House Has Strong Argument for Impeachment: Prof. Briffault

Law School. We have a lot to speak to you about, Professor, not least the fact that the House has just introduced an article of impeachment against the president, the second impeachment for the first time ever of a president potentially. But that said, what is your base case scenario for how

rebuke of President Trump proceeds? Well? At this point, it looks like the House is planning to go ahead with an impeachment proceeding unless, which I guess beginning to see monlikely Vice President pens and the Cabinet moved to remove the president under the amendment. So it does seem as though the House is quite serious about beginning impeachment proceedings, possibly as early as tomorrow or Wednesday. So Professor, Let's assume that the House does move forward. How do you

think the timing will play out in terms of the Senate. Well, that's a good question, and I think right now they're making some Uh there's the initial comments. Are they want to get the House wants to take care of the impeachment. Remember the impeachments the equival of an indictment, you could, well, the impeachment means is the House has called for a

trial in the Senate. Um. The actual any um conviction would require action by the Senate, as we saw last year, and like the impeachment that grew out of the Ukraine phone call um, so the House could could do this rather quickly. What about the Senate, that's a good question, sent I think is out of session right now. Uh. Leuda McConnell is talking about not bringing them back until

nineteen UM. The House um majority whip UH Congressman Clyburne is talking about even not even sending over the impeachment decision the impeachment resolution to the Senate until some time after the start of the Biden administration. So it's not to get him away with the fur The opening days and weeks of the new administration, So it's a little hard to tell when it does seem though it's quite possible that an impeachment could be voted soon, but it's hard to tell at what point it will move from

the House to the Senate exactly. This talk of you know, a hundred days, even allowing Biden half his hundred days. What about the idea that it's a sole article of impeachment it is regarding inciting the insurrection at the capital on January six, in your professional and legal opinion, was that the right charge and it is the president guilty

of it? Well, I noticed they actually combine that with the president's phone call to Rappensburg in the Secretary of State of Georgia pressuring him to find new votes in an effective change the outcome of the election. So it is primarily, of course about the uh the attack on the Capitol, but I think there are other other statements in it that he followed prior to subvert and obstruct

the certification of the electors. I think they weave it together in that sense, is that the president, both by his phone call to the Secretary State of Georgia and by his inciting speech at the Ellipse was trying to block Congress from doing its constitutional duty. I think it's a good argument. I mean, I think obviously you need to figure out maybe to part the exact language of

his speech and everything. But the more of this looks like this was a clear cut effort by the part of many members of that mob to literally block the certification of the vote. That is an aspect of an attacking, attacking the operation of the government, which fits within the model of physition and insurrection. Professor talked to us about the amendment, uh, in what's kind of the calculus behind it doesn't have to be initiated by the vice president? Yes,

I think it does. UM. I mean I think that UM the twenty and even really emerged in the nineteen sixties as a way of dealing with presidential disability. Disability short of outright death, president might have a stroke or heart attack for some other reason to be incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office. And it comes up with the process where the vice president, with the concurrence of the cabinet, can take over, notifies the Congress. UM

the president is potentially could challenge it. Uh, And there's a process for back and forth for congressional resolution, but the first step does require action by the Vice president. And um, I mean candidly, it really wasn't meant for this kind of situation, But of course I'm not sure anything really meant for this kind of situation. Yeah, I mean, Nancy Plosi clearly has several plans at our fingertips. And there's also a plan D that's getting talked about. The

fourteen Amendment Section three. This may apply to the president and or also to those who wanted to, you know, not recognize the certification. What do you imagine as a

path forward with that? Will it get used? So? Fourteen and fourteen member Section three is a provision that was added after the Civil War as a way basically of saying that members of people who have officers of the Confederacy, who had been in part of the US government, people who had taken an oath of allegiance in the United States before the Civil War and then in effect broke that oath and joined up with the Confederacy, as as government leaders are as top generals there would be denied,

it would be thereafter denied any ability to hold the US government office. Again, that's the that's the background, and again it uses that, but it uses the language of participation in insurrection. And so the idea there would be again, if you could show that somebody participated in somebody who had sworn an oath, an oath of office like the president or a member of Congress, or particiating an insurrection, that would be a basis for denying them the right

