Transcripts For CNNW The Impeachment Trial Of Donald J. Trump 20200122

Repeatedly voted against democratic amendments to the rules, amendments that would have allowed specific witness testimony or the production of specific documents. Now, 10 of those 11 democratic amendments were defeated on a party line vote. 53 republicans against, 47 democrats in favor, with one exception, a technical amendment about the time each side would be afforded to respond to a motion when senator Susan Collins of maine broke from her party and voted with the democrats. The defeat of the democratic wish list came at the direction of Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell who changed his own rules at the last minute in order to keep more moderate members of his caucus happy and in line. Joining me now to discuss all of this is conservative attorney george conway. He is also an advisor to the Lincoln Project which is an antitrump super pac. George, thanks for being here, appreciate it. Thank you, jake. Give us your First Impressions of the first day. How do you think the house impeachment managers did . How do you think the president s Defense Attorneys did . Well, i think the managers simply outclassed trumps lawyers. There wasnt any question. The managers were prepared, they were thoughtful, they were factual, they were logical, they were dignified. Trumps lawyers, on the other hand, were dissembling, distorting and even lying. That was one of two distressing aspects i found about yesterdays proceedings. The behavior and the approach taken by trumps counsel. The second is the partyline votes on witnesses. The partyline votes on witnesses. This is a trial. This is a trial where they should want to hear the evidence. If the evidence if everyone is so sure, if theyre so sure that the evidence will exonerate President Trump, then, yeah, lets hear from john bolton. We should hear from pompeo, we should hear from mulvaney. So if youre a republican senator, youre a republican. I guess youre an independent now. If you were a senator, you would have voted to subpoena all the documents from the white house, the pentagon theres no justification not to. When you get to a trial, youre entitled to issue trial subpoenas. Even before that youre even in a criminal case youre entitled to issue pretrial discovery, both sides, even if evidence has been heard before a grand jury. In fact the United States against nixon, the famous case that dealt with executive privilege in 1974 involved pretrial discovery in a criminal case where the defendants had already been indicted. So the analogy would be here is that once you file the indictment or the impeachment charges here, you should get discovery for trial. Mitch mcconnell, the Senate Majority leader, says he doesnt think there should be any witnesses and hes telling his caucus that he doesnt think that should happen at all. The constitution says, article 1 says that the senate has the power to try, sole power and thus the obligation, to try all impeachments. Its their obligation to hear the evidence. And if theres evidence thats not in the record already, they should be going out and allowing the subpoena to be issued in the name of the chief justice of the United States for that evidence. Thats what a trial is. Thats what this is supposed to be for. Their job is to hear the evidence, to hear all of it. Not some of it or none of it, which seems to be the way theyre going. And what do you make of the fact that the republicans have opted to take this stand of no new evidence, no new witnesses, at least at this point . What are they afraid of . What are they afraid of . Theyre going to hear evidence they dont like . They must be afraid of something. And thats the thing that i find most disturbing about it, is they dont want to hear the evidence because they know the truth. They know hes guilty. They dont want to hear the evidence because they dont want the American People to see it too. So i want to talk more about this, but i do want to get your response to some of the arguments we heard yesterday. Heres Pat Cipollone, the white House Counsel, talking about the democrats process. Take a listen. But what happened was the proceedings took place in a basement of the house of representatives. The president was forbidden from attending. The president was not allowed to have a lawyer present in every other impeachment proceeding the president has been given a minimal due process. Nothing here. Not even mr. Schiffs republican colleagues were allowed into the scif. That is the location where they deposed witnesses. I mean that whole sequence was just mendacious and it ended with a falsehood. Its not possible for me to think that he didnt know what the truth was. Three committees, three full committees of the house of representatives were entitled to attend those depositions, and that includes every republican member. There were at least 40 of them at least. And they were given equal time as the democrats. They could question the witnesses if they so chose. The republicans in the house were not hesitant to carry the president s water. So if they had any questions to ask, they should have asked them. And its just amazing to me that cipollone could make this outright false statement that says republicans were not allowed to attending. Its a lie. If you made that assertion in the court and the court caught you on it, it would be the end of you. What do you mean . The court would reprimand you. The court might even refer you to the disciplinary committees. Its outrageous. But because this is a senate trial you know, im not going to speak to what the disciplinary committees could do in this circumstance, but it was it violates your obligation of fair advocacy as a lawyer. So just to be clear, congressman schiff said, when he responded to that, that he wouldnt suggest that cipollone made those false claims deliberately, he said hes mistaken. Youre not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Thats always the best way in a courtroom or when youre an advocate, when somebody has done something thats totally outrageous, you say im not going im going to let you make that judgment, let the facts speak for themselves and that was a very skillful way that schiff handled it. But it was an outright lie. A flat lie. The rest of the sequence was mendacious as well. He said the president was forbidden from attending, he was not allowed to have a lawyer present. Its mendacious in two respects. At the end of the day, he was entitled to make a presentation before the House Judiciary Committee. His lawyers were invited to do that and cipollone wrote some nasty letter on december 6th saying go pound sand. And secondly, this whole notion of procedural unfairness is just bogus. The house can do whatever it wants in terms of how it decides to impeach a president or any other federal public officer. Its akin to, and im sure that youve heard this said many times, its akin to a grand jury. Nobody gets to come in and present their case before a grand jury. You get that opportunity at the trial. In the senate. And thats where we are today. And now theyre saying we dont want the other side to present evidence. I mean this is just a sham. This is just outrageous that the republicans think they can play this game. And the republicans in the senate are under oath. They take a special oath to render impartial justice. Let me ask you a question, because you are a conservative attorney. You have been prominent in republican legal circles for a long, long time. How do you feel when you see the Republican Party going against these basic rules that you consider to be important . Im deeply saddened. Its very upsetting. And this is a moment i think of reckoning. Not just for the country and for the rule of law and for the constitution. Its a very specific day of reckoning for the republican senators who took this oath and the Republican Party generally. Are they going to stand for lies instead of truth . Are they going to stand for gaslighting instead of reality . Are they going to just do the bidding of this one man and put his interests over those of the country . Thats what this is about. And it was just distressing to see a complete unwillingness of the republican senators to vote for hearing evidence, vote for receiving evidence. It should have been there should have been no question about it. Its not like that there was the house managers put on some spectacular statistics about how the average impeachment trial has 33 witnesses. Thats a trial. Now, the clinton case was a bit of an outlier because of the incredibly complete record that was gathered before the grand jury. By ken starr. By ken starr. You know, it was a very, very narrow set of facts that were at issue and also both sides agreed they didnt want too much of live testimony because of the salacious nature of it. That was a completely different circumstance. But even there, they had witnesses. They took depositions. So here where its a much, much more serious charge, i mean the clinton thing is bad for a president and terrible you supported the impeachment of president clinton . I probably did things that caused the impeachment of president clinton. And he you know, he lied under oath, but it was in a civil case that had nothing to do with the powers of his office. It had to do with what happened in a hotel room three years before he became president no, two years before he became president. And it didnt involve abuse of president ial power. It didnt involve withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to an ally at war just because you want to get he wanted to get a foreign country to announce a bogus investigation against his leading political rival. I mean it should be it should be a nobrainer here. Lets talk about the charges against President Trump, because jay sekulow, another one of the president s attorneys, last night and youre forgiven if you went to sleep before this happened because the trial lasted until almost 2 00 a. M. In the morning. But sekulow tried to compare President Trump withholding the security aid to ukraine with something that president obama did. I actually watched that. That was at 7 00, i saw that. Let me run this sound from jay sekulow, President Trumps attorney. Its interesting to note that the Obama Administration withheld 585 million of promised aid to egypt in 2013. But the administrations public message was that the money was not officially on hold. Sounds like this may be a practice of a number of administrations. To be clear, im not sure what hes talking about with the administrations public message. You see New York Times stories informed by the administration where they are saying they were using that money as leverage because there had been a coup in egypt and general sisi. And they did it with congress knowing about it and they followed the procedures. Right. Thats the whole point. This is mendacious. This is deceptive and distortive. Whats at issue here is not whether the president can if he follows the right procedures, which the gao said he did not follow here. The question is not whether the president can sometimes impound or withhold funds, the question is why he did it. If he did it for a legitimate reason like all of a sudden ukraine switched sides and became a russian satellite, well then, yeah, absolutely. If theyre not going to fight the russians, why would you be giving them aid. That would be a perfectly legitimate reason to say im going to withhold this money and youd have to send a message to the relevant committees in congress. There are procedures for that. And just say we shouldnt spend this money anymore. Thats not what happened here. He just cut it off 91 minutes after he made this outrageous demand of president zelensky. Thats the difference. The depth to which trumps lawyers will go to make these deceptive arguments, i mean theyre treating the American Public, theyre treating the senate like theyre morons. Its just outrageous. One of the other things that seems clear in terms of how different it is from the clinton defense is that even clintons president clintons attorney, charles ruff, condemned what president clinton did, called it morally wrong. This is after months and months of bill clinton lying and deceiving. Im not trying to defendi president clinton. But at this point president clinton was publicly contrite and his defenders were saying it was wrong. Wrong but not impeachable. Take a rislisten to what President Trumps defenders are saying, is what President Trump said, it was a perfect call, check the transcript. Here is one of his attorneys last night. Youve seen the transcripts which the president released transparently, unprecedentedly. There was no quid pro quo for anything. Just utterly and completely shameless in light of all of the evidence. And the notion that you can assert that the call as the president has been doing as perfect is crazy. And even the one one lawyer, the one law professor who defended the House Republicans position before the House Judiciary Committee said this morning in an oped in the Washington Post theres no way you can say that call was perfect. And it wasnt. And what you saw that lawyer just do is just ignoring the evidence, ignoring the call that david holmes heard in the kiev restaurant between bill clinton and Gordon Sondland. Donald trump and Gordon Sondland. Im sorry, donald trump and Gordon Sondland, yes, sorry. Where you could hear, and you can. I can personally attest you can hear trump when hes on the phone with somebody sitting next to