i didn't send in any. >> this is my neas. ed: merry christmas. pete: go to church. go to church. maria: welcome, good sunday morning everybody. thanks for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo. this is "sunday morning futures." we have breaking news right now. senator lindsey graham coming up live, straight ahead. reacting to the impeachment trial and nancy pelosi's plans for the senate, sending articles or not. senate judiciary committee chairman reacting to the abuse at the fisa court. who will graham call to testify now that the i.g. report is out? what will he tell john brennan. ted cruz is with me, what he knows about altering of the documents at fbi. why he says john durham's investigation is now criminal. house gop leader kevin

mccarthy on the record fund-raising in face of last week's impeachment vote sandwiched between the budget, spending bill and a trade deal with canada and mexico. also breaking news this morning, the first interview with knew jer congressman jeff van drew on his stunning switch from the democratic party to the republican party amides votes to impeach. he has done something never been done before, moving from the majority party to the minority party. all that here on "sunday morning futures". >> our opponent have spent every waking minute of the last three years trying to overthrow the election of 2016 and at a minimum to, sabotage the election of 2020. that's not going to happen. we're not going to let it happen f it did happen, if they were successful, they will destroy this country. maria: president trump blasting

the democrats impeachment battle while speaking to young conservatives this weekend. house lawmakers voting along party lines, impeaching president trump for two articles, abuse of power, obstruction of congress. the next move sending articles of impeachment to the senate. but speaker pelosi due to concerns how the senate may handle the impeachment trial. senate judiciary committee chairman lindsey graham joins us in an exclusive. thanks for being here. >> thank you. maria: your reaction what nancy pelosi is doing? have you heard from nancy pelosi 's? are you getting articles of impeachment to the senate? >> my reaction she is taking a wrecking ball to the constitution this is latest of constitutional train wrecks argue straighted by nancy pelosi. during the process, president was not allowed to have counsel/10 o present during the intel committee. he could not call witnesses on

his behalf, could not be confronted with his accuser. now he is charged with two articles of impeachment nancy pelosi is trying to deny his day in court in the senate. now she is telling mitch mcconnell how to run the senate. this is trampling of separation of pousers. when it comes to trump rules don't matter to democrats. that is draws and sad. maria: how will this play out? you spoke yesterday. this was like extortion. explain that. >> it is. what she is trying to do is get mitch mcconnell to bend to her will, to shape the trial. can you imagine if the rolls were reversed? you had democratic president impeached by a republican house and the republican speaker was telling a democratic majority leader how to run the trial? you know the media is so in the tank when it comes to trump. democrats hate him so much they don't love anything constitutional anymore.

all of the rules have been thrown in a ditch to get trump from the, way they impeached him to now, denying his day in court. here is how it will end. she will eventually send articles because public opinion will crush the democrats. minority leader chuck schumer conspiring with the speaker of the house basically to insist upon calling witnesses. the president is invoking executive privilege around mulvaney and john bolton and others. they impeached this president because he chose to go to court. second article of impeachment is obstruction of congress. the president has claimed executive privilege. instead of allowing the president to exercise his legal rights, they impeached him because he wanted to go to court. can you imagine with would have happened if we had done this to a democrat? that we impeach a democrat because they wanted to go to court? maria: yeah. it is pretty extraordinary.

so do you expect there will be witnesses in the senate trial? can you walk us through how the senate trial -- >> no, i don't. okay. to any senator who votes to compel the testimony of john bolton or mick mulvaney before the president can have his day in court exercising executive privilege, before the courts. the court's available to every american, including donald trump. so if you call these witnesses, who worked for the president after he is invoked executive privilege, if you deny him his day in court, then you're abusing the constitutional rights of donald trump as president. you are putting the entire presidency at risk. i can't imagine any senator doing this to the presidency. what did they impeach him for? maria, they impeached him because he wanted to go to court. instead of allowing the president to go to court to exercise executive privilege, they put artificial time limit

