What’s wrong with the Republican Party?

Impeachment, Explained

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2019

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The core question this impeachment process is raising isn’t “what did Donald Trump do?” The hearings have filled in important details and added confirming witness, but the story is largely the one we’ve known since the White House released the call record. Instead, the core question the hearings are raising is: “What will Republicans accept and defend?” The answer, at least judging by the arguments of Reps. Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, is chilling. On this week’s episode, Andrew Prokop joins me to analyze the first, and perhaps only, week of public impeachment inquiry. Then, Thomas Mann, co-author of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks joins me to discuss how the Republican Party became the institution on display in this process. I’ve heard from listeners who enjoy this podcast, but wish it could be more “balanced.” I wish it could be more balanced too. But to pretend that an imbalanced system is balanced is a poisonous form of bias. This episode is about seeing what’s right in front of our eyes, and taking seriously what it means for our future. Want to contact the show? Reach out at [email protected] Credits: Producer - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge Karma Theme music composed by Jon Natchez Special thanks to Liz Nelson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this show comes from Krakan.
0:03.0	Krypto is like the financial system, but different.
0:07.0	It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score,
0:11.0	or your outrageous food delivery habits.
0:13.7	crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.
0:18.4	Krakhan, see what crypto can be.
0:21.3	Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest.
0:25.0	This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the form of a simple question.
0:42.0	Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously with regard to the
0:48.0	requested White House call in the White House meeting, The answer is yes.
0:52.8	I'm Ezra Klein and this is impeachment explained.
1:10.5	This was a week of the impeachment inquiry. This week Democrats and Republicans called their witnesses. We watched in the House,
1:17.9	live on television, testimony after testimony, and two things struck me about these testimonies.
1:23.8	One is that while we learned a lot of new details and we had confirmation of other
1:28.1	details we didn't actually change the nature of the story. What Donald Trump did is what he was initially alleged to do by
1:36.4	the whistleblower. It's what he more or less admitted to doing in the call record his own
1:40.8	White House released and then in the statements he made on
1:43.6	television when he asked Ukraine and actually China to investigate Joe Biden.
1:48.4	The story of this week has not been what Donald Trump did.
1:51.8	It's been what will congressional Republicans accept and even defend?
1:57.0	The striking thing about this week has been how little of the testimony, much of it coming from Republican appointees or civil servants
2:06.0	who have served under Republicans, much of it coming from people who are trying to carry out
	...

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