you. Hes got a big, booming voice. Yes. And he says are they going to do the investigations . Thats all he cared about. Holmes asked sondland, well, does the president care about ukraine . Basically he doesnt give an expletive deleted about ukraine, sondland said, he only cares about the big things, the things that affect him personally. Thats what this is about. Thats what makes this offense, what he did impeachable is he wasnt concerned about the interests of the nation. The interests of the nation were clearly in favor of letting that aid go unrestricted. He did it because it was a Pressure Point to get these guys in ukraine to do his bidding to help him get reelected. You just alluded to the fact that youve heard President Trump on the phone so let me just acknowledge to our viewers that obviously you are Kellyanne Conways husband. She is a counselor to President Trump. And youve already said i dont think you have to be the spouse of a Senior Administration official to know that hes loud on the phone. Im sure many, many people and cnn probably know that too. Yes, of course. I can personally attest thats true. But i will also just say that is not a subject you want to talk about so im not not particularly. I think my views about President Trump and his administration can stand on their own. Right. I just want to make clear to our viewers thats why im not asking about it. Last night we saw chief Justice Roberts admonish both sides, not just the republicans, for their heightened rhetoric. Lets play a little bit from before that. Its about time we bring this power trip in for a landing. President trump is a man of his word. He made promises to the American People and he delivered. Over and over and over again. Its a farce. And it should end. Mr. Nadler, you owe an apology to the president of the United States and his family. Now, i guess my question is, i know that President Trump will like that clip. Right. But will it work on any senators, mitt romney, Susan Collins, lamar alexander, cory gardner, whomever, martha mcsally, who might be vacillating on this . Will it offend anybody . I mean if you did that in a courtroom, you would verge on being held in contempt. The judge would ask the jury to leave the room and the judge would ream you out. I would hope that republican senators who like all senators generally value decorum in the worlds greatest deliberative body would find that offensive, because it was offensive. It was offensive not just because there was a personal attack on counsel for the other side, the managers, but because this assertion that the president is truthful is beyond belief. Heres a man with 16,200 lies documented in this towns major newspaper. He continually hes incapable, virtually incapable of telling the truth about anything, even when its helpful to him. Hes a pathological liar. We have a lawyer standing up before the senate saying hes truthful. Hes a man of his word. I mean thats just absurd. It wasnt only cipollone who offended chief Justice Roberts. Heres a little comment from jerry nadler who cipollone was referring to. So far ive seen every republican senator has shown that they want to be part of the coverup. Either you want the truth or you and you must permit the witnesses or you want a shameful coverup. History will judge. A, do you agree with what hes saying and, b, was it a mistake to say it . I agree with what hes saying, the substance of it. I mean republican senators need to look themselves in the mirror and look themselves in the mirror and think what its going to be like five years from now, ten years, what their legacies are going to be and the fact that this evidence is going to keep coming out. Truth has a way of coming out. Weve seen it with the foia requests that have produced these documents that are quite interesting. New documents came out last night. Last night. Were going to get books from people. When trump is gone people are going to start telling their stories. There may be further investigations of this. The truth will come out sooner or later. There are documents that havent been seen. There are witnesses that havent testified. Their stories will sooner or later come out. Now, about the tactical aspect of what he said there, you dont attack the court. Here the senate is sitting as a court of impeachment. By saying attacking the republican senators specifically and saying theyre involved in a coverup is not the way to make that argument, i think. I understand i have to give the man cut him some slack, it was probably 1 00 in the morning or something, but the way to make the argument is that at the end history will also have a verdict. And one thing this body needs to consider is what that verdict will be. And that would have been the proper and eloquent and probably smarter way to do that. Youre being so outspoken on these issues having to do with the president has aroused the ire of the president as well as his son and his Campaign Manager and others. I dont know if he has said anything in the last 22 minutes, but is there anything that you want to preemptively say. They attack you as disloyal to your wife, they attack you as having wanted a job in the administration and then you didnt get one, although i dont think thats accurate. Thats false. You were being interviewed to be solicitor general and then decided you didnt want to do it . No. I mean what happened was i was being i had been told i could be the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division and i started going through that process. I did an fbi check. As i was filling out the financial forms, im watching whats going on and becoming increasingly disturbed at what im seeing, and in particular when he fired comey and then a few days later Rod Rosenstein appointed bob mueller to be special counsel, i realized, you know, im going to go and join this mess of an administration and be in a department that hes going to be attacking for the next two years . At that point i concluded it just made no sense. He hasnt really been attacking you lately under attorney general barr. There were just so many disturbing aspects about that whole the continual attack on the russia investigation and the attacks on sessions, i think, are what drove me to really start speaking out. In particular, the thing that i remember most was when he attacked attorney general sessions for permitting the indictment of those two corrupt republican congressmen. Collins and hunter, right. Very explicitly on because he said it was wrong for sessions to do that in substance because that could affect the balance of power in the house. In other words, putting his own personal political interests above faithfully executing the laws. He has a duty as the president of the United States to faithfully execute the laws and to allow his appointees to faithfully execute the laws. He showed a willingness right there to put that aside for his own political interests. Its the same that same kind of selffocus and lack of ability to put the nations interests first over his own, which we saw with the continual attacks on mueller, who was conducting an investigation for the benefit of the country to find out what the russians did. And then again here with this ukraine fiasco. Last night we also heard the president s attorneys talk about how the president had been exonerated by the Mueller Report. More lies. Yeah. Its just incredible. Whats your view of the Mueller Report . The Mueller Report . Well, obviously it did not exonerate him. Theres a sentence that said if we could have exonerated him, in substance, we would have done so, but they didnt. When you go to part 2 of the Mueller Report, you find a number of factual circumstances that are described where they then where the report then analyzes those factual circumstances in terms of the elements of obstruction and basically checks the box saying, yes, this element is here, this element is here, this element is here. Particularly the one where trump has tries to get his white House Counsel, don mcgahn, to persuade Rod Rosenstein to fire mueller on the basis of a pretext and mcgahn basically refuses and gets ready to pack up his office. And then that was one element one event of obstruction. And then a few months later, its reported the press starts focusing on it. I think the New York Times had a report and trump then tells mcgahn that he wants mcgahn to do a memo to the file saying that that sequence of events never happened, which is if you create a false document on a matter under investigation, thats obstruction. So what he did there was obstruction about obstruction. And he was doing it because it embarrasses him that the russians helped him. We dont know exactly what the effect was, we will never know, but he the mere fact that it happened, that there was russian interference should have been to him this is something, im president of the United States now, i need to stop this and we need to investigate this and we need to get to the bottom of it. Thats not the way he thinks about it. He denies that it occurred. Frequently. And he did everything he could to derail that investigation. That to me was impeachable right there. He should have been impeached for that. So the House Democrats failed by not doing that . Well, they have made up for it since. What do you make of the fact that one day after mueller testified before congress heres a man that knows no boundaries. He knows no boundaries. Thats when he had the july 25th phone call with zelensky and clearly says he wants zelensky to conduct investigations into the bidens and into this deranged Conspiracy Theory that it was actually ukraine and not russia that did election interference in 2016. Hes a man that knows no boundaries and hes going to get worse. Thats why he needs to be removed now. The fact that he went through all that and didnt learn anything, the fact that hes gone through all this and still maintains that the call was perfect means that he has no idea what propriety requires, what law requires, what the constitution requires. Hes thoroughly unfit for office. One of the things that you have to consider in the impeachment process is how serious is the offense . Is it something thats likely to occur again . That marks a big difference between this situation and the clinton situation. The clinton situation was really kind of wrong as his conduct was, it was an oddball, curious series of facts, a civil case where the facts were deeply embarrassing to him. It wasnt likely to recur. This, we dont who knows what hes done with other nations, in phone calls with other nations. Who knows what else we dont know. We only know this because one person wrote a letter. The whistleblower. And decided to step up. And we dont know whether anybody else would have stepped up and told us about this. Even the very credible people like yovanovitch and taylor, who acquitted themselves with great honor in testifying before the house, we dont know whether we would have heard from them if it were not for the whistleblower. So we dont know what else there is. Hes capable of anything. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer raised the question, and its actually one candidly that ive been thinking about for a while, which is if the senate does what we assume the senate is going to do and acquit President Trump of these charges, what does that mean in terms of the future and politicians asking Foreign Countries to investigate their rivals . Let me also just say predicated on the idea that all of President Trumps defenders say that he really just wanted a legitimate investigation into corruption. There are legitimate questions to ask about the kushners in china, about trump Tower Properties all over the world. Im not saying they have done anything wrong but there are questions to ask. A democratic president , buttigieg, warren, sanders, biden, whoever, could say, okay, president xi, you want to play . My answer to that is what Gordon Sondland said to holmes in the restaurant in kiev. Trump only cares about things that affect him personally. And if this is allowed to pass, if a president is allowed to violate the law, as the gao found, to withhold money for his own personal, political gain, then all bets are off with future president s. I hope that we never see one like this again, even though i agree with a lot of his policies. But where are the boundaries . The boundaries are gone. The constitutional norm is gone if the senate doesnt do the right thing here. Do you know any republican senators, have you had no. Conversations with republican senators about any of this . No, no. Whats your best guess as somebody who has been a player in republican politics and the conservative legal world for years and years about what is going through their heads when they see this evidence, they read the transcript, as President Trump is constantly asking us to do, and i mean these are not stupid people. They understand the issues as you have just described them. What are they thinking . I can only assume that theyre engaging in some sort of political calculus that involves their own combination of their own personal situation, like will i be attacked by people from the right in a primary if im up for reelection in 2020. I think the other calculation is that this somehow benefits the other side, the liberals, the socialists, which makes no sense to me because if he had been impeached and removed for what he did in obstructing the mueller investigation, mike pence would be president of the United States and everybody in the Republican Party i