to hold uh public office in the United States. Um, it's not clearly self executing some it would have to determine that that's what they did, so uh, and of course he would have to determine that what they did constituted insurrection. UM. The President's case, there's a good argument not all of the members of Congress who you know, voted to oppose UM the electoral certification would fall into

that category. I think people are thinking about it mostly in terms of Senator Hawley, maybe Senator Cruise, particularly people who gave more inflammation, made inflammatory statements, I think, particularly Senator Hawley, and maybe from the members of the House. So, Professor, if the House is able to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate perhaps sometime this week, what is incumbent upon the Senate to do in terms of timeliness in terms of acting. They are supposed to take it

up right away. I mean, that is the procedure that's been set up. It's supposed to become a first order of business, and they are supposed to take it up right away. So I think the House is I mean, I think in some ways, this this impeachment thing has really three things driving in. One is just the sense that something has to be done, that this was maybe the most outrageous thing in American president has ever done, so something has to be done. Second is to get

him out right away. He's still there at this point. People accounting the hours, it's ten more days. He's in charge of the unforces, is in charge of the nuclear codes, and there's a I think a concerned that maybe he will do something improper again. And then third is to

in effect block him from being able to run again. Uh. And that's one of the things that the impeachment itself doesn't automatically disqualify for future holding office, but it's something that the Senate has the power to do if it should convict, is to disqualify. And at this point, I'm not sure which all three of these things may be at play. The longer they delay any action, the more it's really about the first and the third. Richard Brice brief. Thank you so much for joining us with a brief.

Joseph P. Chamberlain, Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School, helping us break down UH the impeachment process, which looks like it's about to begin as the House UH introduced its articles Impeachment. Well, of course, it is a great pleasure to speak to our next guest. Susan DeVore is chief executive officer of the Premiere, which is the health services company that's listed on the NASDACK under p I n C, and she joins us from Charlotte, North Carolina. Susan,

thanks for joining. Scott Stringer, the New York City Controller, coming out today and explaining that, you know, the forms online and the process for getting put in line for vaccination is an absolute mess. Talk to us about how better the vaccine can be ruled out. Thank you so much for having me. While the truth is we've got to get from two fifty thousand vaccinations a day to two million a day, and so this is you know, the biggest supply chain challenge probably UH in history for healthcare.

There are several systemic issues. First, we've got a hesitancy problem. We've got people who are not willing to take the vaccine. We've got to do a lot more education. We've got to get people willing to take it. Secondly, our health care systems, the premier hospitals would say staffing is one of the very largest challenges they have. You know, their nurses are taking care of all the COVID patients and now they're also doubling up on providing vaccination, so we

need help with staffing. The distribution challenges, you know, are talked about a lot. There are sixty four different state and territorial plans, and so the lack of centralization and even the lack of standard processes across states huge issue. And then there are supply shortages and all kinds of communication gaps. So we're early in the process, but but there are lots of improvements that need to be made.

So so it's one of the questions is you know, are one of the areas of frustration I guess for some people is yes, we we are in the early stage of this process, and there will be bumps in the roads, certainly, But when you get uh. You know, let's say a ten thousand doses delivered to a vaccination point, yet only two or three or four thousand have actually put in people's arms. The question then becomes, what are we waiting for if you don't if someone doesn't want

to take a go to the next person. So I guess there's a question of sticking with the Phase one ABC protocols versus just getting as many shots in as many arms as quickly as possible. How do you think that's going to play out? You know, there's a lot of inconsistency state to state. So part of the problem is hospitals, premier hospitals don't even know if they're going to get it, how much they're going to get, when they're going to get it. They're worrying about having enough

for the second dose. And so I think people are being cautious in terms of going too fast down the prioritization list because the worst that they think could happen would be to give them one dose and you don't have that second dose. Having said that, I think we are being overly cautious as a country, and we ought to be using technology to identify all the people out there who want to get a vaccine, uh and are

willing to get a vaccine. And then we ought to set up more um sites for vaccination National Guard in some places, maybe the retail CBS, Walgreens boxes, so that we actually have a way to accelerate this. You know, with a normal flu it takes three months to get people vaccinated, and this is much more urgent, and we have to change our processes in order to get people vaccinating. How does Premiere work with the various states. It seems like because it's a state by state issue, it's obviously

