discusses the role of chief justice roberts in the trial. will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. ♪ announcer: the senate impeachment trial of donald trump set to resume at 1 p.m. eastern today. senators will spend the day debating the rules that will guide the trial. the president is spending his day on the world stage in switzerland. he is made comments this morning about his trial in the senate. we will talk about all of that this morning washington journal. we want to hear from you. give us a call. phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independence (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text at (202) 748-8003. send us your name and where you are or catch up with us on facebook or twitter. very good tuesday morning to you. the impeachment trial gets underway in earnest today. we learned what that trial might look like. releasing hisl long-awaited resolution, setting the parameters for the trial. here is what it would look like. house democrats and president trump would get 24 hours to make their case. the arguments would be condensed ayso today's -- into two d that could stretch past a minute. they can submit written questions through chief justice roberts will pose those to each side. senators would then decide if they want to consider any new uments.es and doc will vote yes, they discuss the documents and witnesses they will hear and say. you will hear more about that resolution today on the floor. here is a sense of what democrats in the senate felt about it. duckworth:is, tammy kim midnight mitch. he is working with trump on the impeachment trial and violating his oath to be impartial. holding the trial at winamp -- at 1:00 a.m. shows that he is helping them perpetrate. the resolution is not one for a fair trial. they are trying to hide the evidence in the dead of night and block witnesses who know what happened. more throughout our program today on the reaction to that resolution. president trump is at the world forum and he may comments already. thatthink it is important this is a hoax. it is disgraceful. host: that was the president. we will bring you more if he has more to say about his trial. his lawyers had plenty to say. they submitted their 171 page legal brief yesterday demanding the trial be dismissed and talking with the president's argument, here is some of what that legal brief had to say under the constitution. offenses must be defined under established law and objective wrongdoing, not suppose it motives john up by a hostile faction in the house -- drawn up by a hostile faction house. a vaguely defined abuse of power bycept beyond the limits set the constitution and they should be rejected by the senate. that is the president lawyers today. . it gets underway at 1 p.m. eastern time. democrat. chicago, a your thoughts. all i can say is that this just shows the corrupt nest of the -- corruption of the republicans. nancy holdhy did back the articles? she said, we don't know what the rules are. this has been set up as a cover up. it is that simple. accept whatgoing to the house did as evidence. you have to decide whether or not to use that as evidence. i saw the post that came out this morning. people said there should be new evidence and witnesses. believe he did do those two impeachable actions but the republicans, because they are corrupt, they don't care with the american people want. host: that is carl in illinois. follow up on some of what he was talking about the resolution not accepting with the hosted. here is a little bit more on -- what the house did. here is a little bit more that. senators admitted with generated by the inquiry into president clinton but not this time. it would not be formally considered by the senate as part of its official record and would only do so if a majority vote to do that. a senior republican aide said the change this time reflected a fundamental difference in the clinton and trump cases. trial, there was evidence compiled by ken starr. conducteddemocrats the investigation themselves. trumpuse denied president proper due process rights afforded to president clinton from the new york times today. we have seen plenty of reaction i what will be debated. here is the reaction from the senate minority leader chuck schumer saying this about the resolution. it is nothing short of a national disgrace. to partmcconnell's want dramatically to prevent the senate and american people from learning the full truth about president trump's actions that warranted impeachment. they do not allow the basic step of admitting the record into the trial. the resolution stipulates the key facts be delivered in the night because he does not want the american people to hear them. any senator who puts with, conical -- a, resolution will hide from the american people. presidentrom both the and other senators to his statement. the president said chuck schumer is asking for fairness when he and democratic house members work together to make sure i got zero fairness in the house. what else is new? one other tweet from the republican from texas, chuck schumer's entire statement should have written at the top propaganda. our next colors out of texas -- john from texas. caller: i am a lifetime republican and i'm disgusted with media. how many lawyers are in the d.c. area and no one can put one plus one together? i believe in the power of the old adage that the truth shall set you free. crisis -- the hostage it started with the unconstitutional scotus ruling of citizens united. it should have been the legalization of treason act because it opened the floodgates to foreign interference just like george washington warned us about in his farewell address. the political parties would be a gateway for foreign interference. does anyone really believe that vladimir putin and the russian mob would cosign over $2 billion in loans from corrupt deutsche bank if they expected nothing in return from trump? something.hey expect look what they are getting. they have a green light for genocide, flooding euros with more refugees -- flooding europe with more refugees. this is right in front of our faces. alan dershowitz, you should be careful what you wish for. i saw you on fox saying there is no criminal action here. i think treason counts. putin kills u.s. soldiers in afghanistan by arming the taliban. play that helsinki tape in your head again of trump giving aid and comfort to our enemy. that equals treason. what does that take? 30 seconds to prove. mexicohat is john in new referring to alan dershowitz one of the members of president trump's legal teams. some news