| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, at 2 p.m. Eastern, historians discuss President Lincoln's views on race and slavery. | ||
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| At 7 p.m. Eastern, watch American History TV's series First 100 Days as we look at the start of presidential terms. | ||
| This week, we focus on the early months of President Andrew Jackson's first term in 1829, including his policy agenda and controversies surrounding his cabinet. | ||
| And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures and History, Louisiana State University journalism professor John Maxwell Hamilton talks about the U.S. government propaganda efforts during World War I. Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Back at our desk this morning, Congressman Al Green, Democrat of Texas, here to talk about your new impeachment effort. | ||
| You came to the floor to offer this over the president's remarks on Gaza. | ||
| We were just playing them for our viewers in case they missed them. | ||
| Where is the crime here committed by the president with this proposal? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, thank you for asking because impeachment does not require a crime that is statutory. | |
| Many people think so, so it gives me a great opportunity to explain. | ||
| Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution indicates that one can be impeached and that one is the president and then there are others for high crimes, misdemeanors, or, pardon me, felonies, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. | ||
| And this is important because many people assume that that means a statutory offense. | ||
| It does not. | ||
| And the word misdemeanor means misdeeds aside from some minor offense. | ||
| Misdeeds are those things that will shock your conscience. | ||
| So a president can literally be impeached for shocking one's conscience. | ||
| In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for saying bad things about Congress, speaking ill of Congress. | ||
| He was impeached. | ||
| It was Article 10 of those articles of impeachment. | ||
| Hence, we can impeach the president for things that he might do that are immoral or that hurt society. | ||
| These are the things that we should focus on. | ||
| Why do you think that this hurts society? | ||
| What he said at the White House this week. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, well, this week, let's just focus on one thing right now. | |
| And let's focus on what he said about Gaza. | ||
| The president and the prime minister of Israel on stage together. | ||
| And the president talks about moving people from Gaza to some other place. | ||
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unidentified
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Now, he hasn't talked to the people who live there, the Palestinians. | |
| They talk about them as though they're animals that can be herded and pushed and moved, and with some assumption that they're going to have great appreciation for what they will do in taking them from their homeland. | ||
| And for the Prime Minister of Israel to indicate that this is something worthy of consideration. | ||
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unidentified
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Maybe not his exact words, but that was the import. | |
| Worthy of consideration, Mr. Prime Minister? | ||
| With your history, you know the history of your people? | ||
| Six million Holocaust? | ||
| I believe in the Holocaust. | ||
| I know that it occurred. | ||
| And I know the Prime Minister knows. | ||
| And he ought to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian people because he said they were not the people that he was at war with. | ||
| He was at war with Hamas, not the Palestinian people. | ||
| Now babies have been killed in the thousands. | ||
| People are being relocated. | ||
| Yes, from one part of Gaza to another part. | ||
| But the president and the prime minister, what they said will live in infamy. | ||
| And I don't know that they'll recover from it. | ||
| Quite frankly, if I may say this, I think the president, that alone, in my world, would cause him to have to resign. | ||
| Let's listen to the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt yesterday at the briefing when she was asked about the president's comments. | ||
|
unidentified
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On Gaza, the president has spent basically his entire public career criticizing foreign entanglements, nation building, sending American troops to fight abroad, particularly in the Middle East. | |
| This plan seems like it could ultimately involve all of those things. | ||
| Can you explain this reversal and how building and owning Gaza squares with America First foreign policy? | ||
| I would reject the premise of your question that this forces the United States to be entangled in conflicts abroad. | ||
| The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. | ||
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unidentified
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He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. | |
| His administration is going to work with our partners in the region to reconstruct this region. | ||
| And let me just take a step back, Eric, because this is an out-of-the-box idea. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's who President Trump is. | |
| That's why the American people elected him. | ||
| And his goal is lasting peace in the Middle East for all people in the region. | ||
| And as I said in my opening remarks, we've had the same people pushing the same solutions to this problem for decades. | ||
| And it's been made very clear to the president that the United States needs to be involved in this rebuilding effort to ensure stability in the region for all people. | ||
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unidentified
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But that does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. | |
| It does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort. | ||