and said, if you don't allow these witnesses to come to the house at a time certain, we're going to impeach you. they impeached him for exercising his legal rights. i hope senators will not do the same thing. i hope the senators will not vote to compel witnesses before the court determines whether or not there is executive privilege. maria: i want to move on to fisa, real quick, how long would you expect a senate trial to go? when you go back to clinton, was it, two weeks? >> yeah. i think what is going to happen, it will be exactly like the clinton trial. the house managers will argue the case to the senate based on record established at the house. one of the reasons she is not sending these impeachment articles over is because her case is so weak and shaky. what happened in clinton, they argued facts accumulated by the house. witnesses were requested. they were denied along party lines. there were no witnesses. then we voted. that is what will happen here. maria: you were a house manager back then? >> yes. so i made the case on what we

did in the house. we requested witnesses. the senate refused to allow witnesses. schumer wants a process like clinton that is exactly what he wants to get. when it comes to senator schumer and his colleagues, they couldky less trampling on rights of donald trump this president is wanting to invoke executive privilege. the question, will the senate deny the president trump act to invoke executive privilege or run over his right to invoke executive privilege force witnesses to come any way? maria: yes. >> house impeached him because he wanted to go to court. this is the first time a ever has ever been impeached he insisted on going to court. this is dangerous. maria: senator, do you know who the house managers are this time around? >> no. i'm sure it will be schiff, nadler show. maria: okay. >> i supported mueller's investigation because i took it seriously. maria: yeah. >> this stuff from the beginning has been partisan. maria: i am glad you mentioned mueller because i have an op-ed

from the journal this weekend, it is called robert mueller's dossier dodge. it is asking the question, same question that i asked throughout the mueller trial, i'm sorry, mueller hearing, it was basically how is it even possible that robert mueller can sit there and testify to what took place in 2016 in terms of russia meddling without looking at the dossier? over and over again he said that the dossier was not in his purview, it was not in his mandate. we know in the i.g. report, the dossier quote, essential part of the wiretap warrant they got. the warrant to wiretap an innocent american citizen, that is carter page. what is your reaction to that, mueller refused to talk about the dossier, now we know it was essential for getting that wiretap? he was former fbi director. he spent 40 plus million dollars on this mueller probe. shouldn't he have known that? >> yeah. i don't see how you can investigate the 2016 trump

russia allegations without looking at dossier. i don't know how you move forward once the dossier collapsed versus carter page. the horowitz report is first step in a long journey regarding fisa reabuse. the fisa court reviewed the fbi. that is a great start. they came down hard on the fbi. if they failed to do that i would have lost all confidence in the court. comey said last week he was sorry. it was slop -- sloppy. no, comey, it was not sorry. it was criminal. i will call every person who called for a warrant application. why harry reid went up to september of 2016 to talk about the investigation. find out why it took two years for mueller to realize there was no there there. we'll look long and hard at fisa abuse. we're going to pass laws to make sure this never happens again. accountability will only be successful if somebody gets fired.

i'm looking at christopher wray to fire somebody at the fbi and somebody needs to go to jail. i'm looking at durham to hold people criminally accountable for the laws they broke. >> make a good point. we got a graphic of everybody who signed those warrant. you're saying each of those people you will call down to testify. that includes james comey signed a warrant three times. sally yates signed it once. andrew mccabe, his deputy signing it. do we have the graphic? >> yeah. maria: sally yates as well. all these people you will call to testify as you take a deep dive what took place in 2016. >> there are two questions i want to ask these people. when you signed the warrant application, how much time did you spend trying to figure out if it was actually true and how far up the chain did this go? did president obama know about the counterintelligence surveillance of the trump campaign? did vice president biden know? how much information was

provided to susan rice? i want to know how far up the chain the investigation went. i want to know why so many people could sign a warrant application so flawed. so there is a lot of questions. i want to make sure this never happens again. to the american people, you deserve better than this. every american should be worried about fisa. and to this impeachment debacle, to my democratic colleagues, impeachment is a dead cat. stop playing with it. maria: say it again, senator? >> impeachment is a dead cat. stop playing with it. bury it. it is going nowhere. quit violating the constitution. give the president his day in court. let's get this behind us so we can talk about things people really care about in this country. maria: senator, i want to take a short break, but what you said is really important. how high up the chain does it go? people keep telling me the mastermind was at the cia put

trump into whole meddling hoax over last three years. i want to talk about john brennan when we come right back. stay with us, senator, lindsey graham. we'll be back. es and heart dise, but is her treatment doing enough to lower her heart risk? [sfx: crash of football players colliding off-camera.] maybe not. jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. so it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. and it lowers a1c. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. a rare, but life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction. do not take jardiance if you are on dialysis or have severe kidney problems. taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar.