slightly different for every state. And you know, a company like you or is is it difficult to to manage all that? So Premier has hospitals and hundreds of thousands of providers across the country. We work through the inside, We work through the healthcare system them and all of the things that they're trying to respond to. At state level,

we have a big supply chain organization. And one of the things folks don't talk a lot about is, you know, these these vials are overfilled, so you can get six doses instead of five, while the kit only includes five needles, So you've gotta go get needles and surringes, which are on shortage. The kids did not include any gloves um and most clinicians want to wear gloves when they're vaccinating folks,

and so we've got a shortage of gloves. So what Premier is trying to do is make sure we've got syringes, make sure we've got needles, make sure we've got gloves, make sure we're helping health care systems share their best practices and compare notes about how they're dealing with the various state programs and those, you know, states that are doing a better job of accelerating the vaccination are sharing

how they're going about that with other other states. So Premier is kind of a critical piece right in the middle of all of the activity at the various state levels. Susan should there be federal guidance, federal coordination of a vaccination into so how you know, we believe a premiere There should be federal guidance. There should be a standard reporting process, maybe there could even be a universal scheduling process.

You know, the CDC today is reporting the doses, but you don't know how many of those are first doses or second doses. And it's not a problem yet because not enough time has passed, but it will be a problem in the future. So we need federal guidelines, We need federal standards of reporting, We need federal you know, technology support. We can use federal and state resources like National Guard and others to accelerate this process. So yeah, we believe you need a lot more federal guidance and

then you need state level execution of the broader vaccination plan. Susan, thank you so much for joining us once again, we would appreciate your perspective. Susan DeVore, chief executive officer of healthcare services company Premier based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Just getting an update on the logistics of getting these vaccines out there, into the marketplace and into patients as quickly,

UH and asficially and as safely as possible. That's been a challenged uh so far, but hopefully things will improve well. One of the many fallouts to come from the um what happened at the Capitol last week has been the role of social media platforms. What role did they play, uh and what roles should they played going forward. We saw many of these social media platforms drop President Trump's account, band, President Trump's account that's razing some question questions about free

speech versus accountability. To dig into that, we welcome Mark Douglas. He's a CEO of marketing firm Steelhouse based in Los Angeles. Uh. Mark, thanks so much for joining us here. So we had Twitter, we've had Facebook banned the account of President Trump. How do you think those social media platforms and Amazon as related to Parlor? How do you think they came to

those decisions? Okay, well, obviously I think, um, what happened last week at the Capitol plus four years of history, you know, kind of um, the cumulative effected at um led to that decision. I think that the Twitter and Facebook banning his accounts is was somewhat expected. What's unexpected I think is um Apple and Aws and the actions you know they've taken that go beyond Trump. And so you know, there's just a climate right now of of

making these kinds of decisions. And I don't I think there's still a lot more to come in terms of where we settle in in terms of what's allowed and what's not allowed. Yeah, that was really fascinating. Parlor is funded by, among others, Rebecca Mercer, and it builds itself as a platform really for all that protects the First Amendment rights of Americans. But honestly, it did seem like perhaps some of what happened on Wednesday, if not organized

on Parlor, was at least chatted about on Parlor. And you know, it didn't hurt that people were sort of suggesting things to each other. And then Apple came out and said it was going to take it off its app store, and Amazon Web Services said it wouldn't host it anymore. What is the future for parlor? Who CEO insists that nothing illegal is not dealt with, that they take down illegal things and anything else is completely legal. Yeah, So I think there's two issues there. One is Parlor.

It's although the lot of what people do as right wing discussion is occurring on Parlor. Parler themselves just view themselves as champions of free speech, that's what they say, and don't think free speech is a Republican right wing issue. So I'm not sure there's as much support for, you know, kind of taking apps down and out of the App store.

