It’s Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. Let’s start here.
1. Impeachment showdown
Open impeachment hearings are set to begin Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s Ukraine phone call at the heart of the inquiry.
Key witnesses will be questioned on whether the Trump administration withheld nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine and a meeting between the two leaders in exchange for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
On today’s “Start Here” podcast, ABC News Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran and ABC News’ Trish Turner lay out the cases that House Democrats and Republicans are trying to make.
“Every citizen will want to lean in and hear what the evidence is in this effort to put the president on trial and perhaps remove him from office,” Moran says.
2. SCOTUS and DACA
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in a case about the Trump administration’s decision to end legal protections for migrants brought to the country illegally as children.
The justices grappled with the rationale behind ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the consequences it would have for 700,000 young immigrants and their families, communities and employers, according to ABC News’ Devin Dwyer.
“Did the president give adequate justification? What about his discretion to set immigration policy?” Dwyer tells the podcast. “All eyes are on Chief Justice Roberts. He didn’t show a lot of his hand.”
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
3. Hong Kong chaos
A police spokesperson in Hong Kong said the city is on “the brink of a total breakdown” as violent clashes continue in the streets between pro-Democracy demonstrators and officers.
“It isn’t war, but it is really advanced civil disorder and like I say every time I come back here, it gets worse, the gulf between the two sides gets greater, the chances of resolution just seem to be ever and ever vaguer,” ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondent Ian Pannell says from Hong Kong.
Willie Siau/SOPA Images/REX via Shutterstock
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Elsewhere:
‘Enormous pressure’: Just when you thought the 2020 race couldn’t get any more crazy, Hillary Clinton told a British audience she’s getting pressured by “many, many” people to join the race.
‘Tragic loss’: For the third time in as many days, a college student has died following a fraternity event. The latest death, early Tuesday, came at Washington State University.
‘Evil that I haven’t faced before’: A historic double lung transplant was performed in a teenager who had severe damage to his lungs from vaping.
‘Lost to science’: A strange, deer-like species that had not been seen for 25 years in the wild was caught on camera in Vietnam.
From our friends at FiveThirtyEight:
Why Even More Democrats Are Thinking About Entering The Presidential Race: Michael Bloomberg, Eric Holder, Deval Patrick — even Hillary Clinton? What’s the explanation behind all of the late entries for 2020?
Doff your cap:
One Boston college student says he is “mind blown” after getting the surprise of a lifetime when his parents told him that someone had replied to his message in a bottle that he tossed in the ocean almost 10 years ago.
“Oh my God. I was, like: ‘Are you kidding me?” Suffolk University sophomore Max Vredenburgh told Boston ABC affiliate WCVB.
On Aug. 21, 2010, 10-year-old Vredenburgh wrote a letter and placed it in a bottle that was sent out to sea off Long Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts.
Nine years later, he tweeted photos of his note, along with a long overdue response.