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maria: welcome back. i'm here with senate judiciary chairman lindsey graham. a moment ago we were talking about the fisa abuse. the whole idea to insert donald trump's name in russian meddling back in 2016. you said how high the chain it goes. take your attention back to may of 2017 when trey gowdy was questioning former cia director john brennan. listen what he said. watch. >> do you know if the bureau ever relied on the steele dossier as part of any court filings applications, petitions, pleadings. >> i have no awareness. >> did the cia rely on isn't. >> no. >> why not? >> because we didn't. it wasn't part of the corpus of

intelligence information that we had. maria: senator you heard it, that was may of '17. it was not part of corpus information we had. we know from michael horowitz ig report, that came out it was quote, essential, essential part of application for a wiretap on carter page. your reaction? >> well, number one, it was a part of the intelligence assessment provided to president trump in january of 2017. this is when comey met privately with the president, said i want you to know about this dossier. we can't verify it but i want you to know about it. i want to know, was the cia part of an effort to get to the media to the fact that trump was under investigation? there was a lot of frustration by people at the fbi and other places that the storyline was not getting out. christopher steele went to every

media out let in the country to shop the dossier, to get it out over the election. brennan meets privately in september with harry reid, john brennan, the cia director. iii want to know what role if ay the fbi an cia played trying to get out the dossier, market the story that trump was under investigation for colluding with the russians. maria: it looks like john durham wants to know the same thing. john durham has now requested we understand from the "new york times," that john durham has asked for john brennan's phone records, emails, they know what exactly he was telling cia staff about the dossier? was that perjury there, did he commit perjury in that may hearing? >> we'll let john durham decide that. odd for me to the cia director it tell publicly under oath the public, that the dossier had no

participate in the corpus of the intelligence being gathered, when it was essential reason they got fisa warrant against fisa page. there is disconnect. somebody is ignorant what happened. they're trying to shade what happened. i think they never believed there would abhor wits investigation. i think these people believed they would get away with it. along comes horowitz. what horowitz told the american people is very damning. he told the story of manipulating evidence, that continued to get a warrant against an american citizen. he told a story of hiding exculpatory information from the court to keep the investigation going. why did they keep it going when it should have stopped? they hated trump. they were out to get him. there was no other conclusion. i want to know how far up did this go? did president obama, was he aware of counterintelligence investigation of the trump campaign? i would be shocked if he was not. >> yeah. real quick, are you going to get back to looking what you were talking about as priorities?

that was you wanted to know everything about the bidens? you say that we're not going to see witnesses, likely not, in this upcoming impeachment trial. if you get through this quickly, what is your next priority aside from obviously fisa abuse? >> i'm working with -- thank you. here is the question. "the washington post," "new york times," major media outlets in this country, all the news organizations haven't spent 15 minutes or $15, looking whether or not hunter biden who received $50,000 a month from one of the most corrupt companies in the ukraine tried to stop the investigation once it was opened. working with senator johnson and grassley i will ask questions about the role hunter biden played after burisma came under investigation. he picks up the phone. he calls the state department. if this was mike pence's son, it would be the most damning story

in history of america. they would be challenging whether mike pence should have christmas day with his son. the double standard here is unbelievable. we'll look at the hunter biden conflict of interest, whether or not he did anything inappropriate. what did joe biden do, when did he do because the american media will not. we'll not do it during impeachment. impeachment is a dead cat. it needs to be buried what they're doing to president trump denying him his day in court in the senate is unconscionable. they're shredding the constitution. i know you don't like trump, but enough is enough. maria: there is also issue around china with hunter biden. he traveled on air force two with his then, his father, vice president joe biden to china. then received money later. >> you know, i've known joe biden for a long time. i admire him. i like him. he had a tragic life. we'll not letting this go.