think would be better off. So that makes no sense to me. But to go back to the first one, with senators, i mean the whole point, the framers thought the senate would be a cooler it was where legislation would cool. They thought senators would be more thoughtful and less moved by the passions of the day because they had sixyear terms. Now, i get the people who are up for reelection have something to be afraid of. But if youre up in 2022 or 2026, why are you afraid now . Hell be gone by then. I hope. B what they really should be thinking about is its a great honor to be a United States senator. The reason its a great honor to be a United States senator is because you have a certain amount of electoral independence with a sixyear term. That gives you the opportunity to stand up and do whats right. And thats what should matter to them, what they are going to be remembered for. You did this marvelous commentary a few months back about senator Margaret Chase smith of maine. Thats what Susan Collins should be thinking about, her legacy, not whether shes going to win in 2020. She should be thinking about their legacy, about doing the right thing. This whole trial should be every aspect of it should be a vote of conscience, not some test of Party Loyalty to Mitch Mcconnell or donald trump. For those who dont know, in 1950 senator Margaret Chase smith, republican of maine, went to the floor of the senate and decried mccarthyism and thats four years before edward r. Murrow did it. A lot of her colleagues were terrified of joe mccarthy. A lot of her colleagues were like hes going to destroy me, call me a communist. They had seen it done. If anybody has driven on i95 to go across the millertidings bridge, miller tidings was defeated by joe mccarthy. And now people are afraid of being tweeted at. Whats your message, youre going to get tweeted at for this interview if you havent already. Whats your message to the mitt romneys and the Susan Collins of the world who dont want that unpleasantness in their life . They should be taking those tweets as a badge of honor. Those tweets dont hurt. What do you make of the dershowitz argument, Alan Dershowitz argument . Oh, the argument that only a crime . Yeah. Can be impeachable . Well, its contrary to hundreds of years of parliamentary and american history. Abuse of power was something and misuse of power was something that public officers in britain were removed for very frequently through the impeachment process. But i can put it this way. What that argument means is that all we expect from a president is that he not be a criminal. We go to work, you go to work every day. Is the test for you to keep your job whether or not you commit a crime . No. Well, it shouldnt be for the president of the United States either. George conway, thank you so much for this time. Youre going to join us for more commentary. Happy to be here. We do appreciate all this time youve given us. Any minute now we expect to see senators arriving for the president s impeachment trial. We are standing by to hear from Senate Minority leader, Chuck Schumer. This is cnns special coverage of the impeachment of president donald j. Trump. Stay with us. Is that net carbs or total . 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President trump does not want you to hear from ambassador bolton. And the reason has nothing to do with executive privilege or this other nonsense. So far im sad to say i see a lot of senators voting for a coverup. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of this body on the floor of this senate said executive privilege and other nonsense. Ill tell you whats treacherous. Come to the floor of the senate and say executive privilege and other nonsense. I think it is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the house managers and the president s counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the worlds greatest deliberative body. One reason it has earned that title is because its members avoid speaking in a manner and using language that is not conducive to civil discourse. I want to bring in our cnn legal analyst, ross garber, jeffrey toobin, laura coates and tim neftali. Tim, how unusual is that sort of language . The chief justice was just saying this is not the house of representatives. That language that was used by both sides was very reminiscent of what we heard in the Judiciary Committee. What the chief justice was saying is this is the senate, this is not the house. Youre not going to talk this way. And very different from what hes used to hearing at the Supreme Court. You know, even as passionately as they disagree there, the level of discourse is much cooler. Don verilli who was the solicitor general under president obama always used to refer to his adversary as my friend. You know, my friend argues this, my friend argues that. So i think not only was he concerned, its just not the kind of rhetoric that hes comfortable with. I thought it was a gentle admonishment but a heartfelt one. Roberts also made another comment right afterward. I want to play that. In the 1905 swain trial a senator objected when one of the managers used the word pettifogging and the presiding officer said the word ought not to have been used. I dont think we need to aspire to that high a standard but i do think those addressing the senate should remember where they are. Im not even going to try to explain what pettifogging is. Who among us hasnt used that term, anderson . What do you mean . I actually tweeted it out this morning. Mer yam webster says its a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded or disreputable. Do not say that in the United States senate. Its a bad word. There you go. So no pettifogging here either. It makes sense. Youre putting an undue emphasis on the petty things. What were trying to do is to focus. Theyre the great deliberative body because theyre supposed to be deliberating over what is before them, not on tertiary issues, not on things that should be left unspoken. The focus of Justice Roberts was were not here to have the senate on trial or the house managers to be on trial, were here because donald j. Trump is on trial for impeachment. If were focusing on that, well be able to cloud out all the other sounds. Although, ross, its interesting because that was the democrats message at the start of this, which is that the senate itself is on trial. Yes, which is sort of an odd thing to sort of come in and accuse the deciders of potential misconduct. But i think i think Justice Roberts was ready for this moment. I think the chief justice had this example and i think he was not without reason concerned that things might get out of hand. That was a good time to sort of lay down the marker and say im the presiding officer, and were not going were not going to have that kind of comment. Its also worth pointing out that these lawyers and the house managers, theyre human beings. It was midnight. They were exhausted. They were pissed off. They were frustrated. They had gone for 11 hours. Yeah, so they said some things that were maybe 5 over the line. I think roberts criticism was also modest. So i thought it was all basically appropriate on all sides. His mentor, chief justice rehnquist, did something similar. He didnt have a prepared statement. I agree with ross. He seemed to be reading. The chief justice seemed to be reading that. But rehnquist also when he was presiding over the trial of bill clinton, he also used an opportunity to establish his authority when he corrected one of the house managers. Dana bash is standing by. Shes leading our coverage from capitol hill this morning. Dana . Reporter thanks, anderson. I have with me senator rick scott of florida. Senator, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. First question especially after staying up all night. It wekt innt into the mornin. What time were you done . I got home about 2 20. Reporter so given that, i know this was the democrats move last night and they were pushing to change the rules in order to have some witnesses and documents on the front end. But big picture, about witnesses, when we get to that point, how do you go home to florida and tell your constituents that you were a part of a very that you were an impartial juror and that you got every bit of information you could and not vote to allow witnesses . Whats the downside of hearing from witnesses . I think its very important to have a fair trial. I think thats what Mitch Mcconnell has committed. If you look at last night, what we said was were going to go through this process just like we did with clinton. Were going to hear from both sides. Were going to ask questions and then well make a decision on witnesses. I think thats what they did with clinton. Are you open to witnesses . Absolutely. This is the process. This is what we reporter for real open to witnesses . Yeah. I would love to hear what happened with hunter biden. Reporter what about john bolton. He was the president S National Security advisor. He says he has things to say very relevant to the case that the democrats are prosecutoriin would you like to hear from him . Im open to witnesses but i think we ought to go through the right process. Heres what i watched last night. Think what the democrats said. Oh, we have an overwhelming case. Web what they did in the house. Weve got to do this so quickly and then held it for 33 days. Last night they said we have an overwhelming case, but we do need to get some more information that they could have gotten over in the house. They could have subpoenaed john bolton and decided not to do it. Reporter and then it would have taken endless months and this is what they argue, they would have been probably past the election and it would have made this process but how is it different . Any president , including this president , has a right to the privileges. Hes got a right to executive privilege. The court is the one that gets to make those decisions. The same issue will happen here. So why didnt they do it why didnt they do it where they should have done it over there . I think its fine what we went through last night. It was a lot of process. It got really boring. I dont know if you stayed up to watch it. Reporter did you stay awake . You have to stay awake. You have to sit in your chair. Reporter not everybody did. You cant drink anything but water. Reporter let me ask you about the fundamental question in article 1, which is that the president abused his power and it is an Impeachable Offense. The president s attorneys argued very clearly that they dont think its an Impeachable Offense, that you have to actually commit a crime, like in the criminal code, to be impeached. Do you agree with that . Well, lets remember what it says. It says treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. I think its a pretty high standard. On top of that, lets remember the consequences here. I went back and read through some of what people said in the clinton what they were saying how they voted in the other one. What a lot of people said is lets remember, they said bill clinton did the wrong thing, but were changing an election. Thats what were doing here, were changing two elections. Were changing the 2016 election and we are kicking him out of the 2020. Reporter the clinton trial was very different in a lot of ways. One is that he did commit a crime, he lied under oath. Right. Reporter this is totally different. Is the argument that theyre making to you as a juror that the president a president , any president needs to commit a clear crime in the criminal code in order to be to be impeached, does that fly with you or should the president be held to a different standard because thats the whole purpose of impeachment . When it says other high crimes and misdemeanors, i think thats a pretty high standard. Reporter so lets be specific. Was it okay for him to make a phone call and say to the leader of a foreign country, please investigate my political opponent and potentially do that . Theyre arguing it happened. Right. We saw the transcript. Reporter by holding up the military aid. First off, its the houses job. They said they have overwhelming evidence. Its their job to prove the case. Its not the senates job to prove the case. On top of that, its high crimes and misdemeanors. What we watched last night, they didnt really present anything that would say that President Trump, he made the phone call and he said x, because what we know is we know the transcript. The transcript didnt say what they said in the beginning, what schiff said in the beginning that is tied to it. Reporter so i want to ask you to dig a little bit deeper on this question. My colleague, sara murray, and others, have reported about emails released by the omb showing there were at least four republican lawmakers offices who reached out to officials and questioning the holdup of aid to ukraine. So doesnt that signal that there was a lot more that you as a juror should know but the white house is not allowing the documents to be part of this trial . So heres the way i look at it. I want to follow what we did with clinton. I want to be fair. But i dont believe its my obligation to go prove their case. Its their obligation to prove their case. They said this was so important they had to do this so quick and they wouldnt even go through the process, wouldnt go through the court process. We have a process. The president does have rights. And then on top of that, we are sitting here with an election, what, nine months away. What the public is saying to me is