seemed down about it. you said when you tried to talk to your republican friends in the senate, they either tried to change the subject. they wouldn t talk about it. and you said it s been frankly quite difficult to get anyone to concede that the president s defense stands in tatters. have any of your republican friends since then told you that they might vote to convict trump. have you sensed any change? no. what s striking to me is how a number of my colleagues who when the whistleblower report was initially covered in the press said, oh, well, if that happened, that clearly would be a bad thing for america, that might well be impeachable. there s no one that i have spoken with in the republican caucus today who is saying they believe president trump committed an impeachable offense. that s because they re, i think , redefining what is an impeachable defense downward, yeah, he might have put pressure
(clapping) always there in crunch time. tonight, it was for love. the president defending giuliani s recent trip to ukraine, where giuliani continued to try to dig up dirt about president trump s political rival joe biden. he was a very great crime fighter, probably the greatest over the last 50 years, very smart, best mayor in the history of the city of new york, a great person who loves our country, and he does this out of love, believe me, he does it out of love. love or money. out front now, gloria borger, cnn political analyst, joe lock hea hearth, and mike shield, gloria let me start with you. president trump says giuliani is doing this out of love. well, i think rudy giuliani and donald trump in many ways are in all of this together.
her job, and her job was fighting corruption in order to allow rudy giuliani to inject corruption into ukraine. he is not disputing the fact witnesses who testified under oath. that s right. no, he s not. they were all saying that she was drummed out by the white house at the highest level. rudy giuliani does not work at the white house but happens to whisper in the year of somebody higher, and that is the president of the united states. it s very clear that this was part of their scheme to try and produce some evidence such as it is against joe biden, which honestly, doesn t really exist, and so, you know, it s a scheme, it seems to me, that they invented with each other, and they re in this together and everybody would like rudy giuliani to go away except for one person, and that s the president. thank you all very much. i appreciate all of you taking the time tonight, and next a
just see us do the ukraine issue, because it is so clear and it is such a clear violation of law. i don t know that it leads in any other direction except to vote yes, which is what i believe i will do, based on everything i know. you know, when he made that call to the head of ukraine, he s digging up dirt on an opponent. that s illegal conduct. haven t they already made up their minds, too? does she have the same frustration with them that you do with graham? absolutely. i like those people. they re my friends, but i think anybody who says, i don t care what the evidence shows, i don t care if there s exonerating evidence, is making a big mistake. that s why i like what senator schumer said. namely, it looks like he s guilty, it looks like the president abused his power but he should have a chance to exonerate. that s what i want. that s a fair trial. thank you very much for coming on tonight.
ukraine, and trump campaign sources, you know, they re telling us that they re worried about it, they re worried rudy is a liability for the president. why do you think, mike, that the president does not see it like that right now, i mean, clearly he doesn t. i think there s two things. first of all, the president is never going to back down. one of the reasons why the president s supporters love him so much. in their description, they saw a republican who wouldn t back down and compromise and stick to his guns through thick and thin. he has gone down a path where he wants to find out what happened with burisma, hunter biden and joe biden when he was the president of the united states. if rudy is the one who s going to find him, he s going to back him up. secondly, he believes something did happen, and he wants to find out what happened. he really believes and it looks very fishy, that things went on with hunter biden while he was vice president, and he thinks there s a counter narra