today with a final vote to convict or acquit the former president likely this afternoon except -- except overnight developments may be changing that timeline. here's why. we know for sure that when the senate comes back at 10:00 eastern, one hour from now, this is going to move fast and right out of the gate, a debate and vote on whether to call witnesses, and that is the wrench potentially because of new reporting overnight from nbc news. that reporting centering around two phone calls the then-president had in the thick of the capitol riots, one apparently involving a screaming match with kevin mccarthy. that's why at least two senators are now suggesting this trial should be suspended. still, there's not been much of an appetite to stretch this thing out much longer. both sides moving ahead to wrap this up. closing arguments may happen today, likely to happen today from both house managers and the defense team. we'll go through what our sources are telling us about those last-minute preparations. i'm hallie jackson in washington joined by stephanie rule and katy turr in new york. when things kick off in an hour impeachment managers will decide if they want to call witnesses here. >> if that happens there could be a debate and a vote and that could change the whole time line, but if we won't see witnesses both sides can make their closing arguments up to two hours on each side. >> and then we will see that final vote from all 100 senators on whether they'll convict or acquit the former president of the single article of impeachment against him. >> so some questions, ladies, on how this is going to go down this morning. we should know within the next 90 minute, right? and what is interesting is that you have this reporting overnight. one source describing this phone call between then-president trump as border line incoherent many of the many expletives in that discussion. yes, at the time the president i guess these rioters care more about this election than you do, kevin mccarthy. katy? >> it is so interesting, the heart of the argument for the senators is what did the president know and then, and did he care about the lawmakers and congress and did he care about his own vice president? did he care about what the vice president being removed from the senate chamber and the time line of it, the tweet that followed it. there are now as you've mentioned this morning, stephanie, there are a number of senators, two so far that want to call witnesses. so what will we see in an hour from capitol hill? >> but our audience needs to understand, calling witnesses. we're not watching "law and order svu "qwest. they don't call a witness and show up on the stand in four hours. we are talking days, potentially weeks and let's be honest. if kevin mccarthy wanted to set the record straight either way he can absolutely stand up and go on the record and speak in public. he's not. because he's not, what does that tell you? you have republicans who are saying this is what kevin mccarthy told me happened and he's remaining silent, clearly protecting the president. >> you are looking live, by the way, at one of the entrances there to capitol hill. we expect to see some action over the next 60 minutes before the trial starts. the arrivals of some of the key players that we're talking about possibly, the defense team and the house management and also watching with us is monica alba in west palm beach, florida covering the president. garrett hake in capitol hill, peter baker and msnbc political analyst and chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and former fbi official. monica, i know that you and i and the team were up late last night working on this report and the explosive call that at the time, house minority leader kevin mccarthy, donald trump. give us the setup here. there are senators raising questions about some of this. >> really, what is so notable now is we have two republican lawmakers who confirmed the call in place. we didn't have many details about it before, but now we know that this occurred as the riot was still unfolding as throngs of supporters that the president had encouraged to go to the capitol were breaching the grounds and engaging in this deadly riot and this is a conversation, we're not sure who initiated the phone call which is interesting, but obviously there, you do see from kevin mccarthy according to jamie herrera butler who told the president at the time you need to potentially call these people off. it's getting very dangerous and then apparently the former president replied, well these people to be more upset about the election than you are, kevin. and then apparently according to our sources every other word of a swear word and the call devolved and it was incoherent and not very substantial because emotions were riding so high since this was unfolding at the time, but what is so interesting here about the time line is there were many questions about what the former president knew, but we also know from republican senator tommy tuberville that he spoke to trump that day, and he knew that he was aware of what was happening and these violent issues. take a listen to how tuberville described that call that night. >> brought me the phone, and i said -- said white house, on it. i don't know who it was. i answered it and it was the president. he said a few things. i said mr. president, they've taken the vice president out. they want me out. i'm the only guy if the world that hung up on the president of the united states. >> you had one of the attorneys trying to argue that donald trump was not aware at all of the risks to the vice president's safety at the time. we know from our own reporting, hallie, of course that people around mike pence did make the white house aware that he was in danger and when he was evacuated from the chamber with his family we also know that donald trump did not check in on him at all for hours and he did not talk to him that evening or for five days after that, guys. >> yep. so garrett with this new revelation of this call of this call between kevin mckarthy and the president which comes from congresswoman herrera-butler and the questions about what he knew about vice president pence and when, what are you hearing about the debate on witnesses? i know there's been two senators that have come out today, senator sheldon white house with a tweet suggesting suspending the trial. what else are you hearing? >> yeah, that's right. we heard from two liberal senators saying let's conduct this like a criminal trial, depose these witnesses and get information from the secret service and really try to get to the bottom of what actual he happened regarding the president and what actions he did take and didn't take during the riot. as we said in many other contexts during this week. it is not a criminal trial, it is a political event and that is the impeachment managers whose call it would be to request witnesses to decide politically speaking, is it worth it. do we think we can convince republicans based on this evidence. would kevin mccarthy be the person you want to call? remember, we're describing this call as breaking news. this call has been reported before. it's been reported back since january. we had known there was an angry phone call between kevin mccarthy and donald trump. the contents are what is knew and is it enough to shift the direction of the trial. that's the decision the managers have to make. >> specifically, garrett, this idea that the president at the time that the rioters seem to care more about the election than you which is problematic for the senators. panel, stand by because we have someone walking through the camera, senator chris van holland. thank you very much for being with us this morning. