Camerota and john berman. Its monday, january 20th, 6 00 here in new york. Erica hill joins me the trump impeachment trial begins tomorrow in earnest. No one has any idea how the heck the thing will be run. Mitch mcconnell has not provided the public let alone the full senate with any information about the rules he intends to propose. We do know he does not want to guarantee any witnesses. And multiple sources say he is thinking of weighing the number of days for opening arguments. It is worth noting that exactly three years ago today the president was inaugurated swearing to protect and defend the constitution president. At issue before the senate now, whether he has broken that promise. The white house has until noon today to file a legal brief on why President Trump should be acquitted. Although weve seen the beginning of that defense. Arguing he should never have been impeached in the first place. Because his conduct over ukraine is not criminal. Democrats rejecting that position a
Last, youre sensing a theme here. One thing that is known, the president s legal team is up against a deadline. They have until noon today to file a legal brief outlining their case defending President Trump. Next hour is also a deadline for the house to respond to the president s legal team. While they make their case on the senate floor starting tomorrow, we have a preview of the legal strategy of both sides. The president s legal team saying this about the two articles of impeachment passed by the house, quote, this is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election now months away. Predictably the house managers had a much different take, saying this in part of their very lengthy legal brief, President Trumps conduct is the framers worst nightmare. Lets go to washington, cnn congressional reporter lauren fox is standing by as well as sarah westwood. Youre learning more about the president s legal strategy, the team, th
There. Joining us coordinators jessica dean and ryan nobles. Lets begin with you voters focusing on mayor Pete Buttigieg and joe biden ahead of a big day. No doubt about, that poppy. Particularly the interesting part of the turn in Bernie Sanders turn in manchester and New Hampshire in general has been that focus on Pete Buttigieg. For the most part sanders i dont want to say ignored but really didnt pay that much attention to buttigieg at least publicly but the results in iowa certainly changed that. Its pretty clear from all the polling were seeing leading up to tomorrow night that buttigieg is sanders close competitor and has a realistic shot at winning here. Sanders also has found a very specific way to distinguish himself from the former Mayors Campaign and that is their donor base. Sanders has repeatedly gone after the fact that buttigieg has a lot of wealthy donors to his campaign and that Sanders Campaign has virtually no wealthy donors. Its all done by a grassroots online army
Probe. Dozens of charges. People went to charge. There was a lot there. This president arguably abused his power to protect his own interests and lied about it. Is that a crime . Mueller wasnt allowed to consider that. If you think what almost all of them say, this president arguably abused power and tried to obstruct. If thats the talk they must walk the walk. The duty is clear. Launch an impeachment inquiry. You dont investigate to see if you should investigate. Do the inquiry. Basis for articles of impeachment. Give it to the senate. Thats your job. The job is not to do what they are doing now. We have crossed a tlesh hoda. A long time ago. A threshold. What to do. All right . Mr. Mueller didnt give them a tail wind today. He said what he could say in the report. He said he couldnt charge potus. Congress has authority to prohibit a president s corrupt use of authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. All right . He said what he needed to say. If de
The president goes at muellers performance. It works. It plays to the pageantry. Let him do that. The democrats want ld a boost today they should have never needed. He told them everything he could in the report. Already. They have to make the choice. He was a reluctant witness and he knew he didnt want to be there. That shows you what she texted me. What you and i were saying thats the difference between what happens in the courtroom and on television. That hearing was about court of public opinion. In the courtroom, what you want is facts. Maybe some performance. When is dom comes to a witness. Closing. This is the evidence that was laid out. Forget if the witness was nervous or not. People are not used to be sitting there and taking questions. Hes used to answering questions. You focus on the performance. And thats what democrats wanted. They wanted a living version of the report. The book was better than the movie. Listen. I think this is what matters most. This all started about m