US President Donald Trump has requested that the impeachment trial in the Senate be held immediately, while the deputies whose fate is in their hands cannot agree on how the process will proceed.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
However, Democrats have not yet begun the next phase, arguing that the Republican-controlled Senate is rejecting witnesses and will not hold a fair trial.
In a series of tweets, the president accused Democrats of not wanting to go to trial because their "case is so bad."
"So, because the Democrats didn't give me due process in the House of Representatives, no lawyers, no witnesses, no nothing, now they want to tell the Senate how to conduct the trial. They don't really have any evidence, it's never going to show up. They want out. I want a trial now!”
The president says the Democrats don't want Congressman Adam Schiff, who led the impeachment process, Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and the CIA whistleblower who instigated the investigation to testify.
Democrats claim that it is the Republicans who are shying away from the appearance of witnesses. The House of Representatives also invited the president to testify before the investigators, but he refused.
In order for the next stage to begin, the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, must send the points of impeachment to the Senate, ie. formal charges.
However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to do so until the Senate trial rules are acceptable to Democrats. Democrats want to call Trump aides to testify, and her delay is being interpreted as a way to apply pressure.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will set the terms of the trial, and Democrats want to release details on which witnesses and what testimony will be allowed.
He dismissed the idea of calling witnesses and says Democrats are stalling because they have lost confidence in their case.
"We're going to be deadlocked," he said after a brief meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
McConnell described the impeachment process as "the most hasty, superficial and unfair" in history.
Democrats want at least four current and former associates in the White House to testify, who are familiar with the events surrounding Ukraine.
They say the trial must be fair, that senators act as impartial jurors and that McConnell's comments show he has no such agenda. He previously said Republican senators would work in "full coordination" with the president's team.
Less than half of Americans for the shift
Fewer than half of Americans say Trump should be impeached, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday, also posing a challenge for Democrats.
A poll conducted online across the US after the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump showed that the act did not change opinion in a divided state.
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democratic representative in Congress, was initially hesitant to bring impeachment charges against Trump out of concern that there would not be enough public support.
Her party then sought to drum up support for public hearings into allegations that Trump abused his office, ahead of Wednesday's historic vote.
When asked about the accusations, 53 percent agreed that the president abused his position and 51 percent agreed that he obstructed Congress.
About 42 percent of respondents - mostly Democrats - said that Trump should be impeached.
Overall, only 44 percent of Americans approve of the way the House of Representatives is handling the Trump impeachment process, and 41 percent disapprove.
When asked how the impeachment affected their attitude towards the president, 26 percent said that they now support him more, 20 percent less, and 48 percent said that their attitude has not changed.
Evangelicals are concerned about Trump's behavior
Regardless of the outcome, Democrats have ensured that Trump will enter the spotlight as one of only three presidents to be impeached, following Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. A Senate trial would set off a politically charged year in which Trump will face the presidential election. face one of the 15 Democratic candidates for the nomination.
Christianity Today magazine, founded by the late American evangelical Billy Graham, called for Trump's removal in an editorial that described the president's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden as "deeply immoral."
Trump has questioned the media's success and rejected calls for his removal.
"No president has done more for the evangelical community, not even close," Trump tweeted.
The paper's editor, Mark Galli, responded that Trump's behavior caused great concern. "We rarely comment on politics, unless we assess that it has reached a level of national importance. And this is such a case," he said in an interview with CNN. "This is something we need to think about and pray about as a movement."
Christian evangelicals make up about 25 percent of American voters and form a solid base of Trump's support. A poll by the Pew Center showed that Trump won more than 2016 percent of that group's vote in 80.
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