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's get to it. do you believe, would you now support, given what we learned overnight the calling of witnesses? is that something you think house impeachment managers should try to do? >> i think this is a decision entirely up to the house and the managers. i think they're in the best position to determine whether calling these witnesses would make a difference. after all, they've already put on overwhelming evidence that the president assembled this mob and disrupt the vote on january 6th and all of the new information simply confirms that. the new information from senator tuberville and the new information from kevin mccarthy. so it just adds to an already overwhelming case and remember, a lot of republican senators are continuing to try and duck this on the jurisdictional question, that early vote where even though the senate has gone on record saying you move forward with the trial of a former president while he was president and a lot will hide behind that regardless of the fact. so the house managers will have to make that determination. >> given that, senator, given the fact that neither mike pence or kevin mccarthy themselves have come out and said anything about a time line that they personally know. does that not signal that a decision has been made by everyone who has a vote on this thing? >> well, what it tells you is people like kevin mccarthy, after their initial statements blaming the president as everyone can see is correct about what happened that he went and took cover. he went to mar-a-lago and bended his knee with former president trump. as has been said earlier, if kevin mccarthy wanted to stand up today, he doesn't have to be subpoenaed. if senator tuberville wants to expand on that conversation he can and the house managers will have to decide whether they're trying to subpoena people when may oppose their efforts. after all, president trump was invited, right? to come before the senate in this trial and explain himself under oath. he didn't want to do it and house managers are left to make an assessment as to whether it's worth subpoenaing these individuals even when they have the overwhelming evidence of guilt. >> did you speak to senator tuberville after the news he had spoken to the president and was told that his vice president had been evacuated from the chamber. >> i have not spoken to senator tuberville about that. it is in plain view, his words are in plain view, just like his actions that day or leading up to that day in plain view. we have a tweet from the president of the united states later in the day, this is what happens when you unceremoniously defraud the public of an election. in other words, this is what happens when you steal an election. that's an admission by the president. i mean, it clearly is a statement where he is saying later in the day, hey, i knew this was going to happen. he said these are the things that happen. this is a president who knew what he was doing from day one even before the election, sowing the idea that he lost, rose the temperature and unleashed this mob. we can focus on these details and phone calls. step back and use your common sense. it's pretty clear what happened here and if anybody at this point who doesn't vote for a conviction is simply putting their head in the sand coming up with excuses not to hold the president accountable. >> senator, very quickly. i know you have to go. you've said it is very clear that they have to decide on witnesses. do you get the sense that there is a groundswell of support for jamie raskin to do just that. >> i think they want jamie raskin to make this determination based on what they have at hand. it's their call. they're putting on the case and they need to decide. >> senator chris van hollen, thank you very much for joining us. i know you have a very busy day ahead. we want to have that conversation with the senator because he is obviously one of the people involved with this. peter, let me go to you on something that katy and stephanie both have brought up, this issue in addition to the kevin mccarthy details that have emerged and this issue of what donald trump knew about mike pence and when. peter, you know this white house well. i talked to multiple sources that the mike pence chief of staff, and mark meadows to tell them what was going on. we know that typically security protocols will be triggered if there is a security incident involving the vice president, the white house would know about it, you have the line from senator tuberville. peter, the defense team still said at no point donald trump knew that mike pence was potentially in danger. how can that be? >> well, it doesn't seem possible. that seems contradicted by all the evidence we have. as you point out directly, the secret service which was rushing the vice president out of the chamber first and then later out of the office he had taken shelter into a basement secure area and was clearly in touch with the secret service colleagues back at the white house and would have made sure that everybody at the white house knew what was going on and the point that the president didn't know that was implausible. >> and the president's first public reaction wasn't to call off the attack, and it was to put out a tweet attacking the vice president because he wouldn't try to claim unheard of powers to stop the electoral college count. that was still on the president's mind and this account from mccarthy seemed to verify indicated that the president was fill more fixated on fraudulent election claims than he was securing the capitol and the people in it. >> from the public statements he made and given what we saw from the house managers and the video they put out of the insurrection and the danger that the lawmakers and everybody else inside that building were in at the time, what would you be doing right now? would you extend this? call witnesses, make it more painful or would you wrap it up? >> i think, katy, that the marginal benefit calling witnesses now is pretty low. in a real trial and we've talked a lot about how this is not a real trial. in a real trial in federal district court they would tell the witness something they don't know. you'd show them documents they have never seen. would hear the story of the people at the crime and they would learn facts that were new to them. that's not the case here. we all know exactly what happened as peter just explained as senator van hollen explained, as common sense dictates. we know exactly what happened, and so i think the marginal benefit is quite small and i think that's why you hear senator val hollen saying let's leave it to the house managers, it's their case and we defer to them, and i'm not sure you would call witnesses to this point which sounds beard because i was a prosecutor and i've called lots of witnesses. we're jurors who had no idea what happened and needed to hear the story from people with first-hand knowledge. >> the house knowledge iners invited former president trump to come, and he didn't show up. if they do show up, kevin mccarthy, tommy tuberville, would they have to? >> my expectation is that they're subpoenaed and they'll honor the subpoena. i can't imagine that members of the house and senate would actually contest the subpoena. i don't know that this might be delayed by weeks and it might be delayed by days and there is a nugget in there that the senators don't know and maybe you'll do this, but the simple answer, i think, to your very good question and i would expect that they would honor those subpoenas. >> hey, garrett. let me go to you here. as we are having this conversation since we came on the air on this show in this moment in time we hear a bit of a walkback from senator whitehouse who i think just spoke to one of our colleagues in the halls of the capitol there, that combined with what we heard from senator van hollen, many democrats feel like it's up to jamie raskin, feels like the house impeachment manager on the idea of calling in witnesses. >> there's acknowledgement as you heard from senator van hollen and as julie heard from senator whitehouse and this is jamie raskin and the impeachment managers' choice. it is to make the decision on calling witnesses and it's up -- van hollen kind of alluded to this. the reality is it's not about what the democratic managers want and it's what the impeachment managers think might win over republicans. democrats might want to hear more testimony on these points, but if it's not going to win over the votes for acquittal right now and i think we all know senator whitehouse and van hollen will vote to convict, if it will not move those on the ledger, then it's not a good use of time and that's a decision for raskin and that's the acknowledgement we heard from whitehouse. >> garrett hake, peter baker, chuck rosenberg. we've been looking at a couple of impeachment managers, pat leahy has arrived and things are getting ready to go, and we are going to be all over it with our special coverage ahead. president biden, too, eyeing the end of this impeachment trial hoping, planning to turn the page on the trump era by intensifying his push for covid relief. we will talk about that, and one senator now reportedly part of the criminal investigation into donald trump's phone call to georgia's secretary of state. we are live in atlanta with the latest. atlanta with the latest hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were. i heard about prevagen and then i started taking it about two years now. started noticing things a little sharper, a little clearer. i feel like it's kept me on my game. i'm able to remember things. i'd say give it a try. