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The New Yorker Radio Hour

A Tumultuous Week in Impeachment, and Jill Lepore on Democracy in Peril

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Washington correspondent Susan Glasser has been covering the scene in the Capitol as Republicans rush to contain the damage of the John Bolton manuscript leak. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, told Glasser that “if a Republican makes the argument that removing the President this close to an election isn’t the right response, [that] we should trust the American electorate to make the decision, then you have to support [calling for] more witness and more documents” in order for the electorate to make an informed decision. Glasser also spoke with Zoe Lofgren who is one of the House impeachment managers prosecuting the case against the President. Lofgren is an expert on the subject: she was on the House Judiciary Committee in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment, and, in 1974, as a law student, she helped to draft charges against Richard Nixon. Nixon, she points out, was far more forthcoming than Trump with Congress, directing his staff to appear for questions without a subpoena. If the Senate votes to acquit, endorsing a campaign of stonewalling by the executive branch, Lofgren says, “It will forever change the relationship between the branches of government.” Plus, the historian and staff writer Jill Lepore talks with David Remnick about how Americans rallied to save democracy in the nineteen-thirties, and how we might apply those lessons to a time when our own democracy has weakened.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

0:10.3

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

0:13.9

To stretch just a little bit what Donald Trump has already said, if the president shot John Bolton in the middle of Fifth Avenue, it seems he wouldn't lose any voters,

0:22.5

not among the Republican senators voting in his impeachment trial anyway. And by the time you're

0:27.0

hearing this, it may be over, all but the shouting. And just as the president's lawyers have said

0:32.7

already, it's finally going to be up to the voters to decide the fate of Donald Trump and the fate of the Republicans who have supported him all the way.

0:41.3

Hey guys, let him through, let him through.

0:44.3

Will you make it on Bolton's motivations of this plan?

0:48.3

Do you think he's trustworthy?

0:50.3

Just a half-ass in the house.

0:52.3

I've seen the New York Times story.

0:55.0

I have no idea what they're talking about.

0:58.0

I think there's no need for witnesses.

1:00.0

I think the case, as I said, is so strong.

1:03.0

Hopefully it's over this week, and we can get focused on doing the business of the American people.

1:09.0

So far as I know, there has been no, no witness deal.

1:12.6

Senator, are you in conversations about a bipartisan deal?

1:16.6

Hey, hey, hey, whoa, thank you.

1:18.6

Are you in conversations about a bipartisan deal?

1:21.6

No.

1:22.6

No.

1:23.6

No.

...

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