hunter biden monetize the vice-presidency, i don't know. somebody needs to look. i can assure you for republicans they would be looking at us. maria: senator, good to see you this morning. thanks very much. a lot of news with senator lindsey graham. we have breaking news interview up next. a moderate democrat turns republican. something nobody has done before, going from the the majority to minority. jeff van drew voted against impeaching president trump. live exclusive. ♪

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maria: welcome back. there is a new republican congressman on cap capitol hill. new jersey jeff van drew leaving democrats to join the republicans. congressman joins me in an exclusive interview. thanks very much for joining me this morning. >> it's a pleasure to be with you. as i was saying before, i am so proud to be associated with you. you truly represent what news mediad should be about and how to conduct a show like this. i'm very, very proud of you and the work that you do. the objectivity that you have. maria: i appreciate that. >> you were the first one to give me a shot, too to. maria: congressman, that means the world to me in this environment of media today. i'm grateful. i so appreciate your comments. let me ask you, we spoke on the phone the other day. you said, maria, i always look

for signs. there was a sign, something in you that said i'm not comfortable here. tell me how you came to this position to leave the majority, the democrats and become a republican, congressman? >> final point, the final sign, there has been all along where the pare is moving further and further to the left, where there are discussions to be a socialist party. i'm a proud capitalist. i believe in hard work. i believe we can give people opportunity. but they also when they get the opportunity have to work hard to achieve success. you can't give them success. many other things i'm sure we will talk as we go along here. but the final sign for me, oddly enough, actually in my home county when one of the county chairman, i have eight counties, one of the county chairman came to me, i have to speak with you. i said sure. i just want to let you know, you have to vote for impeachment. i said, what do you mean? you've got to vote for impeachment. if you don't, you're not going

to be able to run in my county. first of all it is not his county. it is our county. you will not be able to move forward. you will not get the line, which is a big deal in new jersey. you will not be successful. i first of all, i still could have run and i still could have gotten the line and i could have fought it out. i fought a lot of things in my life. i fought hard to be where i am. but it made me think, for all years that i have worked so hard, tried to give so much, not only to the party but to everybody, the things that we've done, go into them, but many, many infrastructure projects and helping people and all the services that we tried to give people in our offices, it all boils down to one vote, that i may have my own individual opinion on one vote and that is not going to be allowed? i'm going to be punished for that. that is when i knew. i had been thinking about it for a while. and i said, you know, speaking

to my chief of staff about this, and i said to her, you know, there always been in in my career over time, something that happens that lets you know time to make a change. this was it. maria: that is really interesting. >> always time to make a change. maria: you were uncomfortable with the shaming. you know, the pushback that you couldn't do what you thought was right. that you had to go along with the herd. we talked about this before. you know, congress is going to have to go back to its districts. we have a map of 31 districts, the districts president trump won, but these people will have to get reelected. they have to also follow their conscience. yet this impeachment vote last week, you were among the few. you and colin peterson were the only two that voted no on both articles. one other voted no on one article. so post-impeachment vote what are you feeling today? what struck but the impeachment. you were a no going into it, you

told us going into it a month ago. >> exactly. how i feel today, i feel good. i feel i did the honorable thing. i feel i did what was right for me and right for the country. i heard lindsey a little while ago. this impeachment is thin impeachment doesn't really mean anything much to most of the american people. it has been a long, dark, shadow on our country. folks are tired. i really believe folks are tired of it. they're tired of hours and hours and hours of time that has been spent on it. they're tired of the millions of dollars that have been spent on it. they want to move forward. maria, we have so many important issues. yes we've done a few. no doubt, we're doing a few. there are some more. whether election security. whether it is better care for our veterans. whether it is a host of other issues. i could go through one after another. medicare, medicaid. we can talk about all of them, that we should be concentrating

