[Music]
if donald trump had always dreamed of a
grand military send-off
it was probably not one that looked like
this
in the place of parade there is patrol
in place of the band
barricade the weapons are on display but
not for a 21-gun salute
and the red carpet or those days are
perhaps done
the assault on the capital becomes more
extraordinary the further away from it
we get
we don't know why so little was done to
prevent the rioting
or just who knew about the plans in
advance we don't know if individuals
within congress
were working to help those on the
outside
house speaker pelosi wants nothing ruled
out
if in fact it is found that members of
congress
were accomplices to this insurrection
if they aided and abetted the crime
there may have to be actions taken
beyond the congress but whilst
investigations rumble
washington is taking no chances this
is the parade route in a now eerily
deserted city
this time round there won't be big
crowds but we can expect up to 25 000
national guard troops to put that in
context
three times the number that we saw for
that inauguration of barack obama
in 2009 when the country itself was
deemed to be on particularly high alert
but perhaps the numbers speak to
something more profound
this week is meant to be a celebration
of democracy a performance
of the peaceful transfer of power and
this time round
america feels afraid i think america got
very
lucky i don't think you can tell a story
about how the institutions worked
i mean that's the story that americans
like to tell themselves that we have
these wonderful institutions
we have the checks and balances
therefore mr trump was never going to be
a problem
i heard a lot of that in 2016 2017 but
what we've seen is that institutions are
only as good as the people
who support them and we've also seen
that a very important institution
congress hasn't been working the way
that it's supposed to work
congress is supposed to balance the
president it's supposed to tell a
different story than the president
but when the president told a big lie
namely that he won the presidential
election
too much of congress went along with him
those critical choices for congress
begin again next week
yes after the sweeping departure of one
president
and the ceremonial swearing-in of
another it's the newly democrat-led
senate that will have to decide
whether to convict a leader that's
already gone
the phrase they're using here is you can
walk and chew gum at the same time
meaning
you can get on with the business of
impeachment in the morning
and of senate confirmation hearings in
the afternoon
but as well as taking much longer it
also arguably
eats into the headspace of a president
who came to power
comes to power promising unity this
president
must be impeached and convicted
some democrats believe it's better to
wait a hundred days give the new
president
time former republican rick wilson
disagrees
it is an astounding astounding moment of
risk if this country doesn't step up
and frankly it's an existential moment
for for the republican party
if they don't get on board with the fact
that
that they can make a choice uh during
this impeachment process
they can either be members of the trump
personality cult
and protect the dear leader or
they can be americans this is a choice
between america or trump
it is a fundamental choice between two
competing futures
one is authoritarian statism and
nationalist populism
and the other is the big messy glorious
experiment that has been america
laid upon the table republican
congressman french hill voted against
impeachment last week
what does he make of that binary choice
america v
trump president trump's rhetoric is hot
it's been divisive in many instances
and so that doesn't surprise me but i
believe
the platform of the republican party is
sound and those core
republican views that we've held for
decades about
more limited government a strong
national security leadership in the
world
economic opportunity and equal justice
for all at home
those are key tenets that we stand by in
the republican party
so this is more about president trump's
personal actions
that the senate will be judging so in a
nutshell
you trust the senate to make the right
decision and if they
vote to convict you'd be happy with that
i trust them to make hold the debate
hear the evidence and make the right
decision
and because i believe strongly in our
system of government
and the due process accorded in the
senate trial
i will live at peace i will be at peace
with the decision that they take
america is living in dog years right now
if
two weeks ago seems a lifetime a hundred
days time
seems an age grab one and go for now the
soldiers will become part of the strange
wallpaper of this
town maneuvers by day marriott by night
and what of the eventual legacy of this
election a man
so scared of losing he convinced a mob
that he hadn't
where do they go for their politics when
he's done