why arent you reducing drug prices, why arent you securing the border . Theres no conversation about balance the budget, things like that. Were going through this process. Im going to be impartial, listen to all the evidence. I stayed up all last night listening to them. It got pretty boring, but we did. So well see what happens. Reporter before i let you go, i just want you to listen to something. This is a different topic, that President Trump said before he left davos when asked about the fact that 11 service men were actually injured in the retaliatory strike that iran put forward a couple of weeks ago. Listen to his response. I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things, but i would say, and i can report it is not very serious. So you dont consider possible traumatic brain injury serious . They told me about it numerous days later. Youd have to ask the department of defense. No, i dont consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries ive seen. Reporter you have a lot of injured veterans in your home state of florida. Do you think when they get a head injury thats a serious injury . Well, it sure seems like it would be. And you worry about them. Reporter does it concern you that the president just said he doesnt consider that in fairness, compared to other injuries, but lets just focus on this injury. I hope its not. I mean ive been to the va facilities. The one in tampa does a lot of head injuries and ive seen some horrible head injuries. I hope this didnt happen. Im glad the president killed soleimani, and i hope both the United States and iran figure this out because its not good for anybody. Reporter what about the comment that he made, are you comfortable with what he said . I dont know enough about how bad their injuries are. Hopefully theyre not bad. And so i served in the navy. I worry i was lucky, i didnt have to fight in a war. My dad did. So you worry about people all the time. Reporter senator, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Wolf, back to you. Thanks very much, dana. Thank senator scott for us as well. Lets get some reaction to what we just heard. George conway, glad youre still with us. What did you think from republican senator rick scott . Well, i just think its distressing for him to basically say that to justify what happened yesterday, to say that they dont want to vote to hear witnesses now. And i dont think it makes sense for them to pretend that they can make up for it later if theyre not going to hear witnesses. So i think this pretense of fairness is misleading. You think there will be four republican senators that will join the 47 democrats . I dont know whether there will be or not. I just know it should have been an easy vote yesterday to hear the witnesses because its their job to do that and it should have been a foregone conclusion, not a matter of something that was subject to any debate unless theres a specific issue as to the relevance of somebodys testimony. But the subpoenas that they were asking for yesterday with the schumer motions were well within the bounds of relevancy. You say its their job. But senator lindsey graham, who is literally the chairman of the senate Judiciary Committee said he wasnt even going to read the transcripts of the depositions for the house impeachment inquiry. I dont even know what to say to that, thats just so outrageous. Senator scott just said in explaining it that its not our job to make their case. Right, but its also their job not to prevent the house managers from making their case. It is their job to allow the house managers to make their case. It is their job to weigh the evidence, to hear the evidence, not to block it and not to hear not to just block it outright before even knowing what it is. You also hear some of the republican explanations a little scatter shot in the sense that on the one hand he said, well, remember in the clinton impeachment trial a lot of people decided what the president was wrong, it was just not worthy of conviction and removal. He didnt say thats what President Trump did. In the same interview he said remember the transcript. The transcript. Well, this is the transcript. Republicans keep saying the transcript like the president says the transcript is perfect. They believe if they keep saying it, they will convince at least their people thats the case. Heres the transcript to president zelensky. Rudy very much knows whats happening. Hes a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The other thing theres a lot of talk about bidens son, biden stopped a prosecution. Whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging, so on and so forth. This is not perfect. This is not perfect. You can argue its not impeachable if you want, but to argue its perfect, if this is perfect, then theyre setting a very different standard for president ial conduct. Republicans are just trying to get through the interviews. Theyre trying to run out the clock. Rick scott said hes open to witnesses. You want to put some money on the table what rick scotts vote is going to be on this one . Hes certainly not one of the senators and hes new to the senate, hes not somebody who were looking at as somebody who break ranks with the president. He just got elected in 2018, hes not up for reelection for a while. But yeah, you hear Mitch Mcconnells talking points and what hes saying in response to it. You hear the president s talking points as well. And ultimately he sounds like somebody who is not going to break with the president , not going to break with the Republican Party because its a lot to ask of these folks to basically, you know, right . To essentially break with everything they have known. Break away from this club that has meant their careers, that has meant everything to them. Well see who is sort of brave enough to do it. We hear from some, people like Susan Collins maybe, people like mitt romney, people like lisa murkowski. Does it get to four . It doesnt necessarily appear that way. I also think one of the issues here, its not just about their reelection. We talked about this off camera the other day, about comfort of life. A lot of these people are friends with big donor republicans. The Republican Party is now likely for the foreseeable future the trump party and not the republican that you signed up in. And they dont want to have their calls go unreturned. They dont want to be snubbed at social affairs. Its not just about reelection or campaign checks, its also about the fact that the Republican Party, the president lies about the percentage of republicans who approve of him but hes not wrong that its super high and thats their life. Thats the people they have to deal with. George, youve got a pac that is not the Republican Party that donald trump its an antitrump the Lincoln Project. The Lincoln Project. Im curious as to how youve been ostracized or how the folks who are running that pac have been ostracized from the party, from the trump party . I think my colleagues who are running the Lincoln Project would probably be better to speak to that because they are political operatives, theyre political consultants, they have toiled in the vineyards of republican politics for decades. Im really at bottom a lawyer. My law practice didnt involve washington for the most part, 98 of it, it involved dealing with securities cases and contract cases and all that stuff. And, you know, i have lots of friends who are in the federalist society. Im a member of the board of visitors of the federalist society. Ill tell you this. I think deep down most of those people know that trump is wrong and they know what right is, they just dont want to say it. Its just too painful. In fact at one point i learned from someone who had worked in the White House Counsels Office that one of the biggest some of the biggest fans of my twitter feed in 2018 were in the White House Counsels Office. Because lawyers it just violates it just offends lawyers, the things that trump does or thinks he can do, particularly the thing i mentioned to jake earlier before you all came here, trumps attack on sessions for allowing the two corrupt republican congressmen to be indicted. I think that gave great offense among republican lawyers. Both of whom ultimately pleaded guilty. Correct. But its just not worth it to any one individual to speak up. I know youre going to stick around and stay with us. Yeah. Dont go too far away, everybody. Were waiting to hear from the democrats any moment now. Well bring you that live. The Senate Democratic leader will have a News Conference. Also were learning new details about the president s conversation with his lawyers. Well take a quick break. Hi were glad you came in, whats on your mind . Can you help keep these guys protected online . Easy, connect to the xfi gateway. What about internet speeds that keep up with my gaming . Lets hook you up with the Fastest Internet from xfinity. What about wireless data options for the family . Of course, you can customize and save. Can you save me from this conversation . That we cant do, but come in and see what we can do. Were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. Ask. Shop. Discover. At your local xfinity store today. Im wolf blitzer, were live here in washington alongside jake tapper and Anderson Cooper. This is cnns special live coverage of the impeachment trial of president donald j. Trump. Were just two hours away now from the start of the day, of day two of this trial. This is the time thats been set aside from the beginning of the session for motions from either of the house managers or President Trumps team. But it looks like there wont be any. The democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, has just started a News Conference here in washington. Lets listen in. Hes not lying. I saw you there. Okay. Thank you. I hope everyone got a good nights sleep. Lets talk about yesterday. As everyone knows, the senate had a long but crucial debate over the rules of the trial last night. It lasted into the early hours of the morning. Now, the American People expect a fair trial. Our oaths, our oaths, our solemn oaths to the impeachment trial and to our Senate Office demand it. So before we before we proceed to opening before we proceeded to opening arguments, it was nonnegotiable for us that the senate at least consider the question of evidence, witnesses, and documents, and the rules of a fair trial. I publicly offered to delay some of the votes until today to spare everyone from staying late. But leader mcconnell was so unwilling to let the trial of President Trump go on for one session longer than he had planned, he declined to delay any votes. It seems the only reason senator mcconnell refused to move votes back a day is because it would interfere with the timeline he promised the president. Not whats a fair trial, not whats letting the American People hear what they have to hear, but just what President Trump, the defendant here, wanted. Now, if theres one thing we learned from the series of votes on the senate floor, its that leader mcconnell and Senate Republicans dont want a fair trial that considers all the evidence. On four separate votes, every Senate Republican voted against requesting relevant documents for the trial. On three other votes, every Senate Republican voted against calling relevant witnesses before the senate. Republican senators even voted against amendments that made basic, fair, procedural fixes, one that prohibited the white house from selectively leaking documents, and another giving both parties a reasonable time to respond to motions. Even those they opposed. At the very end of the night, every Senate Republican rejected senator van hollens amendment to place the question of witness relevancy in the hands of the chief justice and voted down an amendment to guarantee the consideration of witnesses and documents later in the trial. That particular amendment, the one that would guarantee votes on witnesses and documents revealed the charade that the republicans are participating in here. All along republicans have said its not that we dont want witnesses and documents, we just want to vote on them later. We explained why that made no sense from a trial perspective. It meant that presentations could not rely on this important evidence, that senators cannot ask questions about this evidence and can only decide on this crucial question once the trial is basically over. Weve been calling it alice in wonderland trial. But even then, leader mcconnells resolution allows only one vote on whether motions to subpoena witnesses and documents are in order. He amended it, different from the clinton situation. The clinton impeachment. Only one vote on whether to have witnesses and documents, not a vote on witnesses and documents, merely a vote on whether to have a debate about having a vote on witnesses and documents. When we offered an amendment to actually guarantee votes on witnesses and documents after the question period, after the presentations, instead of one vague procedural motion, every single republican said no. So when they say, oh, they want to make sure well vote on witnesses and documents later, their votes belie that. The bottom line is this, the very first thing the American People saw when they tuned in to the impeachment trial of President Trump was republican senators voting against having a fair trial with relevant evidence. Its clear that the American People overwhelmingly support a fair trial and overwhelmingly support witnesses and documents. So it was a dark day