100% of our time on. we are there to work for the american people. and not to have constant political bickering. to come up with weak impeachment. most importantly, we must understand what impeachment is. it almost never happens for a reason. other than declaring war, it is the most serious issue that america and action that america could ever, ever take. and it harms our country. it fractions us apart. literally creates more civil unrest. it creates more hurt. bring people together. bring americans together. maria: congressman, throughout this week after you made the switch a lot of people were saying look, he left democrats. now he is republican. how can we trust him as republican. we have your voting record here. you have followed your principles in your voting record. we got you voted to override president trump's veto of bill that overturned his emergency declaration for border wall funding. you blocked president trump to

withdraw from the climate change accord. you hear from skeptics. he left his own party, now he is with us, we don't know we can trust him. how do you say how you push for the republican party now? >> i always pushed for what i believed was right, what i believed was best. for example, we talked about the environment a little bit. i believed that we can have a good environment, we can do what is right for the environment, at the same time not hurt our business atmosphere in the state and in the country. i think that is very, very important. i think the biggest reason i can say people know that. i had many, many republicans vote for me for years and many democrats. i tried to do again what is the best. so i have won in areas, we've talked about before, where i was, literally only first or second state senator in history to ever win in my state and my

district. i was only one of a handful of freeholders that ever won since the civil war which are county commissioners. make a long story short, people voted me not only because of political party but most important they knew my word was my bond. they knew i loved this country more than anything in the world and which can do better. maria: i herd you quote reagan. i didn't leave the democratic party. the democratic party left me. i love what the the day you said you want americans to believe we're exceptional. you're a capitalist. tell me what went wrong in terms of the democratic party, doesn't feel like they see it the way you do, real quick, sir? >> that is where you hit it on the head. i speak about american exceptionalism a lot. for those not real familiar with it. it means that america is a truly unique nation. that it is the greatest nation in the world. that we have so much potential

and we are the leaders of the free world. and that we are leaders in general. and i have democrats come to me say that's wrong. we're the same as any other country in the world. they're wrong. that is not true. maria: congressman, so proud to have you this morning, sir. thank you. congratulations to you. >> thank you. >> congressman jeff van drew. mom! maria! maria ramirez... mcdonald's is committing 150 million dollars in tuition assistance, education, and career advising programs... prof: maria ramirez mom and dad: maria ramirez!!! to help more employees achieve their dreams.

maria: washington's holiday recess. speaker nancy pelosi says, she

not sure when she sends the articles to the senate. the president is demanding immediate trial. what now? i spoke to senator ted cruz after the impeachment vote. so nancy pelosi said after the impeachment that maybe she'll sit on the articles of impeachment before sending it over to you and your colleagues in the senate. can she do that? >> you can't make this up. listen, this is a sign of weakness. this is a sign she understands just how weak these articles are. these articles of impeachment that they actually voted on were really an admission of failure. for months they had been promising all of this evidence of criminal activity. for months they had been talking about bribery, talking about quid pro quo. but then they heard all the evidence and they got no evidence of it. these articles, don't allege any crime. this is the first time in the history of our count that a president has been impeached without a single article alleging any criminal conduct. they don't allege any crime.

they don't allege any federal law violated this was, at the end of the day, a political response because nancy pelosi and the democrats hate the president. maria: let me move on to really a blockbuster ig report. what struck you most? >> inspector general report is a stunning indictment of the politicization of the obama department of justice and the fbi. the inspector general report details details, 17 specific, misrepresentations that the doj and fbi made to the fisa court. inspector general michael horowitz was appointed by barack obama. i will give you the most stunning example the inspector general uncovered. a senior lawyer at the fbi fabricated evidence. carter page, outside advisor to the trump campaign. he also periodically talking to russians, including some sketchy russians. so the fbi wants to get a wiretap on him.

obviously question if you have someone talking to sketchy russians, are they working for the cia? that is very different inference, someone working for cia, talking to sketchy russians is not that surprising. maria: he worked for the cia. >> fbi sends a email to the cia, is the guy a source for you. the cia mails back. yes, he is a source. the fbi assistant general counsel, takes the email, he alters it, types in the word, cia said yes he is a source. the fbi lawyer types in, no, he is not a source. maria: unbelievable. >> 180 degrees exactly opposite. he then send that email on to the department of justice that uses that as the basis for a sworn statement to the fisa court to get a wiretap. by the way the inspector general reports talks about -- maria: that is unbelievable. >> for the i.g. found this, talk about good investigating.

