 Welcome to Teens on Topic. I'm your host Emma Arnston, and today I'm joined by Sam Sheridan. Howdy Shaw. Lisa Shake. Today we have a very interesting and pertinent issue to talk about, but first, let's hear what the people of Davis have to say about it. How do you feel about Democrats pursuing impeachment procedures with Trump at this time? I think that would be a big mistake. First of all, look at who the Vice President is. That would be a nightmare. And then, I think it would be hard for Democrat to win the 2020 election if they impeach Trump now. That's my opinion. Some people say that if Trump successfully defends the impeachment, it could actually give him motivation going into the 2020 election. What do you feel about that? I think that's absolutely true. Absolutely true. I think that would be the worst mistake we could make, and I thought that from the very beginning. Do you still believe that he's a criminal for some of the obstruction that he's accused of? He is such a criminal. He lies. He cheats. He steals. He is terrible. He is a criminal for every reason you could think of. I mean, he's a child abuser. He's a pedophile. Give me a break. He's everything. At this point, I have kind of lost faith in our government, and that's also if they're going to impeach him or not. Would I like to see it done? Yes, ultimately. But then also, I fear like a Pence uprising, because honestly, I believe he's probably the biggest threat to look out for, kind of that hidden threat. So I'm hoping they do, but at the same time, also fear it. So I guess I just have to wait and see what happens. Absolutely. Do you see more? For lots of reasons, basically, just because he's broken the law. Definitely. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. A lot of people are saying that if it was anybody else, they'd be in jail. So the President shouldn't be above that. Right. And definitely obstructed justice. So I think there's enough evidence to at least start the impeachment proceedings. Definitely. Well, I don't see why they would, because they're not going to make it end of this term. So I just think there's a long ways away if they try to impeach him. That's my thought on that. Do you think he's guilty of the obstruction that he's accused of? Well, you know, if you listen to the media, you have to kind of form your own opinion. Because the media, we're not always hearing the truth. But for some reason, he got voted in. I don't know. I mean, I don't hate the guy. I'm not saying I love the guy. But he's probably doing like any other president does. It's common sense, you know. I know people hate him. But I can still go to the store. I can still come home. I see gas going up. I see this going up and all that. But what are you going to do? He's just like, like I say, any other president is trying to do his job. I don't hate anybody. That's saying I like some of the things you hear, but we're not there. We just listen to what we hear, right? Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Well, those were some very interesting opinions that seemed to vary. But what did you guys think on what they had to say? I was just really glad to hear the perspective of that lady in the first thing. I didn't know he was a pedophile. I don't know what exactly she was referencing. No, I believe her. Okay. Well, I think it was interesting to see everybody try to find a crime to put an impeachment on. It's really interesting the way that we've made impeachment out to be like, you know, when you talk about high crimes and misdemeanors, that initially did not mean an actual crime like a jailable crime and met whatever Congress found to be a crime, right? So if the real question of impeachment isn't how provable the obstruction of justice isn't that provable, it's that do they have the votes in Congress and is Congress willing to take that risk? And going into 2020, Nancy Pelosi, she's a smart political mind. She knows that if they impeach Donald Trump, he will not be acquitted by the Senate. He will remain president. And that will, I mean, it's really likely that that helps him that bolsters his base and the Republican base to go out and vote for Donald Trump against the Democrats. Yeah, like, obviously he's not the world's best man, but he definitely like, it's definitely at this point not a smart political move, I feel like, to try and proceed with impeachment, especially this late in the game. So I understand why you would just like get him out of office, but like putting Mike Pence there and then also like just fully setting up another Republican to win in 2020 is not a smart move for the Democrats at this point, I don't think. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a little too close to the next election to try to do this. And I think that it definitely the Democrats would have a greater chance of just voting him out in the 2020 election than have him be impeached and then have Mike Pence. And I think that make a lot of people very angry. And I think that would give inspiration to a lot of people to go out and vote for him again. I mean, we're mentioning the vice president a lot. The fact of the matter is that this impeachment will not happen, even if Democrats do decide to do this in the House, which I'm very skeptical of the Republicans in the Senate will not convict the president. Also, I find an inconsistency in a lot of people who are, or they say they're scared, I'm sure they might be, but they're scared about the unprecedentedness or how unprecedented the actions of this president are and how crazy this presidential term is. And on this other hand, they say that Mike Pence would be worse, which I think is kind of ridiculous. Mike Pence might disagree with every position you hold, but he's a conventional politician, I think, as opposed to our president right now. Cool, so we all agree. That's good news. Yeah, I think we're all kind of on the same page. I mean, obviously, the guy made kind of a good point of I'm still able to go to the store