and a dark night for the senate. As a consequence, the impeachment trial of President Trump begins with a cloud hanging over it. A cloud of unfairness. Democrats will seek additional votes on witnesses and documents down the line. Yesterday we put the spotlight on the number one issue in having a fair trial, witnesses and documents. Thats just where the spotlight belonged. And i predict that as a result, that spotlight will continue to focus on witnesses and documents and the pressure will continue to build on republican senators. As we saw yesterday, leader mcconnell was forced to tweak his organizing resolution before it was even offered with modifications scrawled in the margins after several Senate Republicans agreed with democratic objections. Im glad a few of leader mcconnells most egregious proposals were expunged, but let me point out the fact that mcconnell had to change his resolution showed that republicans can make this trial more fair if they want to. Its not a question of ability, they can, if they want. Its a question of conscience. Senate republicans have the power in their hands to make it a fair trial. Will they use it when it matters . The next real test will come after q a when we revisit the issue of witnesses and documents. I want to make one final point. The house managers made a very clear and compelling case not only on the glaring need for evidence but also on the gravity of the president s offenses. In stark contrast, the White House Defense were unprepared, confused and totally unconvincing. White House Counsel resorted to the kind of histrionics you see on fox news evening broadcasts rather than any soberminded argument that could persuade thoughtful senators. On multiple occasions they made discreet and demonstrable factual errors. The president is always loose with the truth and it seems his lawyers are the same way. Most telling of all, white House Counsel were far more preoccupied with making inflammatory and inaccurate statements about house managers than providing an actual defense of the president s conduct. This does not bode well for the president s case if this pattern continues over the course of the trial. Senator murray. Well, thank you, senator schumer. Were going to break away from the press conference and talk about what we just heard from the Senate Minority leader, democrat Chuck Schumer, who was talking about the votes last night. There were 11 amendments that democrats proposed and all of them were shot down on pretty much a partyline vote every time, 5347. There was one exception when Susan Collins joined the democrats. But to look at the list, it is a list of trying to get white house materials, trying to subpoena state department records, office of management and budget records, to subpoena Mick Mulvaney, the acting white house chief of staff, subpoena pentagon documents, subpoena senior white house aide robert blair, who is the chief aide of acting white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, to prevent selective admission of evidence, to subpoena the former National Security advisor john bolton, who has said he is willing to testify before the senate if he is subpoenaed. Even that was voted down 53 votes, 53 republicans to 47 democrats. To vote on motions to subpoena witnesses and documents and on and on. And george conway, we were talking about this earlier, but i do have to say i find it stunning that at no point, with one exception with one republican senator, did any republicans break with the caucus to say, yes, i would like to hear from john bolton, the National Security advisor, who has said hes willing to testify if subpoenaed. Its absolutely astounding and disturbing. 11 motions, not just one vote. I dont know how they can justify doing that, refusing to hear evidence on such a broad basis on an absolute basis and be compliant with their oaths. I just dont understand it at all. Do you think it my change after the opening arguments from both sides . It should be apparent right now how much of that is relevant and pertinent to the issues at hand, because they know that john bolton was blocked from testifying by the white house. They know that mulvaney was blocked by the white house from testifying and that mulvaney went out to the public and admitted there was a quid pro quo. And they know that all of this evidence is relevant. Now, if they had said, well, lets just do some of it because we may not need all of it and well vote on some of it later. That might have been a reasonable thing to do. But to vote no on every single one of them . Its crazy. Well, their point is, and rick scott said it, we talked about this a little before, is that this isnt our job, okay . This was the houses job. Theyre supposed to do that. Thats the message of the day because a bunch of republican senators, i believe ron johnson has said it. Were not going to make their case for them. Their job is to let the evidence come in. Their job is to listen to the evidence, not block it. Right. This isnt hard. It shouldnt be hard. So President Trump is in davos and he gave a press conference. One of the quotes he said that hes comfortable with the status of the trial so far because, quote, honestly we have all the material. They dont have the material. I mean some people have pointed out hes again saying the quiet part out loud. George was making the point earlier, im not a lawyer, someone whos covered politics for a long time. If you looked at the presentations from the house managers and the presentations from the white House Counsel, even your incoming from most republicans is they believe the house managers were more compelling, were more fact based, were better performers, which matters when youre talking about Public Opinion as well as swaying senators. But what you just mentioned, you just went through the math. All the president s team needs to do is keep the math where it is. The senate does not convict, nowhere near as many republicans break, maybe they get no witnesses, maybe one witness. The president s plan is to keep the math where it is. So he will say we have all the forks. I bring up the files. The information is not good for the president. Its up for the senate to decide whether its an impeachable ochk offense. But Rudy Giuliani running a free lance operation with lev parnas who the president calls a con man. Then ywhy is your personal attorney routinely doing business with this man overseas. But the president is just trying to keep the choir at practice. If he keeps the math where it is by keeping the call was perfect, the information is on our side, it works. We can fact check it till the sun comes up and down and they propose 27 more amendments, but so far it is working so theyre not going to change it. Let me ask you a question, george. Lev parnas being a con man. Didnt john dowd, i think he was then the acting attorney for guiliani, didnt he file a document saying lev parnas was on the president s legal team as part of the guiliani team . Right, he did. He did. No, its incredible. To go back to the point well, birds of a feather, lets be serious here. But to go back to the point about the documents or the materials all being on trumps side. Well, they actually arent. He tried to make that the case but a lot of these witnesses decided to testify, notwithstanding the directions they received from the white house. And these foia requests are being and they provided some of their emails and text messages. But that shows you what his strategy is, which is exactly as john said, is we dont want anything more. We want to keep the rest of it to ourselves so nobody will see it because they know its going to affect the numbers adversely. I keep reading the transcript the president says is perfect. Marie yovanovitch, you can disagree with her decisions in ukraine, but the president of the United States telling the newly elected president of ukraine, well, shes going to go through some things. The u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. A career diplomat who is known, who is known, ive said this before. Its very hard to have conderie rice and susan rice both like you. But shes viewed as someone who fights corruption. A woman in that part of the world who stands up to vladimir putin. Again, if the president has issues with her, the president is the boss. But to say to the new president of another country shes going to go through some things. Weve learned other information since then. And the democrats putting on a case yesterday i think in a way people didnt think would happen. It was sort of a lot of amendments, obviously, a lot of talk about procedure, but they kind of brought the highlights, the cliff notes from their house trial which was a very smart thing. People are tuning in, its the first day so you bring in fiona hills testimony. The idea that it was a political domestic errand, bring in vindmans testimony, text messages. Theres a cable, right, where is the cable. So they had a great day i think yesterday, the democrats did. But to johns point so did republicans because once again they all hung together, right . I think this is a preview of what we might see. So far the republicans are holding it together well. Well see what happens in the coming days. Theres a lot more we need to assess. President trump dodges a key question on whether abuse of power is an Impeachable Offense. It comes as were getting access for the first time to newly discovered memos from his attorney general bill barr and reveals a major contradiction with the president s stance. Well be right back. Diarrhea . Pepto diarrhea to the rescue. Its 3x concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. The leading competitor only treats symptoms it does nothing to kill the bacteria. Treat diarrhea at its source with pepto diarrhea. I dont have to worry about that, do i . Harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. Crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. It works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. Gum detoxify, from crest. President trump is on his way back to washington from davos, switzerland, where he attended the World Economic forum. Before leaving, he offered a review of day one of his impeachment trial calling it a hoax but adding that hed love to be there in person. Will you show up at your trial any day . Id love to go. Wouldnt that be great . Wouldnt that be beautiful . Id love to sit right in the front row and stair in their corrupt faces. Id love to do it. Kaitlin collins joins me now with more. So the president , kaitlin has tweeted and retweeted dozens of time before he even left davos. Has he talked to his legal team . Reporter yeah, were hearing from sources that the president did speak with his legal team late last night, as that debate on the senate floor was wrapping up early in the morning in switzerland where the president was. He told them he had been watching this debate play out on the senate floor in between his meetings with World Leaders at that Economic Forum. He said he was impressed with their performance. He especially liked what jay sekulow and Pat Cipollone were saying. You saw at times they got in very heated exchanges with House Democrats. Now the president is on his way back to washington. His legal team right now is meeting here at the white house before they do go to capitol hill for those Opening Statements. We saw Pat Cipollone arriving and going into the west wing earlier. You can see him getting out of this suburban. And theyre going to be on capitol hill today of course while the House Republicans that the president has named to his Impeachment Team are working out of the white house getting ready for their rapid response. Before the president left switzerland this morning, he did an impromptu press conference that was not on his schedule and we were not expecting. While he answered questions, he talked about one of the most contentious debates we watched over that subpoena for john bolton. His answer was incredibly revealing. Listen to what he said when he was asked about john bolton coming forward and talking about what he knows about everything thats going on with ukraine. The problem with john is that its a National Security problem, you know. You cant have somebody whos at National Security and if you think about it, john, he knows some of my thoughts. He knows what i think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what i think about a certain leader and its not very positive and that i have to deal on behalf of the country. Its going to be very hard. Its going to make the job very hard. He knows other things. I dont know if we left on the best of terms. I would say probably not, you know. And so you dont like people testifying when they didnt leave on good terms and that was due to me, not due to him. Reporter saying you dont want someone testifying when they left the white house on bad terms. A pretty striking answer from the president making clear hed be worried about what bolton would testify about and of course something really rare there, seeing the president say bolton left on bad terms because of him, not because of bolton, which is not something weve heard the president say since john bolton did leave the white house. Kaitlin collins, thanks. One of the key arguments from the defense is that abuse of power is not an Impeachable Offense. President trump himself in davos, switzerland, this morning saying, well, it sort of depends. Is abuse of power an Impeachable Offense . Well, youre going to talk to the lawyers about it, but i will tell you, theres