Impeaching a President with Brenda Wineapple

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

Msnbc, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Government, Politics, Chris Hayes, Why Is This Happening?, Withpod, Versant, Ms Now, News, Society & Culture, Versant Media

4.6 • 9.1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2019

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Got impeachment on the mind? If you do, odds are there are two recent examples of the impeachment process you might be drawing from – Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. But what do you know about the first ever presidential impeachment? There is no better time to revisit the case of Andrew Johnson, the white supremacist President whose impeachment reveals a wild truth about the history of this country. Brenda Wineapple spent the last six years uncovering the details of an erratic and power hungry President thrust into power after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Hear her tell the story of how Johnson's dangerous actions during Reconstruction presented an extraordinary moral dilemma for the nation and its leaders. RELATED READING: The Impeachers by Brenda Wineapple “The First Presidential Impeachment” by Chris Hayes

Transcript

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0:00.0	They're looking for some technical violation.
0:02.5	They can nail them on when the man is presiding over the resurgence of white supremacist terror in the South.
0:08.0	But think of it.
0:08.8	Think of it.
0:09.3	It's American 1867.
0:11.5	Think of it now.
0:13.0	Can you impeach somebody because they're a white supremacist?
0:16.7	Don't forget either.
0:17.6	It's the first ever impeachment.
0:19.2	Nobody had gone down this road before and there's no roadmap.
0:23.2	There's no Google map to say you take a left turn here.
0:30.1	Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me?
0:32.4	Your host Chris Hayes.
0:34.6	Well, I don't know about you, but for some crazy reason and I really don't have any explanation for it.
0:40.2	I've been thinking a lot about impeachment recently.
0:42.6	I know it's weird, weird esoteric thing to spend your time meditating on.
0:48.6	In all seriousness, we, you know, obviously it is the center of the political debate right now about whether the president
0:53.8	United States has committed in the words the Constitution of High Crimes and Mr. Meeners
0:58.6	and should be impeached and then possibly removed from office.
1:01.6	And I would say 90, 95% of the discussion is colored by two different previous experiences
1:12.5	of presidential impeachment.
1:14.4	Richard Nixon, who was never actually impeached by the House.
	...

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