I think a lot of companies, ironically, including Facebook, think that Apple has a heavy hand when it comes to the app store, and and you know, Facebook and December did full page ads in the Wall Street Journal, in New York Times and other publications essentially railing against Apple's decisions that it relates to to the the app store,

and there are other companies that are suing Apples. So now Parlor, for a different reason, is now in that bucket ironically aligned somewhat with Facebook and that Apple is exerting too much control. And so I think, you know, that's the first party issue. The second part is coming out of the app store. I think Parlor will relaunch as a mobile app and um and and I think

can do so relatively quickly. And so again that's the way, you know, they just used the opening in net um to put apps out there or to put websites out there, rabbit and relying solely on Apple, who who's been somewhat quite frankly hypocritical on the topic. So Mark, you expect this, this discussion again, this whole First Amendment issue, accountability, free speech too. I guess, you know, retrain the lens of Washington, d C. Congress regulators on the Internet as it relates

to kind of these free speech issues. Um, I think obviously it's a hot topic, but I think actually the users of these platforms um are ultimately going to somewhat retrain the lens. So keep in mind only ten percent of Facebook's users in the United States, but of their

revenue is in the United States. So if you have you know, a lot of US users of Facebook and Twitter, because they're similar type numbers, but Twitter, if you have a lot of users for um of Facebook and Twitter, essentially you know, feel that these platforms are being unfairs

in particular around free speech. UM it doesn't. It takes a lot of people, but as a percentage of the total number of Facebook users, it doesn't take a lot to have a very big effect on their revenue, which is going to have a huge effect on advertising and have a huge effect that they go on Wall Street, which you already thing Wall Street somewhat respond to. I think some of the drop in Twitter and and UM

today is not just about Trump. It's about the savvy investors realizing that you that Twitter cannot afford to lose you know, a third or quarter you know up there their US user base, that that that would have a devastating impact on their financials because they're so dependent on the United States for for revenue. So fascinating to see

what happens next. And you have to wonder if these companies aren't concerned about legal liability as well, if it can be proven that there was organization for some of the events on their platforms. Our thanks to you very much for joining us today. Mark Douglas is CEO of steel House marketing firm with a lot of experience in

a social media marketing and so on. Interestingly, Paul Bloomberg Intelligence suggests that Twitter's advertising base will actually grow in spite of its ban on President Donald Trump right now, and we'll have to see if that's the case. Well at this time for Bloomberg Opinion, so let's welcome Bloomberg Opinion columnist Brooke Sutherland, who is a great opinion out about corporate America and how it responded to last Wednesday's events.

You know, it's really interesting. Only one major business group, and that's the National Association of Manufacturers signaled the president out when they were denouncing what happened on Wednesday. Many many big companies from JP Morgan to Goldman Sachs dennounced the violence, but only this one group actually mentioned President Trump by name. Brook, You write about this because it's fascinating that it's it's a pretty conservative group that actually

ended up doing this what led to the decision? Sure, and you know, I think we should say too that they didn't just call him out by name. They called for the Vice president and the cabinet to seriously consider removing President Trump from office with the twenty five Amendment. So this was a pretty incredible statement, um, for many business group, like you said, but especially from the National Association of Manufacturers, which has historically, you know, really aligned

itself with conservative priorities. They advocated very aggressively for the Trump tax cuts in twenties seventeen, for example. But um, you know, I think for this group in particular, that the frustration level with the antics of the Trump administration

has been rising for months now. Um. You know, the head of this organization, uh labeled the protests over you know, the economic protection measures that were taken in the wake of the coronavirus m as idiots, saying that, you know, if we try to rush reopening the economy, that's going to be the detriment of everybody. Um. Also, you know, came up very strongly against the efforts by some Republicans in Congress to uh, you know, argue against the certification

of the election results. And I think where this frustration stems from is that, you know, the reason why the National Association of Manufacturers has been aligned with Republicans is that they have tended to be the pro business party, that they've advocated policies that are good for businesses. And that has not necessarily been the case, um this past year.

I mean, if you look at the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and you know the fact that stimulus became such a political football, the fact that any kind of you know, aggressive progress on stimulus measures was sort of turned into a side show with this election narrative. I mean, that is not good for business. That is not what manufacturers were certainly hoping to see from a Republican party.

