[John Vause, Cnn Anchor:] Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause, live from Studio 7 at CNN World Headquarters. Coming up this hour on CNN NEWSROOM. On White House stationery, Donald Trump's letter of rage to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Six pages of anger, insults and threats. India pushes back on mass protests against an anti Muslim citizenship law deploying troops, ordering a curfew and shutting down the Internet. And welcome back, facts and science. For the first time in more than 20 years the U.S. Congress will fund research into gun violence. Why that could be a seismic moment for gun reform.
[Vause:] It could be the stigma, the reputational stain or perhaps just the shame of impeachment which is finally weighing on U.S. president Donald Trump. On the eve of his likely impeachment, Trump went into full victim rant mode, in a rambling six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he cut loose. Think stream of consciousness meets Trump's Twitter feed. He was the victim of an attempted coup, the innocent victim of hateful Democrats and he warned that, come the 2020 election, they would come to regret this because Americans will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power. In Trump's world, more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem witch trials. Nancy Pelosi was offending Americans of faith, by continuously praying for the president when you know this statement is not true unless it is meant in a negative sense. Earlier on Tuesday Pelosi said she hadn't read the entire letter but called it "sick."
[Manu Raju, Cnn Senior Political Correspondent:] Your reaction to the president's letter?
[Rep. Nancy Pelosi , House Speaker:] My reaction is it is ridiculous.
[Unidentified Male:] You have no reaction? Why not?
[Pelosi:] No, I haven't really fully read it. We have been working. I've seen the essence of it, though. And it is really sick.
[Vause:] Not long after that, the House Speaker wrote her own letter to Democrat colleagues. She reminded that oath makes us custodians of the Constitution, if we do not act we will be derelict in our duty. While Trump was raging, the business of impeachment was moving forward. The House Rules Committee outlined the rules for the impeachment vote. There will be six hours of debate divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, before they vote on two articles. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the latest.
[Rep. Tom Cole:] This is a day where we're going disagree and disagree very strongly.
[Alex Marquardt, Cnn Senior National Correspondent:] Partisan divide on full display, on the eve of just the third vote in history to impeach a president. The ground rules being seat by a House panel for tomorrow's final vote.
[Rep. Jim Mcgovern:] Now it's up to us to decide whether the United States is a nation where no one is above the law.
[Marquardt:] Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin representing the House Judiciary majority arguing that the president has been unrepentant.
[Rep. Jamie Raskin:] We believe this conduct is impeachable and should never take place again under our constitutional system. He believes his conduct is perfect and we know, therefore, it will take place again and again.
[Marquardt:] While House Judiciary Republicans represented by ranking member Doug Collins held the line for the president.
[Rep. Doug Collins:] The clear and present danger right now in this room is the pattern of attack and abuse of rules and decisions to get at this president.
[Marquardt:] A new CNN average of recent polls shows that Americans are split on impeaching and removing the president by a narrow margin more oppose it. All of this setting the scene for the Senate trial to come with leadership contentiously disagreeing today on the Senate floor over what the trial should look like. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shooting down Democrats' proposals which called for more high-profile Trump administration witnesses.
[Sen. Mitch Mcconnell:] If House Democrats' case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it over here in the Senate. The answer is the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.
[Marquardt:] Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had requested subpoenas for, among others acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.
[Sen. Chuck Schumer , Minority Leader:] What is Leader McConnell afraid of? What is president Trump afraid of, the truth? But the American people want the truth.
[Marquardt:] For Schumer to win this argument, he needs four Republican senators to vote with Democrats. But so far, the eight moderate Republicans in Schumer's sights are showing little signs ever defecting.
[Sen. Mitt Romney:] I'm talking to colleagues, listening to the leadership and giving it a great deal of thought.
[Marquardt:] So Schumer and McConnell are no closer to agreeing how this historic trial will look when it's expected to start in just a few weeks. Now after speaking on the Senate floor today, Schumer said McConnell is using the Senate to participate in what he called a cover up while McConnell told reporters because this is a political process, he does not intend to be an impartial juror at all Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
[Vause:] Allan Lichtman, presidential historian and distinguished professor of history at the American University joins us now from Washington. Professor, thank you for coming back. It is good to see you. When it comes to all of, this, when it's one it's all said and done, you predicted Trump would win the election, you predicted he would be impeached. Look into the future. If this all goes according to the plan, he is impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate, November 2020, who benefits the most from the impeachment? Does Trump make the case that they have been after him forever, I'm persecuted, vote for me, or do Democrats benefit from this?