| It means Donald Trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in the region. | ||
| Al Green, your response and does it alleviate your concerns? | ||
|
unidentified
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Not one Centilla. | |
| The President didn't say that. | ||
| She said it. | ||
| Aside from this, the President has been talking about this real estate deal and how Gaza can be rebuilt and recreated. | ||
| He's been talking about this for some time now. | ||
| And he was serious about it. | ||
| We can't let him now say, oh, it was just a joke. | ||
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unidentified
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You don't joke about things like this. | |
| And I said that he should resign. | ||
| To be candid with you, so should the Prime Minister of Israel. | ||
| Both of them, both of them will live in infamy for the way they are treating people, human beings, not dogs, not animals, not cattle to be herded. | ||
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unidentified
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These are people. | |
| They have lives and they should be consulted. | ||
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unidentified
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You don't consult them and then you make a plan to deal with where they'll live and how they will live. | |
| That's an insult. | ||
| And I would also add this. | ||
| For those people who think that this is all just something that will blow over, remember this. | ||
| The president was serious when he said he wanted to eviscerate the Department of Education. | ||
| Now, the Department of Education was something that Congress created, and the president can't just do that with a stroke of a pen with an executive order. | ||
| But, you know, he says that. | ||
| And he's serious about it because he has said publicly that he wants his Department of Education person, the Secretary of the Department of Education, he wants that person to put herself out of a job. | ||
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unidentified
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Those are his words. | |
| Put herself out of a job. | ||
| So the president has a record that he's going to have to run from and not run on as he continues. | ||
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unidentified
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And I would add this. | |
| The president should be impeached. | ||
| I said that on the floor of the House. | ||
| He should be impeached, but I'm not saying that it would be necessarily for what happened in Gaza. | ||
| There's a target-rich environment. | ||
| There are many things that may be placed in these articles of impeachment, but it should be because he's unfit to be president, unfit. | ||
| And when these impeachment signs start going up around the country, when people see these signs, I assure you, the pressure is going to be on Congress to do something. | ||
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unidentified
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Impeachment doesn't mean that he will be removed from office, but it will say to the country that this is what we stand for. | |
| It's been said that the protests don't have a plan. | ||
| Well, the plan is here. | ||
| This is the plan. | ||
| Protest, complain now, impeach later. | ||
| Let's get to calls because the lines have lit up. | ||
| Richard in Savannah, Georgia, Republican. | ||
| You're up first, Richard. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I watched you yesterday with the Democrat Party out protesting everything that Elon Musk is trying to do for the American people. | ||
| The USAD is the 100% of money laundering scheme around the world kickbacks back to the Democrat Party, whether it's through the Clinton Foundation and Haiti, $4.4 billion and $84 million to her daughter, Chelsea Clinton. | ||
| All y'all have is impeachments and race and gender, et cetera, and you actually do nothing for the people of America today. | ||
| I think the Democrats should sit back and let America see what it's like to reduce the people in government to wasteful spending. | ||
| And all y'all can do is just complain and be negative. | ||
| And we're sick of it. | ||
| And also. | ||
| Richard, let's have the congressman respond to your argument there. | ||
| Congressman Green. | ||
| I'm appreciative that you called, sir, because it's about more than USAID, which came into being by way of an executive order from President Kennedy. | ||
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unidentified
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And the president has authorities there that he doesn't have with the Department of Education. | |
| But look at what he's doing to the CIA and to the FBI. | ||
| And he's doing it because he wants to be in total control of any agency that might investigate. | ||
| If you'll recall, he fired Comey, the FBI director, because Comey was investigating him. | ||
| When we did not impeach him for that act, he now takes a license to try to eviscerate to the extent that he can to gut these other agencies, the FBI more specifically, and the CIA. | ||
| So the question is, aside what you said about USAID, which can be refuted, but the question is, do you want a president who has been immune, given some degree of immunity by the Supreme Court, who now knows that he can pardon people who participate in an insurrection and send that signal to others, so he is above the law to a certain extent? | ||
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unidentified
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He has the power to pardon, which means that if you commit a crime, a federal crime, you can be pardoned by him. | |
| Do you want a person to have that kind of power such that he now is reckless and ruthless with it? | ||
|
unidentified
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This is serious business. | |
| And I believe that the way he is going about this is not just to purge, but to prevent anyone from standing up to him. | ||