nothing here. The best lawyers in the world have looked at it. The department of justice has looked at it, given it a signoff. There was nothing wrong. For future president s, is abuse of power an Impeachable Offense . Well, it depends. But if you take a look at this and from what everybody tells me is, im modesaud honest and mak deals. Attorney general bill barr back when he was still in private practice actually argued that, yes, abuse of power is impeachable in a then confidential 2018 memo. Heres what he wrote. Quote, the fact that the president is answerable for any abuses of discretion and is subject to the judgment of congress through the impeachment process means that the president is not the judge in his own cause. Barr goes on to site a 1982 Supreme Court case saying impeachment demonstrates that the president remains accountable under law for his misdeeds in office. Jeff to bein, contradictory . Well, yeah, it is contradictory. Remember, this is an issue thats going to come up a lot as the real trial begins, which s z can an Impeachable Offense be abuse of power other than an actual crime. Alan dershowitz has argued and hes going to be arguing to the senate that you need to have an actual crime, or what he calls a criminallike behavior, which im not sure i understand what that is. But the house managers position, which is supported by the vast majority of academics, is that abuse of power, that the president using the enormous power that he has in a way that is contrary to the constitution but not a criminal offense is also an Impeachable Offense. The president seemed to suggest there that he agrees with the house managers, that an Impeachable Offense can be an abuse of power under some circumstances, but thats a debate were going to have a lot over the next few days. Tim . Im not a lawyer, but i spent a lot of time reading the diaries of nixon supporters, southern democrats and republicans who ultimately decided to vote for impeachment and they dealt with this issue of abuse of power. They thought does it have to be a crime. They decided that, no. The concept of high crimes and misdemeanors means a crime against the state. And if the president uses power in a way that corrupts our system of government, then they should be impeached. So they said even if its not a crime that we would recognize in a court, its a crime against the state. And so it seems to me that you have you have lots of precedent in president ial impeachment crises of people deciding that in fact abuse of power does not require a crime. Thats why Richard Nixon would have been impeached for using the irs against americans. Not necessarily a crime if done by the president , but he was doing it for political purposes. Its also worth remembering that in the late 18th century when the constitution was written, there was no such thing as a federal criminal code in the way that we have one today. So the idea that the framers had some sort of checklist of treason, bribery and other federal crimes, they didnt because there was no such thing. They have to be careful in the sense that not to make the phrase abuse of power to be so vague and not be able to prove some clear delineation, some clear context that says how can a president in the future avoid this type of behavior because the whole prospect of having an impeachment is to deter future bad behavior as well and to let people know who may be running for office at all Different Levels to say here is the kind of behavior that you cannot engage in, whether its a criminal code attachment or not. So the risk they will run is the defense team for trump will say its just so vague. Its so vague as to give carte blanche, any Time Congress does not like what the president does to wave the flag of abuse of power. In return the house managers will have to say, no, no, here is what a clear instance of abuse of power is. The inability to hand over funds that have been appropriated. Heres why it was a problem, heres what you can avoid in the problem and not have that vague concept. Its an important point. I think were confusing a few concepts. The notion of is abuse of power an Impeachable Offense or not i think is a red herring. There are egregious abuses of power and trifling abuses of power. So whether it is or whether its not i think misses the point. And in terms of whether it has to be a criminal offense or not, its notable, the white house lawyers argue that it does. I read dershowitz now as saying that not necessarily it doesnt. The bottom line is, as tim said, it has to be something thats incredibly egregious, that goes to the heart of our government, of our democracy, that impairs the ability of the official to continue in office and, like laura says, it has to be clear. Now, normally that would be a crime. Thats something that would be a crime. But not necessarily a crime. And i think thats the focus. Does it meet those criteria. Were going to take a quick break. Still ahead, one of the president s most loyal backers, congressman mark meadows, joins cnn live. Well talk about his role in advising the Trump Defense team. To be honest a little dust it never bothered me. Until i found out what it actually was. Dust mite droppings eeeeeww dead skin cells gross so now, i grab my swiffer sweeper and heavyduty dusters. Duster extends to three feet to get all that gross stuff gotcha and for that nasty dust on my floors, my sweepers on it. The textured cloths grab and hold dirt and hair no matter where dust bunnies hide. No more heebie jeebies. Phew. Glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. But how do i know if im im getting a good deal . I tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if im getting a great price. This is how car buying was always meant to be. This is truecar. Woi felt completely helpless. Hed online. 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Great to be with you. Thank you, from north carolina. Youre also a member of the president s legal team. I could say it is extremely bright up here. I tell you what, were going to bring a bright light to the capitol behind us but weve got it out here today. Exactly, exactly. You are a member of the president s defense team, as are several of your other fellow House Republicans. The president was in davos during the first day. You spoke with him. What is his feeling so far . Well, i think for most americans, they agree with the president that they want to get this over with. Certainly hes been monitoring it and so while hes talking about the great economy at davos and how hes helping the american worker, hes certainly connecting and making sure that he stays connected with the defense team. I think probably the frustrating thing was all the different amendments that were given at 2 00 in the morning before it got over with. I think everybody wants to get to the facts of the case and say does it support impeachment or not. Okay. So on that note, what the house managers and the Senate Democrats argue that they were doing until 2 00 in the morning is trying to do that, is trying to get the facts that the white house has been withholding, the witnesses that the white house has not let come up and testify. Dana, thats a false narrative. Youve covered it. I was in the scif with adam schiff. I wasnt there. You were down there covering it and you know what they have done. If they were serious about witnesses, if they were truly serious about witnesses, not only would they have subpoenaed the witnesses they want and left those subpoenas in place but they withdrew those. But heres the other interesting thing. They somehow believe that their perfect case, you know, when they look at it, they have an undisputable case. Their words, not mine. And yet here we get to the senate and now theyre wanting more witnesses well, but they lets talk about witnesses in a second. Lets just talk about some of the documents and the information that they say could and should bolster their case. Well, could is the key word. They dont know because they havent been able to see them. What they argue you dont impeach a president and then go on a fishing expedition in the senate. Its just not the way our constitution is set up, dana. Well, but how do we know that . The constitution allows for the senate to work there arent specific prescriptions for how the trial it is their job to investigate. But when it comes to the trial, if you are a juror, republican or democrat, why not get as much information so that you can make the right decision based on all of the facts, not just the facts that the white house wants to provide or not provide because perhaps theyre worried about what it would do for their case . Thats saying theyre guilty until proven innocent and thats not who we are as americans. Hold on, let me answer your question. Do you think withholding it suggests that hes guilty . If hes not guilty, why not give it over . Because thats suggesting that someone is guilty without the facts. Heres what we do know. We know that indeed the house has a job to investigate. If they wanted additional facts, additional witnesses, then what they shouldnt have done is impeached 30 days ago right before christmas. Why the rush . Weve got an election coming up in november, but yet here they are trying to make a compelling case on the senate floor that somehow their case that they believe is iron clad is not iron clad, they need more witnesses, more evidence, and heres the interesting thing. Its a false narrative. We already have president zelensky saying he wasnt pressured. We have five different people that actually have had direct communication with the president of the United States that said that theres no crime here and theres no Impeachable Offense. Congressman, i want to read this to you because this is what the white house put out on that issue. Okay. President zelensky says thank you so much for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically where most were almost ready to buy more javelins from the United States for defense purposes. The president then says, i would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot, so on and so forth. Right. When the president of ukraine talks about defense and then the president of the United States then goes into, i would do us a favor, though. Youre talking to somebody who understands that a lot better than anybody. So for the American People theres such a power discrepancy between the president of ukraine. You asked me a question so let me respond. So heres the answer to that. When were talking about selling javelin, and thats what that was, it was not ukrainian aid, because the ukrainian aid was a totally separate thing. That was about selling javelins and letting the ukrainians pay for that. Thats a totally different process that is not even part of this impeachment process. And you dont think the president of ukraine could have taken that as well, he said he didnt. I dont think okay. So now youre saying the president of ukraine is lying about it . Im not saying hes lying. What do you expect him to say . He wants the money and he wants to be on good terms with the president. It has nothing to do with the money. I want to make that enclosure to the viewers, that particular statement was about ukraine buying javelins. By the way, the only javelins they ever got was under the Trump Administration and not the Obama Administration. I want to change to Something Else because you mentioned this and this was a big part of your broader defense on that senate floor which is jay sekulow saying basically how can you say that you dont have everything you want when you rushed through, you didnt go to the courts. If you want something from us that we dont think is proper, go to the courts and ask. Very at the same time, the Trump Administration is arguing in front of federal court that they have no access to anything that they are looking at. This is a different case but more broadly. So theyre saying go to the court. On the executive privilege issues. On the one hand theyre saying in the building behind us go to court. Right. But the people here who are prosecuting this case know full well that the administration is saying in court you have no access to this information. So isnt it a bit of a contradiction . Its not a contradiction because now what we have is adam schiff saying that hes not going to get a fair shake from the executive branch but hes also saying hes not going to get a fair shake from the judiciary branch. How many more people can he blame for him not having the evidence to bring forth to the American People and try. This it would be a more credible argument had they actually subpoenaed john bolton and left those subpoenas in place and working through the judiciary. But what they were afraid of is that they would get a response from the judiciary that sided with the president so they withdrew it. One last question. Yeah, sure. The latest cnn poll shows that 7 in 10, 69 , say that there should be more information if needed and new witnesses. Yeah. Do you feel comfortable given that let me ask you this way. Why not allow john bolton to testify . Well, i mean if were going to look and others . Listen, when we start to look at it, the executive privilege aspect of that, i dont know that john bolton has anybody to add. Why not let him try, then . We can. Lets take the impeachment articles back, lets go back to the house. I was there. You know, heres what weve done. Weve actually put forth a case to be tried and then all of a sudden were saying, well, we want more people to come in to