Deconstructed with Mehdi Hasan

The House Judiciary Committee held its first impeachment hearing on Wednesday, with testimony from a quartet of legal scholars from major Universities. Republicans on the committee repeatedly attempted to slow down the proceedings using parliamentary stall tactics, and continued to focus on the perceived partisan motivations of the impeachment process rather than the facts of the case against the President — while Democrats used the hearing to build up the constitutional case for removing him from office. But while the minutiae of the legal case against Trump are important, so is the political history of the country’s three previous impeachment efforts. Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss what the current congress can learn from the historical examples of Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Andrew Johnson.

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In the days leading up to the November Democratic debate in Atlanta, everyone seemed to agree that attacks on Pete Buttigieg would be the order of the night. The South Bend Mayor had lept to the top of the pack in the latest Iowa polls, and the conventional wisdom was that other candidates hoping for a caucus victory there — Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden — would be directing their fire his way. But the rest of field was surprisingly cordial to Mayor Pete, with the real fireworks coming courtesy of a heated exchange between Kamala Harris and Tulsi Gabbard. Cory Booker also earned some good reviews for his joke that Joe Biden “might have been high” for opposing marijuana legalization. Intercept politics reporter Akela Lacy and Waleed Shahid of the activist group Justice Democrats join Mehdi Hasan to break down the debate.

Liberals across the West often imagine Canada as a progressive paradise — a tolerant land, welcoming to immigrants, where marijuana is legal and everyone gets free healthcare. But how accurate is that picture? In the wake of last month’s federal elections, in which Justin Trudeau held onto the Prime Minister's post but lost his majority in parliament, Deconstructed headed to Toronto for the HotDocs Podcast Festival. There, Mehdi Hasan talked to two of Canada’s leading politicians. Ahmed Hussen is the Immigration Minister in Trudeau’s cabinet, and is himself an immigrant who arrived in Canada from war-torn Somalia in the 90s. Jagmeet Singh is the leader of the New Democratic Party, or NDP, and the first Sikh to head a major political party in Canada. Hasan sat down with Singh and Hussen to discuss Canada’s reputation as a shining beacon of Western multiculturalism — and whether it’s truly deserved.

With three months to go until the Iowa caucuses, Bernie Sanders finds himself fighting to make headway against the other frontrunners in the Democratic primary. While he appears to have bounced back from his recent heart attack—putting in a convincing performance in the last debate and picking up a coveted endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—the democratic socialist from Vermont has struggled to recapture the old 2016 magic in a more crowded 2020 field. Mehdi Hasan talks to Bernie about his campaign strategy, what separates him from his chief progressive rival Elizabeth Warren, and whether he’d be comfortable with an all-white—or all-male—ticket in 2020. Then, Intercept DC Bureau Chief Ryan Grim stops by to discuss the prospects for the Sanders campaign.