Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and the Trump presidency.

I would just like to remind you before we start that the Spectator US edition is now out.

We're on to about our fourth edition now.

And you can subscribe either digitally or in print or both by going to www.

www.comptator.us forward slash subscribe.

And listeners of this podcast can get a special 5% discount if they go to that page and put in the code Americano in capital letters.

Please do it. I'll be humiliated if nobody does. I'm joined today by Michael Tracy, who is a journalist

who writes for The Spectator, who's currently in New Hampshire ahead of the Democratic primary.

But we're going to start by talking about impeachment, because as significant impeachment news today,

Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the House, Speaker of Democrats in the House,

has just said that Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for not allowing witnesses.

He said this will go down as a great cover-up in history.

He was full of a lot of hot air, I would say.

And I think, judging by your latest piece for spectator, Michael,

you would agree that this impeachment has been

something of a joke? I would agree, and I don't know that I would call it a joke because

it's not particularly funny, given some of the incredibly ominous long-term implications that

I've discerned stemming from this

impeachment process, although I do have to say I think I might be second to no one in expressing

my contempt for many aspects of this impeachment process, but I'm not sure that I buy the

Republican argument that bringing forth witnesses would be such an affront to justice.

The arguments that they make on that score don't seem particularly sound to me, and I'm saying that as somebody who is a pretty stalwart opponent of much of this impeachment process, but that's sort of a side issue that will get lost in the fray as the

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