[Allan Lichtman, Presidential Historian:] The history of impeachment is that it is not a happy event for the party of the president. Every president who has been impeached, been convicted by the Senate and Richard Nixon who resigned to avoid impeachment, in each case, their party lost the next presidential election. Andrew Johnson's Democrats lost in 1868. He was impeached and tried in an election year. Nixon's Republicans lost in 1976. And Bill Clinton's Democrats lost in 2000, in an election they could have easily won, at a time of peace, prosperity and domestic and foreign tranquility. So impeachment on my system has been correct since 1984, is one mark against the president and his party. But impeachment alone and the scandal that it involves is not enough right now to defeat Donald Trump. It is important that while the Democrats may have made a legal argument that the actions of the president rise to the level of impeachment, it seems to have not won that case with the American public. The opinion polls have flatlined. The country remains evenly divided. After a series of public hearings, it has been out there for the public to see, some polls are showing support for impeachment has declined.
[Lichtman:] It is been somewhere around the high 40s to 50 percent, that is 20 points higher than the high point on public sentiment to impeach Bill Clinton. And the Republicans went ahead and did it. I have always thought the time in which the public mind might be changed is not in the House hearings but in the Senate trial. People will follow the Senate trial. For the third time it happens in U.S. history, that is why Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are so desperate not to have a real trial. And they've made the most absurd argument, that all the evidence, the articles, of course, witnesses and documents and evidence is presented. Plus Republicans have given us what is going to be the ultimate in circular reasoning. They claim the Democrats don't have many witnesses in direct contact with the president. But of course, we are not going to let you hear from any witnesses that have contact with the president, like Mulvaney or Bolton.
[Vause:] Let's listen to the leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, on precisely the trial, which does sound as if it will be very favorable for the president.
[Sen. Mitch Mcconnell , Senate Majority Leader:] I think we are going to get an almost entirely partisan impeachment. I would anticipate an almost entirely partisan outcome in the Senate, as well. I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process.
[Vause:] If this was a trial, McConnell would be forced to recuse himself, wouldn't he?
[Lichtman:] He would be booted out by the judge faster than you could say Andrew Johnson. He is fundamentally wrong about impeachment. Impeachment is a constitutional process. It stands equally with election as a way of deciding who should be president. And the framers put impeachment on an equal footing into the Constitution, as a legal, peaceful and orderly means for dealing with a rogue president, as opposed to the remedy of the 18th century, assassination or revolution. And they fully expected a real trial, in the Senate and they put it in the Senate, because they expected senators to be men of wisdom and circumspection, who didn't face election for six years, who are not elected directly by the people but by the state legislatures in those days. And they expected the Senate to be impartial, nonpartisan and have a real trial. It is a travesty what McConnell has said. He knows nothing about the Constitution and nothing about history or only cares about partisan affairs.
[Vause:] Democrats failing to make the case to win over the public. Is that testimony a smokescreen?
[Lichtman:] It has been very effective. What Trump does really well and his Republican backers have picked up on it, is distraction and deflection and that is what the Republican tactics have been all about. Complain about process, falsely say the impeachment, even though there is constitutional about it, is a cancellation of an election. Say the Democrats have always wanted to impeach him. Even though Nancy Pelosi, the leader, has resisted that and then blame it on everyone but the president. It wasn't anyone but the president, who started to shake down a vulnerable ally to help him cheat in the election. Go back to what President Clinton said during his impeachment. He said, I was wrong. And I apologize to the American people. I have real remorse for what I did. Trump takes responsibility for nothing. It is always someone else's fault. And the crimes he committed in the Ukraine? They are going on right now even as we speak here. His personal attorney, at his direction, is collaborating with the most corrupt, disreputable elements in the Ukraine to cheat in the 2020 election. The Republicans thought the dossier from trials like this using Russian sources was the crime of the century. But what Giuliani is doing in the Ukraine is 10 times worse. He is not just compiling information, he is collaborating with the corrupt elements in the Ukraine and promoting corruption in the Ukraine and the
[U.s. Vause:] Allan, thank you so much. Good to see you.
[Lichtman:] My pleasure, John. Take care.
[Vause:] And two sources have told CNN that the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine will be stepping down in the coming weeks. Bill Taylor was a key witness during the House impeachment inquiry and was labeled as the president as a Never Trumper. He came out of retirement earlier this year to fill the vacancy in the U.S. embassy in Ukraine after the former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was ousted. Taylor's appointment was scheduled to end in early January. Still to come, neither side willing to give in despite days of violent protests, India's government stands firm on a conversational citizenship law. Also ahead, record breaking heat and raging bush fires creating a dangerous mix across Australia.