bolster a case that is flawed to begin with. You dont do that, not to the president of the United States, but more importantly not to the American People. And so thats my issue with it. At the same time, what thats saying is if theres 7 in 10 that want more witnesses, it means theres 7 in 10 that believe theres not enough evidence to convict this president of impeachment. Im not sure thats the way the question was asked. Thats the way i interpret it. Im sure you would. Thanks, congressman. Thank representative meadows for us as well. George, what did you think about this republican congressman whos a member of the president s legal team . Again, its the same garbage all over again. Oh, they should have called bolton. Well, it would have been nice for them to call bolton, nice of them to subpoena bolton if they could have got bolton to comply with the subpoena. He wasnt going to do that in a reasonable amount of time. Theres nothing that requires whether youre a prosecutor getting an indictment before a grand jury or the house of representatives seeking to charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors through articles of impeachment, theres nothing that requires them to hear all the evidence. They only need to hear enough of the evidence that allows them to make the judgment that they have a case that they can prove. And they did that. And the place to prove the case is the senate. And thats why were here. Now theyre blocking the evidence again. George, what do you make of the argument, we hear this frequently from the president s defenders, and its accurate, that he, the president says there was no pressure and ukraine president zelensky says there was no pressure put on him to do these investigations. You have to feel for president zelensky. Hes in a difficult situation. He needs United States aid. Thats why he was willing to go on to Fareed Zakarias show to basically announce these investigations the way the president wanted him to. And now he has to be fearful that, you know, the Republican Senate is going to vote 5347 to acquit and President Trump is still going to be president. He might even get reelected. I dont think so, but he might and hes got to make nice to the president. Everyone knows hes a vindictive man, President Trump. Ask the people of puerto rico whose Public Officials criticized the way aid was handled to puerto rico and what does President Trump do . He puts the kabash on the aid the way he did with ukraine. So zelensky is just playing it smart. Everybody stand by. Still ahead, newly uncovered emails shedding new light on when the Trump Administration moved to hold military aid to ukraine and who knew about it. Were live up on capitol hill at the start of opening arguments in the senate trial is only an hour away. W brow f ulpt fro maybe. For natural brows. In one step. Mini brush. Tinted gel. For natural brows made easy. New brow fast sculpt. Only from maybelline new york. Whwhat do you see . He world, we see patterns. Relationships. When you use location technology, you can see where things happen, before they happen. With esri location technology, you can see what others cant. I am not for ignoring the first sign of a cold. I am for shortening my cold, with zicam zicam is completely different. Unlike most other cold medicines, zicam is clinically proven to shorten colds. I am a zifan for zicam oral or nasal. 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Expect better. Expect hilton. President trumps impeachment trial set to get under way in just under an hour. In davos where hes attending an Economic Forum he weighed in about the advantage he think they have over democrats. They never thought we would release it. When we released this conversation, all hell broke out with the democrats. They said, wait a minute, this is different than shifty schiff told us. Were doing very well. I got to watch enough. I thought our team was doing a good job. Honestly, we have all the material. They dont have the material. Well talk about that in a second. One of the House Democratic managers, val demings, said the president not only just confessed about obstructing congress but bragging about obstructing congress. Well have all of that in just a moment. Provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. Fixodent. And forget it. Robinwithout the commission fees. So, you can start investing today wherever you are even hanging with your dog. So, what are you waiting for . Download now and get your first stock on us. Robinhood. When youyou spend lessfair, and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. Shop everything home at wayfair. Com when you take align, you have the support of a probiotic and the gastroenterologists who developed it. Align helps to soothe your occasional digestive upsets, 24 7 with a strain of bacteria you cant get anywhere else. You could say align puts the pro in probiotic. So, where you go, the pro goes. Go with align, the pros in digestive health. And try align gummies, with prebiotics and probiotics to help support digestive health. Welcome back to our special coverage of the impeachment trial of President Trump. The house managers have 23 hours over the course of the next two days to make the case on the abuse of congress. I know you talked to some republican senators about possibility of witnesses in this trial. Reporter from the Republican Leadership, they are hardening against bringing in witnesses. Mitch mcconnell made that clear yesterday. But a lot of his top allies and elsewhere are making clear they dont believe it makes sense to move forward with witnesses. They argue the democrats arguments case for subpoenas these witnesses. I think the record is pretty complete. We will listen to arguments tomorrow and the next day and day after that and get to it presumably sometime this week. Was the tone helpful . I dont think so. Particularly toward the end there, nadler was especially partisan. Thats not helpful to their cause, frankly. Our side has not changed our view on this. House democrats failed yesterday and maybe Senate Democrats failed, was trying to use the time in a way that would wear us out or the chief justice out and denis any response this week. Chuck schumer said they were not trying to wear the members out and willing to punch some amendments that stretched after midnight until today but Mitch Mcconnell did not agree. Were hearing from our sources Mitch Mcconnell wants to wrap up this trial within two weeks time frame, anderson. One way to do just that is to deny any witnesses going forward. We saw the first tactic and expect a more aggressive argument from Republican Leadership against witnesses and we will see if any republicans break ranks. A senator sitting in on the trial joins us next. Achoo . Do your sneezes turn heads . Try zyrtec. It starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Zyrtec muddle no more. I was told to begin my aspirin regimen, blem. And i just didnt listen. Until i almost lost my life. My doctors again ordered me to take aspirin, and i do. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. Listen to the doctor. Take it seriously. You cant always stop for a fingerstick. Betes with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you dont have to. With a painless, onesecond scan you can check your glucose with a smart phone or reader so you can stay in the moment. No matter where you are or what youre doing. Ask your doctor for a prescription for the freestyle libre 14 day system. You can do it without fingersticks. Learn more at freestylelibre. Us. Johnsbut were also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. From the day youre born we never stop taking care of you. Im wolf blitzer live in washington alongside jake tapper and Anderson Cooper and dana bash. This is the special impeachment trial of donald j. Trump. We will hear from majority leader and minority leader. There was nearly a 13 hour session yesterday and what happens after that, we will bring it to you all live. When theyre done in todays trial, gavels into the session, of john roberts, will hear house managers prosecuting the case against President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress. They will have 24 hours, a stretch across three days, to make their case. And senator Chris Van Hollen from the state of maryland, you proposed an amendment to allow chief roberts to rule on subpoenas witnesses to see if they were likely relevant. The republicans defeated it. Could you explain to our viewers what it does in terms of laymens terms . Good to be with you, jay and wolf. This was last minute amendment at 1 30 a. M. It was an amendment intended to make sure that we had impartial justice in the United States senate. What better way to make it impartial than to give the chief justice of the United States the responsibility of making the first ruling on requests for witnesses or documents, so either side could say to chief justice, heres the witness we want to call, whether john bolton or Mick Mulvaney or witnesses the republicans want to call, and the chief justice would look whether or not that witness had relevant information to the articles and make a ruling. The senate would still be able, by a majority vote to overrule it. At least in the first instance wed have an independent ruling from the chief justice just like trial judges in trials everyday across america make these important questions about what kind of important evidence should come in. Republicans showed they did not want an impartial trial when they voted that down. They voted that down. They voted down all the amendments in order to subpoena to get information and documents so far have not been released to the house, senate or the public. I want you to take a listen to President Trump, who weighed in about the impeachment trial earlier today. He said this. They never thought we were going to release it. When we released that conversation, all hell broke out with the democrats. They say, wait a minute, this is much different than shifty schiff told us. So were doing very well. I got to watch enough, i thought our team did a very good job. Honestly, we have all the material. They dont have the material. We have all the material, they dont have the material. Whats your reaction to that, sir . That was an obvious confession by the president of the United States theyre holding onto very sensitive information, material that will likely expose the president s wrongdoing, which is exactly why the president ordered his entire administration not to cooperate and why theyve not provided a single document in response to subpoenas, why theyve not allowed a single witness come forward, tried to block the white house witnesses. Here, you have the president of the United States saying, hey, i have a lot more evidence and im not going to give it to you. The real question for republican senators, when they hear that kind of thing, are they really going to be coconspirators with the president , in burying Important Information we should have in order to have a fair trial. Senator, the Washington Post is reporting some democrats are considering whats being described as a witness trade, john bolton, for example, for other top officials, hunter or joe biden or both. Is that the case . Are there these conversations going on behind the scenes . Wolf, im not aware of any active discussion like that. The whole purpose of the amendment i put forward last night essentially required the chief justice to rule in the first instance was address exactly these kind of issues, lets have an impartial individual make these decisions. This is the top judicial officer in the United States. He was nominated by a republican president. If republicans want to call someone like a hunter biden by the way, while individual republicans may have talked about that, Mitch Mcconnell and the Republican Caucus have never said they want to do that. If they wanted to make that case, they would say to the chief justice, heres why we want to call hunter biden. As adam schiff point out, hunter biden knows zero about the entire abuse of power scheme the president engaged in, but they can make that argument to the chief justice, just like the house managers say to the chief justice, heres why we want Mick Mulvaney and why we believe he would be a material witness. Thats how you address this in a fair and impartial manner if youre not trying to rig the trial or cover up the evidence. What did you think of the president s legal team on the senate floor yesterday . Well, their Opening Statements included incredible misrepresentation, some false statements. I will say the first thought that went through my mind when they were speaking, we actually should be swearing in under oath under penalty of perjury, the president s counsel, and im sure the house managers would be willing to agree. The statements that came out of the white House Counsels mouths early on were totally untrue and misleading to the United States senate. It sounded a lot more to me like they were at a trump rally than a trial in the United States senate. Theyre obviously speaking to an audience of one. The big question is whether republican senators are responding to an audience of one or whether theyre responding to their duty under the constitution of the United States and their duty to the American People for a fair trial. Senator Chris Van Hollen, democrat from maryland, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you. Lets talk about all this. George, let get your reaction. We saw that clip from President Trump. He