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. 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"the washington post" reporting the fulton county district attorney is also now looking at a call. senator lindsay graham had with brad raffensperger. in an interview with the post raffensperger claims that graham asked whether he had the power to toss out mail-in ballots in certain counties. raffensperger, graham appeared to improperly find a way to toss legally cast ballots. lindsay graham has denied that and said he was looking at how the state verifies the mail-in ballots. in arguments yesterday former president trump's defense team attempted to offer a preview of how they might argue that case in georgia. >> the house managers told you that the president demanded that the georgia secretary of state, quote, find just over 11,000 votes. the word "find" like so many others the house managers highlighted is taken completely out of context. >> let's put it in context. nbc's cory joins us from atlanta. where does this stand? >> we are learning new details in the state of georgia. stephanie, good morning. this second one that we're learning about is coming from the fulton county district attorney's office and annie willis has expressed that she'll look into those terms, that term that then-president trump used to find the votes. that will count toward his intent as she goes on in this investigation so that's going to be a key element and first we know that the first investigation launched into that phone call was done by secretary of state brad raffensperger's office after he received a criminal complaint and that call happened on january 2nd in which trump implored raffensperger implied to find 11,000 votes, one more than what biden won in fulton county and he took the state from georgia there. in her letter willis addressed to the governor, governor kemp, please keep all of your offices and keep all of this information you have regarding this phone call and do not destroy any of the possible evidence because our office is launching this investigation and she did call it a criminal investigation. she also told "the new york times" that it's not just within the realm of this phone call, but also as you mentioned the call between graham and raffensperger regarding mail-in ballots and there also an investigation for the northern district of georgia who refused to go along with trump's coercion of the baseless fraud claims and also an investigation into rudy giuliani's false claims before the state legislative committees. so this is going to be an expansive second investigation here in the state of georgia and willis recently spoke with my colleague rachel maddow on all of this. listen to what she had to say. >> what i know about investigations is they're like peeling back an onion and as you go through each layer you learn different things. to be a responsible prosecutor you must look at those things in the investigation to be fair to everyone involved. this is a very important matter as you've already highlighted and so, yes, the investigation seems that it will go past just this one phone call that we discussed. >> reporter: and with maddow, rachel -- and with maddow, willis took the timing on that all of this could be would be any possible grand jury indictment would not come until march and willis mentioned it is not a foregone conclusion and she will enter this with an unbiased head space first. >> cory coffin, we are learning that joe biden will intensify his push for the their 1 trillion covid relief package once this trial is over. he spent a lot of the week trying to keep focus about the agenda and did sidestep questions about his predecessor and he is anxious to see how they will vote. >> despite the president's insistence that he is focused on his day job which he has been holding events all week to show that, you have to imagine white house officials are watching very closely what goes down today. >> that's absolutely right, hallie, if you think some democratic senators are ready to move on ahead of the presidents' day recess and put this trial behind it, you better believe that the president and white house officials are ready to do the same. you have to think back to what the president promised in the campaign and he wanted to lower the temperature. he said that on the night he was declared the winner and he said it was his job to unite the country and that's part of what's been guiding the president here and the president sidestepping those questions about impeachment and wanting to focus on that their 1.9 trillion covid relief here which the push for will intensify next week. the white house has set itself up for a pretty ambitious week. he's hitting the road for the first time as president heading to mill walk owe tuesday for a televised town hall on tuesday. he'll head to michigan to visit a vaccine production plant. they want to highlight some of the positive trends here that we've seen with covid on their watch and we're getting a sense of the president and the white house ready to move on to another piece of his agenda and that is a huge infrastructure bill which would be the pivot point and we call it a budget address in the first year of his presidency and that's what to expect next week. of course, the president has left town now and he's at camp david for the first time as president, if and when there is a result today you can expect a written statement to be released from the president just as there was in the last impeachment vote in the house, but clearly, the white house wanting to move ahead as much as possible, and you have to remember this, as well. there have been questions to the white house. why isn't the president weighing in more and with one white house official i had a back and forth with earlier this week, we've already seen a president who acts more as a cable news pundit criticizing his predecessors and the american people voted them out. so that's not going to be what joe biden was ever going to do. >> mike memoli live outside the white house. we have seen fast-moving developments over the last hour, starting the morning with those remarks from senator merkley and senator whitehouse, and it is house impeachment managers that they will defer to at this point. you also have as you talk about presidented bien and former president trump in south florida, he was very happy with that combative and in some instances, fact-free performance by his defense attorneys. katy, what do you make of that? >> listen, it was a very trumpian defense. they used a lot of stuff out ever context after claiming the democrats used their video out of context. there was a lot of what aboutism and a lot of claims that the president never, ever endorsed violence and it doesn't line up with the history of what we know about donald trump, and what we've seen from donald trump over five consecutive years. steph, if you are sitting as a member of the senate and watching this trial, i think it's pretty clear that the defense made a very compelling and very fulsome argument