about president trump's legal team expanding including several house members after excluding house republicans. he announced monday night that eight of them would serve as his personal warriors, that is how political puts it. republican members doug collins, mike johnson, debbie lesko, arc meadows, -- mark meadows would serve as part of the team. the white house did not specify what exactly the members would be doing. politicosource told they are expected to play a more behind the scenes role with a focus on messaging and strategy. i would consider them a cause i reserve unit -- qusi unit. the political story goes on from there. if you would like to read more. ake is in south carolina, republican. startedthis impeachment on day one of his presidency. they are trying to impeach him for something that happened in 2017 and 2018. how are they going to impeach him for this before he ever did it? if trump is listening or his people are, there are four people running in the senate for president. to have mitch mcconnell a call to vote every day to keep them in washington so they cannot go out and campaign. it limits them from running for president. we all know it is a joke. they wanted to impeach him from day one. it makes no sense. before he ever did anything. he was not even president and they wanted to impeach him. host: that is mike in south carolina. you mentioned the democrats running for president who will sit on the trial. today makeson times reference to them as well. writing in the column if lady justice were truly blind, justice roberts would have been obliged to strike for democrats from the jury. as candidates for the party nomination all are running against mr. trump. they are biased against him and all stand to benefit by voting to expel him from office. some impartial justice is what they want to write. if you want to read more, that is in today's paper. this is roy out of melbourne, florida a democrat. caller: what i see right now in the senate's they are not introducing new evidence. they got the guy on tape. he cannot be right about everything. this is totally ridiculous. trump has not given one document over. not one document he has given congress. they are basically putting a overer over the -- blinder the government. like a rock. just not as bad. impeached.e host: all it takes is 51 senators to vote during that vote toof the trial to allow more witnesses, documents. do you think that will happen? chamber controlled by republicans? caller: it will never happen. there is no more republican party. you are either loyal to trump or you are not. it is pathetic. what is going on with our government, people need to open their eyes and protest. host: do you feel that way about those republicans who are being closely watched? mitt romney, susan collins, lisa murkowski? caller: they better or we are going to lose our country to a dictator. i just wanted to tell you, what's going on now is only going to get worse if they do not stop it now. him andtter to impeach put pence. i am scared something worse will happen then this. he is mentally deranged and needs help. lost all the help i had in my heart that he would do and he has let everybody down. he has given it to the 1%. it is the same old thing with him. host: we mentioned the president's lawyer submitting their brief over the weekend. the house impeachment managers also submitting their brief. here is what they had to say about the senate role and need for additional witnesses and evidence. only if the senate sees and hears all relevant evidence, insist upon the whole truth, can it render impartial justice. they should require the president to turn over the documents he is hiding, we should hear from witnesses asked him with every impeachment trial in history. we should hear from witnesses the president blocked from testifying in the house. president trump cannot have it both ways. he must surrender all evidence relevant to the fact or concede the facts as charged of the west this impeachment trial will fall short of the american system of justice. that from the house impeachment managers looking to the senate role. getting your thoughts ahead of a 1 p.m. eastern start time today on the floor of the senate. aaron in clear lake. caller: good morning. say thank youto c-span for being up this early and taking the time to help educate us on what is going on. host: i appreciate that. we tried to do that every morning. caller: i watch you as often as i can. the only way you can get an impartial view of what is going on. you see all the hyperbolic rhetoric coming from both sides. it is harming our country. the democrats have had six years now. they started investigating president trump when he was a candidate. they have had all this time and they are crying that they cannot get witnesses in time. pelosi has been holding these articles for about a month. it is this political football that is tearing our country apart at a time when we need to be unified more than ever. china, a lot of enemies, iran, north korea that we are dealing with. theseela, we have all of geopolitical things going on and our congresspeople are more worried about terry each other up instead of building the tearing ourared -- country down instead of building the country up. i feel like we should have health care for every citizen. i think that is something warren will get done. trump mentioned he wanted to do that in the past but we cannot get past the impeachment stuff to really do what is best for our country. i hope we can get past the sooner rather than later. host: you talked about the witnesses. the four witnesses democrats say they want to hear from our john mulvaney, robert blair, and michael duffey. do you think it is important to hear from one or all of them? i definitely think it is important to hear from everyone involved including the bidens. if democrats want to subpoena bolton and some other folks, we should also hear from the bidens and what was their involvement. that is what got this impeachment inquiry started. wanted investigation ukraine to investigate burisma and their involvement. we want to hear from these democratic witnesses and we should hear from the republican witnesses. i feel like this whole impeachment thing is a sham if we don't. host: is there anybody else you want to hear from yo? caller: you want to talk about the obama administration i think they did great things. maybe there are people in this should beration that subpoenaed. i just feel like there has to be -- if there are going to be witnesses from democrats, there should be witnesses from republicans. the bidens