| Who is going to stand up to the president in the FBI when you know that the president can fire you with impunity? | ||
| Chris, Brooklyn, Massachusetts, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Trump receives his instructions on Israel-Palestine from his Israeli-born donor, Miriam Adelson. | ||
| She has already donated $100 million to Trump in exchange for Trump recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian West Bank. | ||
| The larger scheme is for the Israelis to suck the United States into another war with Iran. | ||
| So when the body bags start coming back, you'll know who to thank. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| Well, I'm totally against any additional war. | ||
| I'm a peacemaker. | ||
| I believe that too much suffering has already taken place. | ||
| I also know that the laws of proportionality are not applied by Mr. Netanyahu because what they did to Gaza just eviscerated, obliterated, just decimated Gaza with a good many dollars from the American public, the American people, tax dollars. | ||
| Our fingerprints are all over those rubbles and those buildings that you see in Gaza. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yet we want other people to rebuild what we helped to destroy. | |
| Look, I'm a liberated Democrat. | ||
| I'm going to speak truthfully, and I appreciate C-SPAN because a good many stations will not allow this kind of conversation to take place. | ||
|
unidentified
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They fear what can happen if the truth is told to the public. | |
| Well, the truth will be known. | ||
| It is said that if you know it, it'll set you free. | ||
| So we're going to try to free some souls. | ||
| Congressman Pete Aguilera, who is the number three House Democrat, was asked yesterday about your impeachment offer, and he said it's not a focus of the caucus. | ||
| Your response. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, I think he's right. | |
| I don't differ with him. | ||
| By the way, he's a good man. | ||
| I don't differ with him. | ||
| It's not a focus now, but the impeachment, the march toward impeachment started yesterday. | ||
| I laid the foundation for impeachment when President Trump was first elected. | ||
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unidentified
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Filed three articles of impeachment, and the last one had 99 members of Congress on it. | |
| It was approaching half of the Democratic caucus. | ||
| Speaker Pelosi did a prudent thing. | ||
| She said, let's move forward with it. | ||
| So we laid the foundation for it then. | ||
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unidentified
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We're laying the foundation for it now. | |
| And I will bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| Let me look into the camera. | ||
| I will bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| Now, what the House will do, I have no way of prognosticating. | ||
| But be assured, I will bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| The former Speaker Nancy Pelosi also would say that there was a high bar for impeachment. | ||
| And she would, and the impeachments of the president during his first term included what they said were violations of statutory law. | ||
| He was not impeached ultimately, though, in the Senate. | ||
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unidentified
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No, no, he wasn't convicted. | |
| Wasn't convicted. | ||
| So what, are you concerned that putting the impeachment on the table right now is making the party look less serious and if you were to move to it later? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, first of all, I haven't said that we will impeach tomorrow or bring articles tomorrow. | |
| I've not said that. | ||
| And it makes the party look more serious. | ||
| These signs are going to go up around the country. | ||
| And as these signs go up around the country, people are going to conclude in Congress that maybe we need to take a look at impeachment. | ||
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unidentified
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But I don't differ with Pete. | |
| He's a good man. | ||
| I respect him greatly and highly. | ||
| But someone has to be the first. | ||
| Someone has to lay a foundation. | ||
| I have no problem standing alone. | ||
| When I stood yesterday in the well of the House of Representatives, I stood alone. | ||
| On some issues, it is better to stand alone than not stand at all. | ||
| Fred, Philadelphia, Independent. | ||
| Let's hear from you, Fred. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning, Representative Greene. | |
| Good morning, sir. | ||
| Good, good. | ||
| Yes, back in 2017, when you impeached the president before he took office and everything, now I want to know what your real opinion of President Trump is right now, why you want to do the impeachment again. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you, sir. | ||
| My opinion is now what it was then. | ||
| I said then that he was unfit to be president. | ||
| I brought the articles of impeachment, laid the foundation for his impeachment. | ||
| I think he is unfit. | ||
| I don't think that he is the proper person to have liberty and justice for all in the palms of his hands because he doesn't seem to care for all. | ||
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unidentified
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He cares a great deal for the plutocracy, the plutocrats. | |
| He surrounds himself with billionaires, and they seem to believe that the rich need more to do more, meaning the billionaire class, and that the poor can do more with less. | ||
| These, honestly, they see the government of the United States as a tool to acquire greater wealth than what they already have. | ||
| The president himself, with this meme that he came out with, has made just an untold amount of money. |