about what the president knew and when to the violence at the capitol and the defense came out and tried to confuse everything. >> if you're a sitting member of the senate it depends on what you wanted to hear. if you watched fox news last night you had kevin mccarthy calling in saying the president acted quickly in deploying the national guard. that flies in the face of what kevin mccarthy has said in the past. it refutes what president trump's own defense attorneys said yesterday, but what's really disheartening is that doesn't matter because certain audiences only see certain things from certain people and so there are alternate facts or alternate truths. they're called lies, but unfortunately, a lot of the american people are told that and they believe it's the truth. >> we will talk more about all of this coming up in just a couple of minutes because right now senate republicans are grappling with this question of what donald trump knew when? did he know rioters were trying to hunt down his vice president and was his vice president in danger? we'll have chuck todd, moderator of "meet the press" and what he'll be watch for today when we come back. watch for today whene come back. taking you back... ...since way back. freshness and softness you never forget, with downy. you're clearly someone who takes care of yourself. so why wait to screen for colon cancer? because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your prescriber or an online prescriber if cologuard is right for you. i'll do it. good plan. at t-mobile, we have a plan built just for customers 55 and up. saving 50% vs. other carriers i'll do it. with 2 unlimited lines for less than $30 each. call 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[whispering] it's grilled cheese o'clock. welcome back to msnbc's special coverage of donald trump's second impeachment trial. we are about 30 minutes from the start of the fifth and likely the final day and we're expecting closing arguments from impeachment managers and the former president's defense attorneys with a vote all happening by the end of the day. we just saw the defense attorneys walking in and we also saw a number of house managers. that is only if, though, impeachment managers don't make a last-minute request for witnesses. one question getting extra attention right now, what exactly did the president know when he tweeted that mike pence did not have the courage to do what should have been done? >> at no point was the president informed the vice president was in any danger. >> that answer from donald trump's defense team does not line up with what we heard from multiple sources in the wake of the attack that pence's team was in touch with the trump team, that the president did not reach out to pence that night or for another five days after the insurrection. we are also learning more about how minority leader mitch mcconnell will vote on the impeachment trial. we have mike sherman. you have some breaking news. >> mitch mcconnell will vote to acquit which is probably the least surprising development of the day. mitch mcconnell if you spent any time watching him and understanding what his motivations are splitting his party in two right now or further splitting his party is not something he's interested in doing. he would have had to spend the next several months explaining why his vote to convict would be smart. this is not surprising. i'm befuddled by people who think he's going to turn his back on trump now. i don't really understand that. >> jake, that is understood. still, you have to -- as you know, those in mcconnell world had been doing very little to try to shut down these whispers and this speculation that mcconnell had not ruled out convicting donald trump and it had been for better or worse the mystery. the bigger news is if mcconnell had decided to acquittal though that is not now the case. talk to us about the thought process here. >> listen, a few things, mcconnell said to his members that the jurisdiction does not lie with congress and does not lie with the senate now that the president is out of office. from the political point of view, hallie, mitch mcconnell, his powers derive from his membership and his 50-member senate republican conference and if he voted to convict, his conference would have been split down the middle? he would not have survived. barring some development we don't understand, there will be five senators who will vote to convict donald trump and that is 10% of the senate republican conference and far from the majority and far from any notable number in our estimation and mitch mcconnell, his power is derived from representing that membership. these people, congressional leaders are not driven by wrong or right on the coasts and i'm not saying that divisively. their power is derived from representing the vast majority of their membership and that's what mitch mcconnell is doing here. >> jake, was this ever a real trial? if that's the case that was the case a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. >> yeah. this was not a real trial. no one suggested this was a real trial and this is a political process, stephanie and it has been from the beginning. even on the senate floor when this is not how a trial would proceed and the republican side and the trump side said that and this is not a trial. this is a political process that happens in the halls of congress with elected officials and that's how it's always been and you remember the last trial, stephanie, the membership said, mitch mcconnell said the outcome is already determined. we already know that donald trump will be acquitted and he said that in the last trial. and we know how that would go since the beginning from the test vote that this was unconstitutional. we've known what the outlines of this trial are and what they look like and this is what it's going to be. it's five people and donald trump is still the most powerful people in the party. they believe or they are voting that donald trump did not have anything to do with this or this trial was improper. i didn't deem that show, but that's how lawmakers view this. >> stand by for a second. i want to bring in someone else who knows the political world well, "meet the press" moderator chuck todd. based on that report, what do you make of this? >> well, look, the question was whether mitch mcconnell was willing to vote to convict if there weren't 16 other republicans with him, right? was he going to be a symbolic message? you know, he is an institutionalist, and to sit there that day and watch the threats that were made to mike pence, to the speaker of the house, the president of the senate, he knows he was evacuated. the senate president pro tem. i do think it was genuine that he was up in the air. i don't buy that it was a trial balloon. i think it was a trial balloon, but i don't buy that he was just doing it for show, and that he was always going to come down on the side of acquittal. i'm sure it was 80/20 in his head and not 50/50 when he's contemplating this, but look, i think this is -- i think long term the riskier decision is to acquit here for the republican party, and i know short term the riskier decision is to convict, right, for the republican party here, but they have to come to the grips with this fact. they are basically going to let donald trump get away with something that the head of a pta, a platoon, a corporation, a high school, a news organization, where should i stop? would have been fired by their board of directors a long time ago and that's what this is a trial about. this is not a criminal proceeding. this is not a courtroom proceeding. this is a political trial to decide whether donald trump has the morality and the ethics to hold the highest office in the land and so it is -- that is something that they have to live with long term here and that's why i think long term this is going to be a painful vote for those that voted to acquit. >> it is also drawing a line, chuck for the standards of behavior for the presidents of the united states, getting back to mcconnell for a second because he sent an email out including punch bowl and "the new york times" have