first suggests democrats, when he actually revealed the rough transcript of that phone call with zelensky, democrats were disappointed in some way. My impression, democrats were not disappointed, they were stunned the president released it. Then the president went on to say we have all the materials, they dont have any materials. The first whistle lie is a baldfaced lie. The transcript not transcript call memo matched up exactly what the whistleblower complaint said. In fact, the director of National Intelligence even said that. Exactly. What was the phrase in the law, urgent and concerned. Everyone was shocked by he actually did this. Hes rewriting history there and pretending everybody else thought it was a perfect call. The only people think that is him and people been gas lit by him. Every so often this pathological liar who is the president of the United States sometimes says something thats true. This was partially true in the sense that hes admitting there that his strategy is to keep the materials from coming up. Its not quite true they have all the materials. The materials are seeping out. Some of the materials swore and raised their right hand and testified before the house. Whats going to happen is more material will keep coming out. This stuff, unless somebody is engaging in massive wiping of hard drives and burning documents, this stuff is going to be coming out for a long time. If youre adam schiff and youre speaking today, arent you going to use this . Absolutely. In terms of talking about obstruction of congress, we have all the material, they dont have the material and say, give us the material, this is what were asking for, the material, whatever that is. The president is actually not a very smart man. What he did here, hes undercutting the arguments he needs to make to keep the material from coming out. Exactly. Exactly. Hes not really hes not able to think one step beyond whats coming out of his mouth at any given moment. Hes not that smart. Thats what he did here. Hes undercutting his own defense. What do you think of this trade possibility, john bolton for hunter biden . Its complete nonsense. The notion that ill say it right here. I think hunter biden. Lets impeach hunter biden and do that separately on a separate track. Hunter biden, as senator van hollen said, has no relevance to this trial. Its not relevant whether or not hunter biden did anything wrong. Whats relevant to the extent anything is relevant is the president s state of mind. Why did he ask, do us a favor . Why did he do that . And if he wrongly believed hunter biden committed some great wrong that needed to be investigated, well, thats admissible evidence, but the person to testify was donald j. Trump. If this was a legitimate investigation, first, you wound have been asking for an announcement, it would have been something done well before joe biden announced for the presidency and done it through official legitimate channels, which he didnt do. John, let me ask you. The very fact that donald trump, President Trump, just bragged, we have all the material, they dont have the material, while hes being impeached in part, for blocking congress from getting material, material every member of the house and senate, whether they support the president or not, knows is germane to what the president did or did not do, whether exculpatory or not, the very fact that he says that, how does a republican senator just ignore it . How does a republican senator pretend it doesnt mean anything when hes in the middle of a trial and one of the reasons hes being tried is for blocking documents and he just bragged about that. One of the reasons Mitch Mcconnell wants to have this trial over as soon as possible is so they dont keep getting asked these questions. The democrats smartly played the clip at least twice yesterday saying there is this thing called article 2, i can do anything i want. He doesnt get to do anything he wants. He gets to do a lot but doesnt get to do anything he wants. This is very consistent of the president. This is his view of his power. Thats what this is about. This is his view of his power. The question is and why today is so important. Democrats failed yesterday. They failed on the votes. They think they succeeded on planting the seeds. We will see. Its incumbent on the house managers presenting their case and there was some redundancy yesterday they did on purpose bringing the facts in, can they convince republicans to vote differently next time . Can they convince enough republicans to vote differently next time. Yesterday was a setback for democrats and a victory for Mitch Mcconnell. We talked about that. Its a tradition in washington, you support the leader on procedural votes. You join the club, youre almost required to support the leader on procedural votes. Its a big deal to buck your leader out of the box. Mcconnell told them, i need your votes out of the box. Republicans need to control this trial to begin with. He cant lose on day one. He won. You wont get rick scott or john thune. Can you get lisa collins, susan murkowski, garden, alexander, look at that group. Adding this unpredictable factor. We saw it in the impeachment hearings with Marie Yovanovitch as she was testifying, and you saw adam schiff fold that into the conversation and hearing. Here he is doing the same thing. The thinking was, get him as far away as possible, send him overseas where hes with these Business Leaders and he was doing some of that. One of the reasons why they want this over as soon as possible. Him. Mcconnell has asked him, we have seen this in every big legislature. Not just any piece of legislation, mcconnell consistently asks him when there are controversial things before the senate, please stay quiet. One of the things we should also be paying attention to, and you started talking about this, is the schumer strategy, which is they were saying this a lot yesterday, which is, there is no vindication for the president in a sham trial. What schumer is trying to do by holding all these votes, this is a coverup, thats their words, this is a sham, and they can make the case to the American Public hen the president comes out and impeachment is not successful in the senate, the president comes out and says, i was vindicated, they can say, no, you werent, because we didnt get the evidence and therefore it is a sham. That is what schumer is trying to dig in here. A quick thing on hunter biden. If you dont like joe biden, you can certainly ask the question how did the Obama Administration let joe biden be in charge of the ukrainian portfolio for his son . You can ask that question, is that the way to do business, thats fine . Its not germane to the issue of impeachment now. I said it before, the republicans were in charge of the house from 2013 to 2018. They were not charge of their oversight. If they wanted to call somebody, they had the right in the house for six years and didnt do it and they had the right in the senate right now. Thats because in order to defend the president s conduct, a lot of these individuals, since they are not willing to say, look, what the president did is wrong, i just dont think its impeachable and doesnt rise to the level. They are not willing to say that for whatever reason, its not reality. This is the only instance we know of he was ever asked about corruption and even in the rough transcript the word corruption does not come up. That does not come up with republican senators. And he did not even raise that. Those were in his talking points, which he ignored. President trumps impeachment trial is about to resume, day two. Democrats trying to make a case the president of the United States is unfit for office. Youre watching cnns live coverage of the impeachment of president donald j. Trump. Unlike most other cold medicines, zicam is clinically proven to shorten colds. I am a zifan for zicam oral or nasal. 9. 95 . No way. . 9. 95 . Thats impossible. Hi, im jonathan, a manager here at Colonial Penn Life Insurance company, to tell you it is possible. If youre age 50 to 85, you can get Life Insurance with options starting at just 9. 95 a month. Okay, jonathan, im listening. Tell me more. Just 9. 95 a month for Colonial Penns number one most popular whole Life Insurance plan. There are no Health Questions to answer and there are no medical exams to take. Your acceptance is guaranteed. Guaranteed acceptance . I like guarantees. Keep going. And with this plan, your rate is locked in for your lifetime, so it will never go up. Sounds good to me, but at my age, i need the security of knowing it wont get cancelled as i get older. This is Lifetime Coverage as long as you pay your premiums. 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Two points to it is, one, the conduct hes accused of, was perfectly appropriate, no Impeachable Offense. This is not something a high crime and misdemeanor, an argument the president behaved appropriately. Thats one group of arguments. The other argument is the house of representatives didnt do its job, they conducted an unfair process, and they didnt collect all the evidence that they needed to collect, and should have gone to court and tried to get all the evidence, not ask the senate to conduct their investigation for them. Its a procedural argument and substantive argument. We also heard comments from the president echoing what jeffrey is saying, i want to play it, sort of stunning, a rewrite of what actually occurred. They never thought we were going to release it. When we released that conversation, all hell broke out with the democrats. Because they say, wait a minute, this is much different than shifty shift told us. So were doing very well. I got to watch enough. I thought our team did a very good job. Honestly, we have all the material. They dont have the material. Its remarkable on several fronts, one, his rewriting what happened after the transcript was released, that all hell broke loose among the democrats because it was different than what adam schiff said, not factual, and what he said about we have all the material, bragging essentially about obstructing congress. Right. Thats why were here. You have all the material. They are not providing it. They cant provide their oversight function as members of congress to check the balance of powers. Youre right, mr. President , you have it. Hand it over. In many ways, its as if he missed the mark why hes here. The defense team, they are using this and capitalizing the strategy. I keep thinking about, leave the gun, take the cannoli, the reference from the godfather, leave the evidence in plain sight because i already know i tampered with it. They didnt hand over any documents or provided witnesses because they know they tampered with them for the ability to make a case. Theyre saying now its insufficient and you cant make a good case for it and we already have the material. For they are capitalizing on this notion we are going to hold you to a standard you are unable to meet and then make fun and taunt you about that. May the first child be a masculine child. It has no relevance but it is a thank you. Its a godfather reference. As somebody who represents lots of Public Officials, i think the mission for the Trump Defense lawyers is number one, theyre in very good shape right now. The president , unless something radically changes, is not getting removed. Do no harm. Mission one is do no harm. Second is the president will be accused of a bunch of things. It will be broadcast on tv and we will be talking about it. Make your case to the American People. Mission number two. Third is keep the boss calm, keep the boss calm, because if hes calm he will be less likely to go on tv and mess up rule number one, which is do no harm. I thought his comment just now was not a good one. You dont want to talk about how youve got all the evidence, all the key stuff and nobody else can see it. I think thats the mission of the Trump Lawyers right now. You have a thought on what the house managers should be doing . I think the house managers have two audiences. One, the American People and they need to explain why this matters for them. For a lot of americans, they dont have time to think about policy towards ukraine. They have to understand if the president of the United States uses his authority to try to extort someone abroad to try to get dirt on an american citizen he can do it at home. They have another audience. That audience is just as important. Those are the swing republicans. Senator thune sort of gave away that what the democrats did during most of yesterday actually was effective. When they went through document by document and explained what the American People needed to know, for the lawyers sitting in that chamber, they may not have changed their minds but they began to know new elements of the story. Many senators dont know the details. They need treat these swing republicans with respect. Even if its naive they need to believe there will be an open vote on witnesses and documents by the end of next week. Even if they dont believe it, they have to treat the senators that way. Senators who will vote for witnesses, they need to be able to tell their constituents, im not a new democrat. Im not with the democrats, im doing this for america. Democrats have to make this a nonpartisan choice. I want to stand by. House managers speak any moment. A number of senators, Amy Klobuchar obviously running for president as well, she is coming. 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Jeremy and claire are with me now. One of