Welcome to Words Matter with Katie Barlow and Joe Lockhart.

Welcome to Words Matter, I'm Katie Barlow.

Our goal is to promote objective reality.

As a wise man once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts.

Have power and words have consequences.

Welcome to a special impeachment update edition of Words Matter.

So Joe, last week was a significant one for the House impeachment inquiry.

And on Thursday of last week, the House of Representatives voted 232 to 196 to approve rules

and move forward with the impeachment inquiry into President Trump's conduct.

Now that vote was mostly along party lines with all Republicans voting against joined by two

Democrats from Districts Trump won in 2016. So let's first talk about the timing of the vote,

given that there's no requirement that she do so. Why did Speaker Pelosi call the vote at all?

And why did she do it last week?

Well, let's take one step back. If you looked at some of the Twitter comments Thursday afternoon

we're saying Trump's impeached. Trump was not impeached last week.

Speaker Pelosi took the step to put something and put people on record to define the process by which

he may or may not be impeached. It had to do with things like deposition being authorized to be

released that have been taken over the last two to three weeks. I had to do with how the

Intelligence Committee will take the lead and how they'll move forward in public hearings,

what the Republicans have the right to do in those hearings with the President's.

And his legal team will have the right to do. So it basically is kind of a rule book for moving

forward with impeachment. Having said that, this is all about the politics of impeachment.

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