it and he said it was a close call and he said that impeachment is primarily a tool for removal and the senate lacks jurisdiction. he says criminal conduct by a president in office can be prosecuted when the president is out of office. we should note mitch mcconnell is the one that delayed this to when the president was out of office. he delayed this trial so that the president would no longer be in office. so it kind of seems like he was setting himself up to have his cake and eat it, too. >> well, more stuff's coming out. the kevin mccarthy phone call which has been out there for a while and there must have been something that jamie raskin was hesitant about when he decided not to include that and i imagine we'll hear about it today, though, given that congresswoman butler was willing to go on the record about it so extensively, but it is -- there's going to be more that comes out, and there's going to be more that is learned about this behavior and the vote is likely not going to age well and that has got to be something some of these folks are thinking about. >> or, charles, would this not be an acquittal for former president trump? will it be a win? what does donald trump like? he likes people to rally around him, to stand behind him and for him to get a whole lot of attention and here the three of us are on this saturday morning talking about one thing, donald j. trump. if it wasn't for this impeachment trial we would not have said his name for weeks. >> ironically, i also believe that jack dorsey is probably the most important person on his road to acquittal because the platforming of donald trump kept donald trump from being his own worst enemy. he would have tweeted his way to conviction had he been able to. look, i think there's just as much risk here. i heard a senator say to me that there was risk in convicting him and turning him into a martyr, and i flipped the question and i said there's just as much risk that an acquittal turns him into a martyr because that says what can slay me? what can stop me? he has no platform rid now and i think there's still a good chance he continues to fade away. >> chuck todd, i know you have a long day ahead of you and thank you for joining us as we get ready for the start of the last day, potentially, of this impeachment trial now just minute away. you have seen the arrival of the key player, the house defense team and some of the key senators on the republican side of the aisle that we will be walking, the jurors, de facto jurors now starting to arrive. we'll squeeze in a quick break and when we come back we'll be joined by a panel of experts on all things impeachment and telling you what our sources are telling us. our special coverage continues next. g us our special coverage continues next so, subaru and our retails are doing it again, donating an additional 100 million meals to help those in need. love. it's never been needed more than right now. subaru. more than a car company. 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(sam) 5g ultra wideband, now in parts of many cities. this is 5g built right. only from verizon. ♪ ♪ when you drive this smooth, you save with allstate the future of auto insurance is here you've never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today a live look at the senate halls right now. with only a few minutes until the impeachment trial picks back up for day 5, and they will be getting right to it, starting with the house managers' decision on whether or not to have an open debate on witnesses. if that doesn't happen, it's both sides' final chance to make their case, their closing arguments, and then that last critical vote, senators making that decision on whether to convict or acquit former president donald j. trump. let's bring back in our analysts and daniel goldman from the first impeachment trial and former congressman donna edwards and former cnn analyst. daniel goldman, to you first. where do you stand on witnesses? >> well cwell, look. i think you have to realize if there were a real trial, there would be witnesses, many witnesses, but i think at the end of the day, there will not be witnesses here in part because there's no real way to figure out where to begin and where to end. you know, as of last night, people are calling for kevin mccarthy to testify. as a prosecutor, i would not want to put someone aligned with the daytona defendant on the stand without having a much better idea what he might say, and what does it really help? i mean the fact that donald trump knew that the capitol was under siege? i mean, of course, he knew. did hi know that mike pence was being evacuated? of course, he knew. so there's very little, i think, ultimately to be garoned in large part because the democrats want to get back to business. they want to get back to joe biden's agenda. this, as mitch mcconnell's email this morning indicates, there's really not the significant movement that would have to occur for there to be a conviction, but that is not a loss, and let's remember that. we're going to have five or six republicans vote to convict. there was one last time, and that was a huge deal. this time, five or six republicans voting to convict, the majority of the senate is going to vote to convict donald trump. this is not any kind of vindication for donald trump. he is escaping by the skin of his teeth and based on what i think is an improper legal basis to make a factual finding, but he's just getting away with this barely, and so i think the democrats realize there's not going to be a ton of movement one way or the other with witnesses, and let's get this over with and get back to ginnie mae joe biden's agenda. i want to get to garrett haith. i know you and colleagues have confirmed this. mick mcconnell is saying primarily on jurisdiction, less so about the conduct or culpability. is that fair? >> yes, that right. mcconnell's letter to his colleagues that we've now obtained says exactly that, that it's a close call but he thinks the senate lacks jurisdiction. he think it sort of abrogates the exception that the impeachment managers have raised. i think, by the way, mcconnell's decision to send the email out this morning probably adds more weight to the argument about witnesses here too. mcconnell was the linchpin, the difference between getting maybe a half dozen senators voting to convict, still a fairly significant bipartisan number, and perhaps being able to reach deeper into the republican side of the aisle to secure the votes necessary for a conviction. without mcconnell, that's just not going to happen. that's not the way this republican conference works. and so i think his decision ultimately after playing his cards fairly close to the vest is a pretty big marker and the ultimate fate of this trial. >> claire, you know the senate better than any of us do. you know mitch mcconnell better than any of us do. he did leave it as an open question out there. when you look at what has been going on in the senate, given all that we have seen, what do you think about the state of that chamber? >> what mitch mcconnell did this morning is keeping the republican party together. it really has nothing to do with the evidence. it has nothing to do with donald trump other than the fact that donald trump is dividing his caucus. had he done a decision based on the evidence, he would have voted to convict, but he did his decision on what will be most likely to give other republicans an excuse that they can live with, that is, jurisdiction, and what can he do to get this behind them in terms of trying to reunite the caucus? that's what this is all about. they've got a big problem politically. the republican party has a big problem right now. >> then why, claire, would mitch mcconnell have been open to this to begin with? >> i think he knows based on the evidence that this behavior was so egregious. and i agree with daniel. witnesses get you nothing in terms of what these republican senators know. they know tuberville talked to him. they know he tweeted pence afterward. they know he does nothing but watch tv, that he knew everything that was going on. so they know that -- that's why they asked