And in Manufacturers Brooke, I mean, as you've written about before, they've actually, i mean they've really stepped up during this pandemic, whether it's you know, Ford or General Motors, you know, making ventilators, or Boeing you know, making face shields. So they've really stepped up and and and and try to be part of the solution here. They really have I mean, it's been incredible. I know, you know, corporate America takes a lot of flack, and some of it is obviously

very well deserved. But in this moment of need, we've seen manufacturers across the spectrum really step up. And that was, you know, in the crunch time of March and aprilogy reference these companies that you know, I've never made face shield, face masks, ventilators before stepping in and saying, okay, we have machinery that we're not using, how can we help. But then also you know, on the vaccine distributions front,

you can't make vaccines without equipment from manufacturers. You can't distribute the vaccines without the logistics companies s FedEx and ups and so these companies have been working very, very hard to do whatever they can to try to get the economy back on track, to get steer us through

this very unprecedented situation. And I don't know if those efforts have been fully appreciated by the federal government, which at times just seemed to be sort of floundering in its response effort um And like I said, you know that response effort has increasingly become sort of a sideshow to some of these more political considerations, and that's not good for business. Some companies have said that they will not donate any more to members of Congress who did

try to overturn the election. Some have suggested that they won't donate to any political party, Goldman Sex in particular, saying that for the first gevil future, there will be no political donations. Are these bold moves on the part of our corporate titans? Brook? Uh? You know, I can't speak to the banks specifically, as they don't cover them as closely. I mean, I think time will tell how firmly they stick to these initiatives that are coming out now.

I mean, obviously this is a moment where it's easier to do something. Um Now, whether you know these that meantest daying power, I think is a question for a different day. It's my understanding this is a pretty light kime of year for political donations anyway. But you know, I think that obviously this is something that people care about, and I think that we're living in a moment where people are looking to corporate America to be more of

a leader. Is that, you know, it's not an option anymore for these companies to stay silent when questions about, you know, the fundamental nature of our democracy are being raised, and so, you know, I think there has been some question about when we did get into the Biden administration, whether corporate America could sort of fade back into the background and if there wouldn't be quite as much pressure on these leaders to come out and make statements in

the wake of events. And I think what we're seeing is evidence that that pressure is not going away, and that employees are going to want to work at places where their companies do take a stand um and so, you know, I think that's pressure for accountability is going to persist. Now, whether that actually translates into you know, where companies put their money, I think we have to wait and see. So, Brooke, you covered the industrial America

manufacturing sector for a long time here. What do you think or how how are some of these industrial companies and trade organizations how are they viewing the incoming Biden administration. So, you know, I think there was this narrative out there that the Biden administration is going to be bad for corporate American. I don't know if that's really true. I think when you sort of drill deeper down into the

outcome of the election. Now that we do have, you know, a decision made on those two Georgia Senate seats, I think this could actually be a pretty good outcome for manufacturers. I mean, the big question mark is what happens on tax policy. And certainly, you know, there's a lot of US manufacturing companies that are heavily geared towards the domestic market and would you know, face repercussions from tax policy changes. But on the other hand, you know, an infrastructure bill

is obviously a boon to the manufacturing industry. And this is something that companies had hoped to see under a Trump administration and that did not happen in large part because Congressional Republicans were something of an obstacle to that. And so I think, you know, if you do as a unified government on the Democrats, that does pave the way for some sort of infrastructure spending down the road, which I think would be a real benefit to these companies.

And you know, even in the shorter term, talking about coronavirus stimulus, that does seem to be a priority for this administration. That could be particularly helpful for the aerostates and defense industry, which of course is still struggling from the fallout of the pandemic. And you know, there was some additional stimulus that went to the airlines under the

most recent build that was passed. But you know, some questions about getting the aerostas manufacturing industry in a place where it's stabler and stronger to be able to be in a position to respond to that demand when it does come back, would certainly be beneficial. Hey, brook thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate chatting with you as always about all things coming out of Industrial America.

Brooks Sutherland deals and industrials columns for Bloomberg Opinion. You can read Brooks work and all of the good work from our Bloomberg Opinion columns at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Opinion or O P I n Go on the Bloomberg terminal.

It's eating to see um industrial America. We've seen a manufacturing data bonnie pretty solid over the last four or five months, so the industrial part of the economy is doing pretty well, gearing up for what it expects to be a stronger back half of Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Markets Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever a podcast platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn, I'm on Twitter at Bonnie Quinn. And

I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio