now some breaking news on our main story
tonight the Senate vote on the
impeachment trial a president Trump
let's go back to our Washington
correspondent Lauren Kennedy
siobhan well Jon in the last 15 minutes
or so senator Mitt Romney of Utah a
Republican but a known foe of President
Trump has said that he will vote to
convict the President on the first
charge of impeachment abuse of power
namely that he did use the power of his
office president Trump to try to
pressure the president of Ukraine to
launch an investigation into the Biden's
while at the same time holding that key
military aid now is a tough decision for
mr. Romney he knows he will face big
backlash but he said I think the case
was made I believe that attempting to
corrupt an election to maintain power is
about as egregious an assault on the
Constitution that can be made and he
continued I have no choice under the
oath that I took but to express that
conclusion now mr. Romney won't convict
Donald Trump on the second charge of
obstruction of Congress and of course
just one Republican alone assuming no
one else votes the same way cannot
remove Donald Trump it would take 20
Republicans in total to do so and that
will not happen today but the Democrats
at least John will be pleased that one
Republican has at least had in their
minds the courage to finally make a
stand
shevawn thank you indeed and joining us
now from Los Angeles is the political
commentator and pollster Frank Luntz
Frank do you aside with cheval marion
saying that this is a one-off and it's
highly unlikely any other Democrat
senator will join the fray a Republican
senator will join the fray well I've
been looking at the names are difficult
for the British audiences because they
won't be familiar with him but there's
one other Republican Susan Collins she
has in the past voted against the
administration it does not look like she
will do so this time
and on the Democratic side there are two
senators one from West Virginia and one
from Alabama who said that they were
undecided I believe that they in the end
will vote for impeach
this is gonna be a party line vote this
is not surprised anyone but I will tell
you this America is more polarized more
divided more angry with each other than
they have been at any point in my
political life time people want to get
revenge against both sides and we are
going to have a very ugly horrible
election season well that takes us
neatly to Iowa where there's a great
anger with an app not actually with any
particular politician but what's your
reading of what has actually happened
there now well it's just another nail in
the coffin of the American electoral
democracy and perceptions of it having
failed we had issues of voter
suppression issues of voter corruption
and now we have even an election that
has failed and I read the the statement
of the Democratic National Chairman who
says that our primary mission it's the
defeat Donald Trump the primary mission
of the Iowa caucus is to give Democrats
the chance to vote the chance to be
heard the chance to exercise their
democratic responsibilities and that has
failed and I'll tell you for the long
term I'm willing to bet you right now
that this will be the last democratic
caucus last Republican caucus that I
will hold to kick off the American
political process in terms of of
campaigns it denies mayor Pete from
Indiana and denies Bernie Sanders
senator from Vermont the chance to
declare victory and it saves former Vice
President Joe Biden from having to
explain why he finished likely finished
fourth so it doesn't actually mean Budi
judge has actually had it know that he
has no chance really of going forward he
does have a chance but he needed this
victory and on Monday nights there were
more reporters in his campaign event
than any other candidate but they've
long since left Iowa they've all camped
out in New Hampshire now and even though
he will get a small bounce from it it'll
make it very difficult for him but the
bigger picture is that there are four
candidates now who are going to be
collecting delegates and Mike Bloomberg
who is focused on Super Tuesday which
has
Vin's March 3rd it is fascinating to
watch the Democratic primary process
because it is going to become harder and
harder to get a majority when you have
four viable candidates all of them
staying in the race and and seeking the
nomination Frank in a sentence can trump
be beaten I believe Trump can be beaten
I believe that it's 50/50 in fact up
until about 30 days ago I believe that
Trump was actually on the 49 side of the
5149 but his State of the Union response
even though the media has been negative
in what they've they've covered our
focus group of 25 voters in California
said that he was surprisingly less
partisan than they were expecting he did
not attack Democrats his favorability on
the economy which is always the most
important issue in the presidential
campaign his favorability is at an
all-time high
as I sit here right now so he does have
a shot of getting reelected