those questions. they wanted to highlight the fact that they knew, those that are voting to convict. so i think what really you've got to do here is you've got to, you know, get a bird's-eye view of what this really is about. this is about going forward with a democratic party, with a president and majority, a president in the mid-50s to high 50s of approval, a number donald trump dreamt of, he never even came close to. the democrats are in a good place right now, and the republicans aren't, and mcconnell knows that, and he is really looking at uniting his party, not at what happens to donald trump. >> we're less than three minutes before the start of what could be the final day of this trial. we just saw senator lecom in. claire, one more to you. when you consider why the republicans are voting to acquit, politics obviously comes into play, the idea of not wanting to ayn dwering donald trump's base, can we talk about donald trump's base, that he can do nothing wrong and if you cross him, even inciting an insurrection, you are the one that's politically at risk? >> well, i think you have to draw a line here between those senators from bright red trump places and those senators who aren't. you know, majorities are made on the margins. i can't say that often enough. majorities aren't made in bright red places or bright blue places. they're made in places more purply. so really, those places, donald trump has done serious permanent damage to himself and also to the republican party. and those republicans are painfully aware of that, especially those who would like to get a chance to get back in the majority again. mitch mcconnell is playing the long game here, and so are many of the republicans. i'm not sure donald trump ever recovers from this. the question is will the republican party ever recover from this. >> we're about 90 seconds or so away from day 5 of this impeachment trial. the first thing we'll see are witnesses and documents. let's go to you. we've been talking about it for the last 60 minutes in this program, whether house impeachment managers may decide to do that based on information that's emerged in the last 24 hours. you see senator sanders has walked into the chambers. mcconnell said he would be open to it if that's the direct house managers want to go in. do you read anything into that? >> well, as much as i would like to see witnesses, and i actually do think that for the permanent record it would be helpful to have some of these people like kevin mccarthy and others under oath, despite the fact we have an idea what they've said in the papers, but i think, you know, daniel's point, i think, is well taken. given this latest revelation from mitch mcconnell, i think it is likely that we would not sway anyone with having those witnesses testify, and that sun fortunate. the remnants of the republican party that mitch mccome is trying to stitch together has really had a fork put into it. it's done because i don't think you recover the suburbs, the purply areas that claire talks about under these circumstances. and we're going to wrap this trial up, and the american people are going to know and the american people have seen for themselves that the evidence is there about donald trump's incitement, about him riling up the crowd, about him, you know, ignoring his duties as commander in chief by not calling in the national guard, but i think the cord can't be cut with the remnants of the republican party. they're going to live with donald trump and he's going to lead them and it's going to be to their detriment. >> garrett, for every lawmaker that we ask where they stand on potentially calling witnesses and we get the answer, i defer to the house impeachment managerses, are they'll essentially saying, nope, we don't want witnesses, let's get this thing done? >> no. i think that's an honest answer. the reality is the impeachment managers have to make the calculations what's going to get republican votes and what's not. the democratic senators, look, they want this to be a real trial. they want this to have real costs. they have strong views that what happened on january 6th shouldn't be forgotten, shouldn't be swept under the rug because of some political expediency. that said, they understand it's the managers who ultimately own this case, not votes who are already committed toward conviction. so i don't think you're getting spun there by democratic lawmakers kind of throwing it back to the managers. i think there's the reality that it's the managers who are going to have to own this. >> we're going find out probably in the next couple of minutes here whether or not the managers will make that decision. you're watching the chaplain deliver the opening prayer at the start of this senate session, day 5 of the impeachment trial. the reminder of what you'll see, the question right out of the gate on witnesses and documents, if they choose to move forward with that, that is a big if, it takes us in a very different direction. if they do not as it seems to be moving right now, then you'll see the closing arguments from the house impeachment managers, the trump defense team, up to four hours of that. we don't expect the trump defense will take their full allotted time. their closing time is expected to take an hour. after that, deliberation from the senators and then, of course, the final vote on whether to acquit or convict former president donald trump, the second time in just about a year that a vote has happened on the senate floor. senator pat leahy, of course, has been presiding as he has been all week as we get ready to begin day 5, potentially the final day of this impeachment trial. we expect the senate to gavel in and then that question on witnesses to begin. we're going to take you now live to the senate chamber for day 5 of the second impeachment trial of former president donald trump. senators, please be seated. if there's no objection -- no objection t journal proceedings of the trial are approved to date and i'd ask the sergeant at arms to make the proclamation. >> hear ye, hear ye, hear yay. all are commanded to keep slienlt while the president of the united states is sitting for the trial of the articles of impeachment on the house of representatives against donald j. trump former president of the united states. >> pursuant to the provisions of resolution 47, the senate is provided up to two hours of argument by the parties, equally divided, on the question of whether or not it shall be ordered to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents. are both parties really to proceed at this point? hmm? >> they said they are ready to proceed. they may proceed. >> they may proceed. >> thank you. good morning, senators. over the last several days we've presented overwhelming evidence that establishes the charges in the article of impeachment. we've shown you how president trump created a powder keg, lit a match, and then continued his incitement even as he failed to defend us from the ensuing violence. we've supported our position with images, i have owes, affidavits, documents, tweets, and other evidence, leaving no doubt that the senate should convict. we believe we've proven our case. but last night congresswoman jaime herrera from washington state issued a statement confirming that in the middle of the insurrection when house minority leader kevin mccarthy called the president to beg for help, president trump responded, and i quote, well, kevin, i guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. needless to say, this is an additional critical piece of corroborating evidence, further confirming the charges before you as well as the president's willful dereliction of duty and desertion of duty as commander in chief of the united states, his state of mind, and his further incitement of the insurrection on january 6th. for that reason and because this is the proper time to do so under the resolution that the senate adopted to set the rules for the trial, we would like the opportunity to subpoena congresswoman herrera regarding her communications with house minority leader kevin mccarthy and to subpoena her contemporaneous notes she made regarding