they dug through the original documents that someone on the i.g. team noticed original email from cia, forwarded email, compared, wait a second, these words are not in the first one. tell you what the i.g. report says. when they questioned, assistant general counsel at fbi, how did this email change? he initially denied it. oh, i don't know how it changed. no idea. okay, yeah, i changed it. that is on its face criminal conduct. if you or i did it in a car wreck case, if you had a car wreck, you were in court, you doctored flawed lent documents or submitted to the court you or i would serve jail time. that senior leadership at fbi how lad by they wanted to spy on donald trump. and get donald trump. it is horrifying abuse of power. maria: it is horrifying. do you think people will go to jail? >> i hope so. this individual has been referred for criminal prosecution. i was encouraged by statements both attorney general bill barr and u.s. attorney john durham

put out, they're continuing to investigate. they're substantially more here. this was spying on the republican nominee to be president. they sent in multiple confidential human sources wearing wires. maria: all before july '16 when they claim the fbi counterintelligence investigation began. >> you know, i used to be under george w. bush i was associate deputy attorney general. i spent five 1/2 years as solicitor general of texas. i spent a lot of time in law enforcement. i got to say in any ordinary law enforcement, any responsible leadership, someone come in, hey, let's wiretap and spy on hillary clinton or bill clinton or john kerry, it's possible if there was a mountain of evidence serious criminality you would end up approving that, but you better believe you would cross every t and dot every i, you would press, what is the evidence for it, what is the basis? you know it would get checked. one of the things that is so offensive, it is clear these guys assumed hillary would win,

there would be no accountability at all. they could get away with this because no one would check. maria: while the trump investigation was going on there was another investigation going on into hillary clinton's emails. 33,000 emails gone. she was bleachbit hammer to get rid of devices. if that is not obstruction, i don't know what is. peter strzok, running the fbi investigation into trump and running the investigation into hillary clinton. we haven't heard anything about hrc. >> one of the worst legacies of the obama administration is the corruption of law enforcement and the intelligence community. by the way, big unanswered question, how high up the chain did this go? we know the deputy director of the fbi, mccabe was read in, authorized this. we know james comey was read in and authorized on this? did attorney general loretta

lynch authorize spying on trump campaign in the middle of the election? did the national security advisor at the white house? did barack obama, joe biden? most administrations launching an investigation on a major political figure like the republican nominee for president, your opponent, they would be read in. nobody is asking those questions about whether barack obama or joe biden personally signed off personally surveilling their political opponents. no democrat wants to investigate any of this. it is beyond crickets. you cannot ask about abuse of power or investigation. that's wrong. maria: here we are with the impeachment of donald trump. senator, good to see you. >> always a pleasure. maria: thank you so much. senator ted cruz. we'll be right back. ♪

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- [announcer] please visit our website. or call the number on your screen. your $25 hanukkah gift will rush an emergency survival package to a desperate holocaust survivor before it's too late. please visit our website or call the number on your screen. maria: house speaker nancy pelosi holding on to the articles of impeachment against president trump, drawing

criticism from the president and republicans who want her to take the next step send them on to the senate. joining us leader of the gop, house minority leader kevin mccarthy. always a pleasure. thanks so much for being here. >> thanks for having me back. maria: you heard senator cruz. you heard lindsey graham as well, talking about what is taking place, what has taken place in terms of the i.g. report. first react to that. set the stage for us. >> if you pause for one moment, you read the i.g. report by horowitz, here's the fbi, they broke into president trump at the time, candidate trump, campaign, spied on him. then they covered it up. it's a modern-day watergate. then you have got democrats who are not even willing to look into that. that is the area we should be looking into. it's a modern-day coup, the closest this country ever came to. the only way you can compare it to watergate. they broke into his campaign bringing people into it. they had been trying to cover it

up for the whole time. question rises just like watergate, when did they know about it and how high does this go up? maria: incredible that the democrats change the narrative on you and your colleagues over and over again. you exposed what took place in the 2016 legislation. you exposed how donald trump was framed, informants the leaks, et cetera, yet here we are talking about impeachment. what are you going to do about it? they keep changing the narrative and conversation on you? >> well they changed everything. they used adam schiff as being the chairman of intel to go out and write a fisa report now we saw from that report is totally false. evidence has indicated. house of representatives changed the standards of the house how we dealt with impeachment so they could move one forward. they withheld witnesses from the minority. they withheld how we could question inside of our own committee. they run the impeachment through. remember what the constitution