would be appropriate to have on the stand. host: thank you for the call. john is in houston, texas. a democrat, good morning. hear all ofnt to the people. mulvaney, mikeck pence, everybody on that phone call. that guys talking about the bidens. i am tired of hearing about them. about hearing about hillary's emails. it has been four or five years. fox news talked about it. host: is that a fair trade if you get to hear from -- caller: quiet! i listed a couple days ago and you let someone go on terrorizing your guest. his name was bob and you let him go on about two minutes. host: but what do you want? caller: i want those witnesses on that phone call. host: that is john in texas. city, new york republican. are you with us? caller: i am with you. hatet have to remark the that comes out of the mouth of these left-wingers. it is pathetic. saying andther had a she was talking about her son's. i am talking about the national news media that lies on a daily basis, that distorts everything this man is doing. then i am talking about the useful idiots that believe what they hear. -- only honest new station yours is honest because you allow both sides to talk -- and the fox news is the only other one. let's talk about impeachment. there is nothing there to impeach. when they went through that and shifty nadler they could not find the one witness -- every witness was asked if they had solid evidence. could produce that. this whole thing is about a phone call. the left is interpreting their opinion that trump today quid pro quo. if you listen to the transcript, which none of the news media puts out there, if you listen to that, he did not say anything about a quid pro quo. he did what a president is supposed to do. soneard about biden and his and corruption and it is his constitutional duty to protect peoplenst foreigners, who would be against america and corruption. he did his duty. they did not prove anything and we are moving onto the senate. they still have nothing, nancy is stalling. how many shots do these guys get? he has been called a traitor which is another lie. this goes on and on. there is nothing there. please, wet hope, need to have more conservatives call in and expose the lies. i could give you a list of lies. charlotte where he claimed that he liked white supremacist. he never said that. host: we are going to stick with the senate impeachment trial today. we do try to rotate through the phone lines. democrats, republicans, independents. you will hear plenty of voices from all sides as you watch this program today. you will also hear the voices via text and social media. here are several of them. john in pennsylvania, president trump is only guilty of bad judgment which does not constitute a high crime. in georgia, can we trust the senate to complete the removal process honestly echo trump has been committing crime since he started running for office. trump becauseon he picked abuses power. paul saying i cannot wait till they acquit the president so we can get on with it. joanne, only the guilty don't want witnesses. mcconnell is telegraphing he would be unfair. americans deserve a fair trial with witnesses. we will find out exactly how that trial will go today on the floor of the senate. that is when they will be debating the rules that will be governing the trial. we are getting your phone calls throughout the morning. ,emocrats (202) 748-8000 republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. faith is next out of ohio. caller: hello. can you hear me? what is your comment? trump: i think president is doing a fine job. i think it is all gossip. 80's and when i was in my girl scout we would play a game where people whisper something to each other and i think it is a gossip game. it is our responsibility as citizens to support our president. to not be so mean and cruel. we should join together and be unified, stand behind our , and to be kind to one another. i think we should be kind to our president. thank you so much. host: this is keith out of baltimore, maryland. caller: i want to talk about democrats, republicans, and independents. we are divided because the media, the rich people, the politicians come on tv every day and the democrats say something bad about the republicans and the republican say something bad about the democrats and we feed into that. but we are also suffering from their policy whether they are on the right or left. i think we need to wake up to both parties. jesse with a are doing and what is going on. what they are doing and what is going on. we need witnesses in any trial. it does look like a cover-up and it looks bad. both and let out some bombshells . we did not get to see or hear. that is all i have to say. you just need to look at these rich people and politicians and the media. host: we mentioned earlier the president has added several members to his defense team. members of the house that will be part of a messaging effort on behalf of the president. not necessarily appearing on the floor but you will hear a lot more from doug collins, jim jordan, debbie lesko, mark --dows, police stuff on it elise stefanik. those are some of the people he has added. this is doug collins wall street journal noting that throughout this sham impeachment, democrats refused republican calls by seeking redress and permitting counsel to participate in a meaningful way. the ranking member of the house judiciary wrote one thing remains clear, house democrats are focused on a self-imposed deadline and nothing can get in their way. not even the facts. could get in their way, not even the facts. there is only one path that will uphold the will of the founders and acquit the president." if you want to read more from doug collins of georgia, top republican on the judiciary committee, today's wall street journal is where you can go. laura, you are next. caller: i hope none of those people were the ones that signed a piece of paper saying they were going to be impartial and look at everything fairly. the comment the gentleman made before about the bidens, ivanka, jared, they are doing all kinds of stuff. that wasn't the comment i am calling about. i am calling because of mcconnell with these rules he made. i really do believe this man is not really that worried about donald trump as much as he is worried about his life. his wife works very closely with donald trump, has worked with him since he has been in office. is always right next to him in all the meetings. has reports that her hands at all times, she knows everything going on. i don't know why anybody hasn't picked up on this. someone called c-span a few w