what president trump told kevin mccarthy in the middle of the insurrection. we will be prepared to present by zoom deposition in an hour or less jump as soon as congresswoman herrera beutler is available and then proceed to the next portion of the trial shortly thereafter. congresswoman herrera beutler states she hopes other witnesses of this part of the story, patriots, would come forward. if that happens, we would seek the opportunity to take their depositions via zoom less than an hour or to subpoena other relevant documents as well. . >> thank you. senators, good morning. and good morning to the american people. the first thing i want to say on the issue of witnesses is that the house manager just got up here and described the articles of impeachment and to the charges. there is no plural here. that's wrong. there's one article of impeachment and there's one charge, and that's incitement of violence and insurrection. what you all need to know and the american people need to know is late yesterday afternoon there was a stipulation going around that there weren't going to be any witnesses, but after what happened here in this chamber yesterday, the house managers realize they did not investigate this case before bringing the impeachment, they did not give the proper consideration and work. they didn't put the work in that was necessary to impeach the former president. but if they want to have witnesses, i'm going to need at least over 100 depositions, not just one. the real issue is incitement. they put into their case over 100 witnesses, people, who have been charged with crimes by the federal government, and each one of those, they said that mr. trump was a co-conspirator with. that's not true! but i have the right to defend that. the only thing that i ask, if you vote for witnesses, do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses that i can have. i need to do a thorough investigation that they did not do. i need to do the 911-style investigation that nancy pelosi called for. it should have been done already. it's a dereliction of the house managers' duty that they didn't, and now at the last minute after a stipulation had apparently been worked out, they want to go back on that. i think that's inappropriate and improper. we should close this case out today. we have each prepared our closing arguments. we each -- i mean i had eight days to get ready for this thing, but we each had those eight days equally together to prepare ourselves, and the house managers need to live with the case that they brought. but if they don't, please in all fairness and in all due process, do not limit my ability to discover, discover, discover the truth. that would be another sham, and that's the president's position, my position. >> mr. raskin. >> thank you, mr. president. first of all, this was the proper time to talk about witnesses. this is completely within the course of the rules set forth by the senate. there's nothing remotely unusual about this. i think we've done an exceedingly thorough and comprehensive job with all the evidence that was available. last night this was breaking news and it responded directly to a question being raised by president's defense counsel saying that we have not sufficiently proven to their satisfaction, although, we have proven to the american people satisfactory that the president after the breach had taken place was not working on the side of defending the capitol but rather was continuing pursue his political goals, and the information that came out last night by congresswoman beutler backed up by contemporaneous notes she'd taken would put to rest any lingers doubts raised by counsel. now he wants to interview hundreds of people. there's only one person that counsel really needs to interview and that's their own client. bring him forward as we suggested last week, because a lot of this is matters that are in his own head. why did he not act to defend the country after he learned of the attack? why was he continuing press the political case? but this piece of evidence is relevant to that. >> if i may. >> and, finally, i wasn't -- i was a little bit mystified by the point about the article of impeachment, which i referred to. the dereliction of duty, desertion of duty, is built into the incitement charge obviously. if the president of the united states is out inciting an obvious insurrection, he's ott us havely not doing his job at the same time just like a police officer if he's mugging you, yeah, he's guilty of theft and armed robbery, whatever it might be, but he's also not doing his job as a police officer, so it's further evidence of his intent and what his conduct is. >> if i may? >> counsel? >> first of all, it's my understanding it's been reported that mr. mccarthy disclaims the rumors that have been the basis of this morning's active, but really the rumors that have been the bay soifs this entire proceeding. this entire proceeding is based on rumor, innuendo. there's nothing to it and they didn't do their work. just like what happened with mr. lee two or three nights ago, that some supposed conversation had happened, and they had to withdraw that, back off of it because it was false. it was a false narrative. but it is one article of impeachment. yeah, they threw a lot of stuff in it in violation of rule 23. rule 23 says you cannot combine counts. it's a defect in their entire case. it's one of the four reasons why you can devote to acquit in this case. jurisdiction, rule 23, due process, and the first amendment, they all apply in this case. let me take my own advice and cool the temperature in the room a little bit. it's about the incitement. it's not about what happened afterward. that's actually the irrelevant stuff. that's the irrelevant stuff. it's not the things that were said from the election to january 6th. it's not relevant to the legal analysis of the issues that are before this body. it doesn't matter what happened after the in sur jens into the capitol building. it's a point in time, folks, it's a point in time when the words are spoken and the words say, implicitly say, explicitly say, commit acts of violence or lawlessness. and we don't have that here. so for the house managers to say we may need depositions about things that happened after, it's just not true. but, but if he does, there are a lot of depositions that need to be happening. nancy pelosi's deposition needs to be taken. vice president harris's deposition absolutely needs to be taken. and not by zoom. none of these depositions should be done by zoom. we didn't do this hearing by zoom. these depositions should be done in person in my office in philadelphia, that's where they should be done. [ laughter ] >> i don't know how many civil lawyers are here, but that's the way it works, folks. when you want somebody's deposition, you send a notice of deposition, and they appear at the place where the notice says. that's civil process. i don't know why you're laughing. it is civil process. that is the way lawyers do it. we send notices of deposition. >> i would remind everybody that we will have order in the chamber during these proceedings. >> i haven't laughed at any of you, and there's nothing laughable here. he mentioned my client coming in to testify. that is not the way it's done. if he wanted to talk to donald trump, he should have put a subpoena down like i'm going to slap subpoenas on a good number of people if witnesses are what is required here for them to try to get their case back in order, which has failed miserably for four reasons. there is no jurisdiction here. there has been no due process here. they have completely violated, ignored, and stepped on the constitution of the united states. they have trampled on it like people who have no respect for it. and if this is about nothing else, it has to be about the respect of our country, our constitution, and all of the people that make it up. so i ask when considering your voting on this witness matter, and to be clear, this may be the time to do it, and, again, everybody needs to no, back room politics, i'm not so much into it or adept at it either, but there was a stipulation. they felt pretty