down to a
Speaker 1: giant political and messaging exercise, and and and and that
Speaker 1: is I hate to say it, but that is the
Speaker 1: core of politics. Now, well, I was going to say
Speaker 1: it pains me, pains me to say this out loud,
Speaker 1: but there are some politicians who will give the base
Speaker 1: what they want, even if it's a bad idea. You
Speaker 1: think I've recently come to that realization. Now interrupted you
Speaker 1: you can make the point better than I could. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, my point is simply that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the Democrats and people who don't like Trump have been
Speaker 1: talking about impeachment for so long that this is kind
Speaker 1: of where we're gonna end up. And and you know, look,
Speaker 1: maybe they just need to get it out of this system,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But the reality is to return to
Speaker 1: the original place our conversation departed from. It's not changing
Speaker 1: anybody's minds, and I'm not sure how effective it is
Speaker 1: unless it's changing people's minds because because we've got an
Speaker 1: election next year, and the only way that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: gets removed from office is at the ballot box. And
Speaker 1: if that doesn't happen, all this other stuff is moved.
Speaker 1: There's a good book out now, and you're a professor,
Speaker 1: you teach this sort of stuff, so you might be
Speaker 1: completely aware of this. But we did this once before.
Speaker 1: There are enough people that hated Andrew Johnson. They just
Speaker 1: wanted to get rid of him from the beginning, and
Speaker 1: they just kept throwing stuff up against the wall and
Speaker 1: went through the whole impeachment thing and they just didn't
Speaker 1: have a good thing to stick to boot him our office.
Speaker 1: They just wanted him gone. They just basically didn't like them.
Speaker 1: And and that's I think we're gonna do it again. Well,
Speaker 1: you can argue that's what happened with Bill Clinton. Um,
Speaker 1: you know I fairly or not. I mean, Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: actually did perjury himself. But you know, some say that
Speaker 1: really that impeachment exercise is really about people just didn't
Speaker 1: like Bill Clinton. Um. And you could say the same
Speaker 1: thing about Johnson. You can say say the same thing
Speaker 1: about Trump. Now with with Trump, they're arguably is a
Speaker 1: little bit more here that people look at and say,
Speaker 1: that's kind of that doesn't seem right to me, that
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem you know, it doesn't seem like that
Speaker 1: you should have done that. But the thing people forget
Speaker 1: is you cannot conflate the legal side of this with
Speaker 1: the political side of this. Impeachment is not about the law.
Speaker 1: Impeachment is about politics. It's never been about the law.
Speaker 1: It's never been about trying to hold him responsible for
Speaker 1: a crime. It's strictly about politically, does the Congress believe
Speaker 1: he's committed these high crimes and misdemeanors that are worthy
Speaker 1: of removal from office, And that is a political, not
Speaker 1: a legal matter. La Chen David and Diane Stiff, your
Speaker 1: research fellow, Hoover Institution Director Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford Line.
Speaker 1: He great to talk to you. Thanks a million, gonna
Speaker 1: be you guys. Thanks. That's really good and you can't
Speaker 1: say that enough. It's a political thing. It's not a
Speaker 1: legal quick making your legal arguments. Well, I accept the
Speaker 1: legal arguments to move people politically. Paul Wise, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure they do anymore. That's that's a good point. I
Speaker 1: think they did in the past talking about this standard playbook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything is different, though, you gotta establish it to run
Speaker 1: to shut up the pass. Wow, it's gonna be an
Speaker 1: interesting a couple of months. Think