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Two articles of impeachment are passed on U.S. president Trump in the House of Representatives by Democrats, with all Republicans opposed. The party votes make this a political affair, with all Democrats favoring impeachment and all Republicans favoring stopping this process. Its harder in the Senate as all Republicans in the Senate are almost certain to vote against impeachment and the Senate Republican majority making impeachment a political exercize of one party.

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With the partisan politics in the U.S. Congress exceeding anything that happened before, both sides Republican and Democrats, are rarely talking to each other. During the many hours of impeachment debate in the U.S. Senate, Chief Justice Roberts had to call for civil discourse to be maintained. Republicans have remained loyal to the president throughout the debates. Following the rejection of impeachment in the vote on party lines, president Trump heads into the State of the Union speech to Congress on February 4th in which he will have the opportunity to defend his administration's record.

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The nearly unanimous support for president Trump in the impeachment inquiry from Republicans in Congress is a result of strong consistent support from a loyal base, strong fund raising in competitive races for members of Congress who supported Trump, and the sense that the whole process was flawed and part of partisan politics. There was also a sense among members of Congress in the House and Senate that the actions in Ukraine did not rise to the level of impeachable offense.  Throughout the process from the beginning Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, Mr. McCarthy minority leader in the House and Mr. McConnell majority leader in the Senate stayed engaged with individual members keeping together a tight knit community of legislators. As a result unprecedented action was seen in 2019-2020 with every single Democrat voting for impeachment and every single Republican voting against, and prominent members of each side showing outrage at events or how the proceedings were conducted. Each side even seeing the impeachment inquiry as a strategic step towards the presidential election in 2020. Democrats looking for some slight advantage in the midwestern states that moved the election to Trump the last time. Republicans seeing this as a way to rally the base, play to Mr. Trump's strengths in persuasion, and to vigorously defend the economic achievements in international trade agreements and the economy. ...

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Donald Trump is acquitted in the second impeachment trial with a vote in the Senate of 53 in favor to 47 against. A two thirds majority is required to impeach a president. Senators Burr of North Carolina and Cassidy of Louisiana were Republicans who joined the expected ones to vote for impeachment- the Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican defense lawyer insisted that Trump's speech to his supporters was not an intention to incite them on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 but an expression of his rights to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment. He made the point that the prosecution lawyers had selectively focused attention on the words "fight like hell" and taken them out of the entire context in which they were made, ignoring key parts of Mr. Trump's speech. The defense argued that the president had already left office and this made an impeachment unconstitutional. Seventy five million voters voted for Mr. Trump and he cited this as the most number of votes won by a sitting president. President Biden is shifting his attention to the president's agenda and needs Republican support to pass key legislation including financial help to households, unemployed, and business to recover from the pandemic. The U.S. health effort behind the vaccination drive and seeing the struggle in Europe to access key medical supplies of vaccine is also leading to new efforts to move beyond the rhetoric to the hard work ahead with support of all parties. As part of this the trial once it reached the Senate was quickly resolved in about 5 days. The defense used only a small fraction of the time allotted with bipartisan effort to not let the trial drag on, bipartisan effort to putting some statements simply on the record and not calling witnesses.   ...

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Republicans push for a swift acquittal for president Trump in the Senate and state the rules for impeachment proceedings in the Senate.

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President Trump plans to give "a very, very positive message" in his third State of the Union message on February 4, 2020. This comes one day after the chaos of the Democratic Iowa caucuses and a day before the president's certain acquittal in the Senate for impeachment charges of obstruction of justice and abuse of power. The president is likely to avoid partisan jabs to focus on his economic record. The theme is "the Great American Comeback." Mr. Trump will emphasize what he has called "the blue collar boom," the ways his policies are helping the middle class, aides say. The president will point out his administration's efforts for working families, for paid family leave, affordable child care, lowering cost of prescription drugs and health care.White House speechwriters writ much of the text, with policy suggestions from key government agencies taken in. Mr. Trump makes edits with a marker, and thinks about the best way to get points across till the last minute, something that comes easily to him with his colloquial style. ...