says, impeachment is a process when you're trying to impeach a duly-elected president. it is not merely one vote. what nancy pelosi is doing today is unacceptable and unconstitutional and she will not be able to sustain this position. she will eventually have to name managers and send this to the senate. maria: let's talk about that. i know there will be house managers named. how do you think that is on democrat side, who would be on president's side? who would you recommend to the president to help represent his side once the trial starts in the senate? >> well on the democrat side i man they name quite a few. they will start with adam schiff. go to raskin. most of these people they named already voted for impeachment before that phone call ever took place. almost half of the entire democratic conference that sits there today voted for impeachment before the ukraine call ever took place. now you don't get managers on the republican side but the president could have representation, that he will probably hire an attorney

represent him. maybe he uses the white house but i believe he should have help from the house. these individuals that worked through this, that could give advice and others. i would go to john ratcliffe, former u.s. attorney that did an amazing job. i go to jim jordan, doug collins, these are individuals i would pull in at the white house. we've been at this. remember democrats have been trying to impeach the president for 2 1/2 years, changing whatever they could find every step of the way from the mueller report to quid pro quo, extortion, bribery, what they came up today with articles that meet nowhere, no facts but through all the battles you have to want people who have been through it, understand it, been in the hearings even when they were in the i ba. that testimony, who has been in the rooms, those three individuals are ones that i would actually recommend to the president. maria: of course congressman radcliffe has been a friend to this program. been on many times. he knows cold what took place. he saw all the redacted

documents. he knows what took place in terms of 2016 as so-called coup as you put it. stay with us. i want to hear about victories you have had going into 2020, your priorities. back in a minute with the minority leader.

maria: welcome back, with house minority leader kevin mccarthy had a huge week with the impeachment and spending vote, usmca. congratulations on that. you've been working on usmca over a year. as has the president. big victory. tell us impact. >> this is very big victory for the president and republicans in the house. here is united states, mexico, canada, our number one and number two strongest traders. we just passed it. only way to do this she has power to call the bill up. the bill was pass overwhelmingly. this makes america stronger. they did not want to do this, give democrats and republicans any support or success. we had one of the most successful portions of any congress at the same time they're trying to impeach a president from the republican side. maria: you've been raising money. meeting with donors. who have voiced optimism about your agenda.

tell me about that. what your priorities will be in 2020. what do you hope to get done, even as the colleagues try to drag the impeachment trial out as long as possible? >> remember what this congress started out with. today after all the democrats have ever been, issued more subpoenas than created laws. their conference is smaller and ours is stronger. we welcome ad new member. now we only need 18 seats to win the majority. fewer number than the democrats had two years ago to win majority. we're going out across the country. we have 30 seats we play in that democrats currently sit in that president trump carried. eight 1/2 million americans voted for president trump in 2016 who did not vote in 2018 because the president was not on the ticket. he will be on ticket. we know who those individuals are, if they turn out that is 28 new seats. you will get a congress that will work for america. that can work with the president, instead of investigating, putting america first. just as we made the economy strong, we have further to go.

we need to lower prescription drugs. we need more cures. a few weeks away from the end of a decade. what does a decade look like? america looks stronger. >> thanks so much. cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92% of colon cancers. you just get the kit in the mail, go to the bathroom, collect your sample, then ship it to the lab. there's no excuse for waiting. get screened. ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers.

howard: on the buzz meter this sunday, as house democrats impeach president trump without a single republican vote, the media are consumed by praising or puzzling the process. >> after countless hours, oh, my gosh, so tedious, these speeches and panels of liberal academics and hearsay witnesses and bitter foreign service officers, fewer americans -- not more -- believe that donald trump committed an impeachable offense. >> donald trump will wear the scarlet letter i forever in history. the impeached donald trump. >> wait until he's the first president impeached by house democrats, this is a very important distinction, to then be