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