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President Trump's focus in the State of the Union message in 2020 in the U.S. Congress was on what he had done for U.S. prestige and perception- "In three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America's destiny. We have totally rejected the downsizing." "We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never going back." The theme of the speech- "The Great American Comeback." No longer were other nations be allowed to take advantage of America, American interests would come first, and this also meant blue collar working families and middle class. Trade deals with Mexico and Canada, trade deal with China, reversing of the trade deficit, bringing back about 12,000 of the 60,000 thousand factories lost over two administrations Democratic and Republican of the last 16 years with many more factories in the pipeline, increasing jobs and incomes in an unprecedented way, were all the focus of the speech. The president basically sidestepped the impeachment for Ukraine policy and implementation, and focussed on the optimism from reversing American decline in trade, jobs, and manufacturing under past Republican and Democratic administrations.   ...

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The WSJ's William McGurn looks at the Trump impeachment in the Senate and compares this with a similar period when Bill Clinton, another president  was being impeached by Republicans. Bill Clinton survived the impeachment vote as is expected also for Mr. Trump. The strong economy supported Mr. Clinton in his State of the Union message that followed, as is expected for Mr. Trump in his State of the Union message. 

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he doesn't yet have the necessary votes to stop Democrats from calling for witnesses. Democrats want former presidential National Security Adviser Mr. Bolton to testify under oath about the president's motivations for freezing aid to Ukraine. During three day of presentations by Mr. Trump's defense legal team the focus of Pat Philbin and Alan Dershowitz was on the actions of the president on Ukraine policy not rising to the level of Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Justice that Democrats in the House have presented as the 2 Articles for impeachment. Earlier the White House legal team put the focus on Mr. Biden, and his son Hunter Biden's role in the Ukrainian company Burisma as a board member. Burisma was being investigated for corruption by Ukrainian prosecutors. Much of the defense presentation recalled the effort during the early days after the Civil War to impeach president Andrew Johnson simply because Republicans in Lincoln's party did not like Mr. Johnson's views on Reconstruction of the South, and his dismissal of Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War. That effort failed because it lacked one additional vote needed for a two thirds majority in the Senate. Republicans say not only are the president's actions on Ukraine calling for an investigation of the Biden's not an impeachable offense as "a high crime," but also that Democrats dislike of Mr. Trump just as Republican dislike for Mr. Johnson was lowering the bar for impeachment by making malleable charges. They argued that one of the country's founders Mr. Mason even rejected the idea presented to him that "maladministration" as grounds for impeachment should be put in the Constitution for the very same reason, that it was malleable to a preconceived notion of what is wrong. Four Republican senators Gardner of Colorado, McSally of Arizona, Tillis of North Carolina and Collins of Maine face tight races in upcoming elections, and may decide in favor of a compromise for the calling of witnesses. This would allow Republicans to call Mr. Biden and Hunter Biden to testify, and Democrats to call Mr. Bolton to testify on his views expressed in his to be published book that the president withheld aid to Ukraine because he felt that corruption needed to be investigated.   ...

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Republicans in the U.S. are talking about impeachment more than Democrats in tweets, ads and messages they send out. The Democrats are talking about other issues and this is not what you would expect after Democrats voted together on party lines to pass two articles of impeachment of president Trump. Republicans may even use the issue of impeachment in favor of president Trump as the impeachment process moves to the Senate where Republicans are in a majority. Republicans believe president Trump did nothing wrong and may call Senator Biden and his son Hunter Biden to testify in the Senate about activities in Ukraine, say experts.

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A vote to call witnesses, including former National Security Advisor Mr. Bolton, by Democrats fails in the Senate 51 votes against to 49 votes in favor, with only 2 Republican Senators voting in favor. The impeachment trial of president Trump now goes forward to a vote almost certain to acquit Mr. Trump of all charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice. A key vote was cast in favor by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander who said Mr. Trump had acted inappropriately on Ukraine but this clearly was not treason, and not a high crime and misdemeanors, the bar set in the Constitution for impeachment.

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The USMCA agreement negotiated by president Trump between the U.S. Canada and Mexico that replaces NAFTA, win support from Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Democrats pushing for Trump's impeachment have decided to still support passage of the USMCA, handing president Trump a victory, as they see it giving a positive benefit to U.S. workers.