and go home every day. I guess that's true, but I don't think that impeaching Donald Trump would take down the political machine the way people kind of want it to. I think the way to do that is like setting up like strong Democratic candidates for the upcoming 2020 elections. Do you think impeachment in any situation is a good cause? I know that some people have the idea that because a person is a president, then they should be whatever they do is by default legal. Well, again, I think there's a distinction between legal and impeachable, right? So if you look at the articles of impeachment for Andrew Johnson, one of our worst presidents, article 10 was he's disrespected Congress, right? So impeachment, again, as outlined in the Federalist Papers, isn't a thing where it's like, oh, he's done obstruction of justice or he's done things with children. It's that Congress does not like the thing that they're doing. That's why Congress is a superior branch of government. But I think impeachment, yeah, definitely is a good thing. It's always a good thing to have Congress keeping in check the most powerful man in the country. I think it's always great that they can wield this power if the person goes out of step, if they betray the Constitution, if they betray our country. Yeah, like having those checks and balances in place, I feel like, is pretty important. So I don't think that Congress shouldn't be allowed to impeach the president if it need be. I know, I think, did you listen to Slowburn about Bill Clinton's impeachment process? Did you? I listened to that. I think the process that's in place should be there and it's important that it is there. I think throughout the Mueller investigation there's been this sort of muddying. I think we've seen this from critics of the investigation that you shouldn't have executive branch investigators basically doing the fact finding for an impeachment, which is what you kind of saw during the Clinton impeachment with Ken Starr. And basically what the Mueller impeachment, what a lot of people saw this was, was that this is, I mean, he's, if you look at the chain of the Department of Justice, Mueller reports to Rosenstein, who reports to now Barr, who reports to the president, right? You shouldn't have somebody who's under the president fact-finding against the president for Congress to run impeachment. And so a lot of people thought that Congress should have been the people who are investigating this, because with Congress they don't have these restraints that the investigator does, right? Congress makes their own intentions and based on their politicized or not intentions, they can go find facts. And I think that's really muddied the situation that we're in right now just because Mueller couldn't make a recommendation on anything, not that he should have, but the fact that these facts were from the executive branch rather than coming from Congress where they could have, you know, been building their own case in the House Judiciary Committee or wherever else. Yeah, I agree with that. Going in a sort of different direction, do you guys have any hypothesis of what will happen in the upcoming presidential election? The sweet meteor of death will kill us all. Bernie Sanders, baby, just kidding. I would bet for Trump. I mean, I don't really want to ever be in a situation where I'm obligated to give you $10. No, I think, like, genuinely, I think just Trump, because he's running for reelection, might have it for 2020. I think it's all up to who the Democrats nominate and we're so far away. I mean, what is it, 24 candidates? New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is now in the race, but there are so many candidates and we're all more than half a year away from the Iowa caucuses. So many of these candidates will have dropped out by then. We have no idea who's going to be at the top right now. Right now we see Vice President Biden and Senator Sanders and Pete Buttigieg for some reason at the top. I don't like him. I think he's kind of cool. I don't know. I don't really know that much about him. I think everybody thinks he's kind of cool. Yeah, I think he's kind of cool. I don't know. The guy who's running the Democrat is going to give everybody $10. Yeah. And all these people are qualifying for the debates, which is going to be crazy. Interesting. I literally... He's going to give us all $1,000. Kirsten Gillibrand will not be the Democratic nominee, but were she the nominee? Donald Trump would be President. But the equation could look completely different where Biden or Klobuchar will like even. I think Biden's done. I think he's done. After the simple accusations of him being somewhat predatory towards women, I think he's knocked out. I don't think that's a fair way to characterize it, somewhat predatory. He was like creepy towards women, I think. He's like creepy towards everybody. He's like a weird old guy, you know? Yeah. But you can't embrace it like Trump does. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I agree. I think Joe Biden's public image has somewhat been solely. I don't think... I mean, the fact of the matter is, while he was Vice President, the entire, you know, the Tea Party, the Twitterati or social media would love putting up these photos of him with, you know, Ash Carter's wife or something. It's just the way that he is. He's into tactile politics as the New York Times called it. I don't think that's going to hurt his chances. You can see he's increasingly staying at the top of the race right now. I know we're so far away, but still, it's not hurting him. Work to hurt him, it would hurt him in the nomination race, not in the general election for sure. Makes sense. Yes. I think the oldness is the problem. Yeah. Yeah, he's old. Yeah. Ed Sheeran's not that old. He's not that old. He doesn't give me a thousand dollars a month. I'm telling you I know about him. Yankee. Yankee. Well, thank you all for joining us on this very exciting episode. And be sure to join us next week.