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Leaks of conversations Mr. Trump had with leaders of Mexico and Australia early in the Trump administration resulted in the effort to protect sensitive discussions on a separate high security server. This is now the subject of inquiry in the impeachment inquiry by Democrats in the House of Representatives into president Trump's discussion with Ukrainian president Zelensky. The impeachment inquiry stems from the call with the Ukrainian president in which Democrats say Trump asked Ukraine to look into corruption at a company in which Democrat Joe Biden's son was a board member, and storing this information on a top security server.

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Efforts to impeach two previous presidents including Democrat Clinton failed in the Senate where the vote requires a two thirds majority. The first impeachment vote against Mr. Trump failed in the Senate. In the House of Representatives only a simple majority is required. Majority Leader McConnell says he will not reconvene the Senate before president Biden takes office. Vice President Pence has refused to invoke the 25th Amendment. House Democrats have moved ahead to vote for impeachment of president Trump for the storming of the Capitol offices in Washington D.C. Their impeachment statement says president Trump's remarks that his supporters had to fight like hell or they would not have a country, constituted incitement of supporters. President Trump won 74 million votes in the last election more than in the 2016 election and lost with Mr. Biden winning 81 million votes after polarization of the country. With such a large portion of the country voting for Mr. Trump Mr. Biden risks his agenda of fighting the pandemic, and other parts of his program, becoming immersed in partisan infighting. This would also result in continuing the division of the country, and continue polarization.  About 5 House Republicans are expected to support impeachment. In the Senate some Republicans say there are impeachable offenses yet only Mr. McConnell and the senator from Utah, Mr. Mitt Romney, favor impeachment.  Mr. Trump's style of governing was controversial from the beginning of his campaign in 2016, strident and taking on critics. He governed through relative moderation compared to his aggressive posture towards critics. For instance on Mexico his remarks offended critics, yet he negotiated a new trade agreement with Mexico replacing NAFTA to ensure worker protections in Mexico, and worker jobs and wages in the U.S. Negotiations with China on trade were conducted by a seasoned veteran, Mr Lighthizer,  who was deputy Trade Representative under Reagan, and negotiated the trade agreement with Japan that worked to reduce Japanese trade surplus in the eighties. On the economy before the pandemic hit in March president Trump made significant progress reducing unemployment.      ...

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The U.S. House of Representatives votes along party lines to impeach president Trump. Americans are evenly split on this issue, a WSJ/NBC News poll shows 48% to 48%. The impeachment now goes to the Senate where Republicans have a majority and is likely to be defeated.

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Ed Sisken, a seasoned lawyer who worked at the White House for Obama, then worked for the mayor of Chicago Rahm Emmanuel, is president Biden's new White House Counsel. This report says there will be a higher bar for information that a small wing of the Republican party will seek from the White House for impeachment inquiry on president Biden. It is seen as largely political agreed to reluctantly by Republican Speaker McCarthy. Coming in the presidential election year of 2024 when Mr. Trump faces hearings on indictments, this is expected to involve media attention.

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A recent poll shows Mr. Trump increasing his support from a bloc of voters that disapprove of his job performance but still give credit to Mr. Trump for an improving economy. A new WSJ/NBC poll shows 51% of Americans disapprove of his overall job performance, with 46% approving. The same percentage that say they disapprove of job performance are also saying they give him credit for a stronger economy up from the 44% in April 2017 who said they approved his way of handling the economy. Wages have increased 3.2%  in each of the last 2 months and unemployment is at an historic low over 50 years. One group that has a 10 point gap when it comes to the economic performance is among Independents, where 38% approve of Mr. Trump but 48% approve his economic performance. A big jump is among Hispanics who have benefited greatly with new jobs in construction and other areas of the economy. Trump's 46% approval rating in May 2019 is among the highest he has achieved, rising 3 points since the last identical poll in March 2019. About 29% still think the Mueller Report clears Mr. Trump of wrongdoing as they did in March. Still things can change as 42% believe the Mueller Report does not clear Mr. Trump of wrongdoing, and another 29% haven't made up their mind. On impeachment hearings about 48% think Congress should let Mr. Trump finish out his term, 49% think there is either enough evidence or Congress should continue investigating with an eye to future impeachment hearings. The survey margin of error is about 4 percentage points, covers 900 adults.  ...