comfortable after day two until their case was tested on day three. now is the time to end this. now is the time to hear the closing arguments. now is the time to vote your conscience. thank you. >> mr. raskin? >> we were involved in no discussions about a stipulation, and i have no further comment. thank you, mr. president. >> i'd inquire of your position on that. >> i would remind -- i would remind everybody as chief justice roberts noted on january 21st, 2020, citing the trial of charles swain in 1905, all parties in this chamber must refrain from using language that is not conducive to civil discourse. i listened to chief justice roberts say that. i agreed with him. and i thought for our colleagues i would repeat it as i did last night. so the question we have before us is whether it should be ordered to consider and debate under the rules of impeachment any witnesses, subpoenas, or documents. the ayes and nays have been made. the clerk will call the role. >> mrs. baldwin. >> aye. >> mr. barrasso. >> no. >> mr. bennett. >> aye. >> mrs. blackburn. >> no. >> mr. blumenthal. >> aye. >> mr. blount. >> no. >> mr. booker. >> aye. >> mr. bozeman. >> no. >> mr. braun. >> no. >> mr. brown. >> aye. >> mr. burr. >> no. >> ms. can't laugh. >> aye. >> mrs. cap a till. >> no. >> mr. cardin ye. >> sfloo mr. carper. >> aye. >> mr. casey. >> aye. >> mr. cassidy. >> no. >> ms. collins. >> aye. >> mr. coonce. >> aye. >> mr. cornyn. >> no. >> ms. cortez mass tow. >> aye. >> mr. cotton. >> so very quickly as this vote is conducted, what you're watching and where this goes next, this right now is the senate vote on whether to call witnesses in this impeachment trial. this is a discussion that began really after overnight developments regarding a phone call between former president trump, house minority leader kevin mccarthy in which, according to a republican lawmaker who has spoken on the record about it, the former president essentially rebuffed claims, calls for help during the siege as this was going down on january 6th. leading impeachment manager jamie raskin wants to hear from that republican lawmaker. you heard a rather fiery response from trump's defense team michael van der vaccine. if raskin wants to call witnesses, van der vaccine wants to call hundreds of winces not in washington but in his office in philadelphia. remember, you need a majority of senators to vote for this. senator mitt romney could be pivotal here. he said this morning as we reported here. he would be willing to vote for witnesses if either side wanted to call them. we're going to listen in to the roast thf vote and see what happens when it's gaveled. >> mr. kelly. >> aye. >> mr. kennedy. >> no. >> mr. king. >> aye. >> ms. klobuchar. >> aye. >> mr. langford. >> no. >> mr. leahy. >> aye. >> mr. lee. >> no. >> mr. lieuhon. >> aye. >> ms. low miss. >> no. >> mr. manchin. >> aye. >> mr. markey. >> aye. >> mr. marshal. >> no. >> mr. mcconnell. >> no. >> mr. men dmenz. >> aye. >> mr. merkley. >> aye. >> mr. moran. >> no. >> ms. murkowski. >> aye. >> mr. murtmy. >> aye. >> mrs. murray. >> aye. >> mr. ossoff. >> aye. >> mr. padilla. >> aye. >> mr. paul. >> no. >> mr. peters. >> aye. >> mr. portman. >> no. >> mr. reed. >> aye. >> mr. rich. >> no. >> mr. romney. >> aye. >> miss rosen. >> aye. >> mr. rounds. >> no. >> mr. rubio. >> no. >> mr. sanders. >> aye. >> mr. sass. >> aye. >> mr. shot. >> aye. >> mr. schumer. >> aye. >> mr. scott of florida. >> no. >> mr. scott of south carolina. >> no. >> mrs. sheheen. >> aye. >> mr. shelby. [ indiscernible ] >> miss smith. >> aye. >> ms. stabenow. >> aye. >> mr. sheldman. >> no. >> mr. tester. [ indiscernible ] >> mr. thune. >> mr. till yis. >> yes. >> mr. tumi. >> no. >> mr. tuberville. >> no. >> mr. van hollen. >> aye. >> mr. warner. >> aye. >> mr. warnot. >> aye. >> ms. warren. >> aye. >> mr. white house. >> aye. >> mr. wicker. >> no. >> mr. widen. >> aye. >> mr. ya. >> no. >> ya. >> no. >> . >> senators voting in the affirmative, baldwin, bennett, blumenthal, booker, brown, can't well, cardin, carper, casey, collins, kunz, cortez masto, duckworth, durbin, feinstein, gillibrand, hassan, heinrich, hickenlooper, her row know, kahne, kelly, king, klobuchar, leahy, lieu honor, manchin, markey, menendez, merkley, murkowski, murphy, murray, ossoff, padilla, peters, read, romney, rosen, sanders, sass, shots, schumer, sheheen, cinema, smith, stabenow, tester, van hollen, warner, warnock, warren, whitehouse, widen. senators voting in the negative, vor ras sow, blackburn, blount, boseman, braun, burr, cap cho, cassidy, cornyn, cotton, cramer, crapo, cruz, gaines, aren't, fisher, graham, grassley, haggerty, hally, hoe vin, hyde-smith, inhofe, johnson, kennedy, lankford, lee, lum muss, marshal, mcconnell, moran, paul, portman, rich, rounds, rubio, scott of florida, scott of south carolina, shelby, sullivan, thune, tillis, tumi, tuberville, wicker, young. >> mr. president? >> i'd like to change my vote to aye. >> mr. gram graham. >> mr. graham, aye. >> mr. president. >> mr. sullivan. >> just a point of inquiry, there's a little confusion here, was that a vote on one witness? >> debate is not allowed during the vote. >> it's not debate. >> mr. president this is a point of inquiry on what we just voted on. >> i'm advised that is not allowed during the vote. >> you have to know what you're voting for. >> immediately before -- [ chatter ] >> read the motion. >> the points of order and debate are not allowed during the vote. that is established senate procedure that we all must follow. >> we are trying to listen in as much as we can on the senate floor as that vote has just been conducted. it has not been to my understanding been gaveled in yet, which means you still could see senators change their vote as we saw from senator lindsey graham who decided whether to call witnesses from a no to a yes. so far graham is joining others, romney, collins, sass. the vote has not been called yet. but if you look in the corner, there's a senator talking with the trump team. there was a question on the floor whether to call multiple witnesses or just to hear from republican congressperson buetler. we want to keep listening in because, again, senator leahy is sort of managing this on the fly. we are in, frankly, uncharted territory here. i think garrett haake is with us. you do have a question. >> i wish i did. this is totally uncharted territory. i think the understanding was they just voted to debate on witnesses. this is to say to we want to discuss having witnesses, yes, and then they could vote on individual witnesses that have to be called. i think you saw senator graham change his vote in the expectation that he could then, you know, more cleanly be a vote as the defense has suggested that if we're going to go down this road, the defense would make a bunch of witness calls of their own and try to muddy the water here, but hopefully leahy will give us an order. >> we're going to dip back into court. >> under the rules of impeachment, any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents, the motion is agreed to by vote of 55 to 45. >> mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. >> call the roll. >> ms. baldwin -- >> as they're going through the roll call, we interrupted you garrett what you have been describing going on on the senate floor. go ahead. >> reporter: majority leader schumer, going into this quorum call here is essentially to say we don't know what we're doing here, so you have a clerk who's going to read names until they come up with a plan. what you're seeing here, they're going go into debate what witnesses would be called, what witnesses would be subpoenaed. i think, frankly, this is a surprise. i think given the announcement from minority leader mcconnell, given the widespread demonstration that they lack the witnesses to commit, this would not be the direction they would go. but you heard from jamie raskin. he thinks they could do this in short order. i suspect now we could see several votes on witnesses to be called. and really each one of these votes and any witness who is decided to be called or subpoenas comes with a pandora's box worth of opportunities and challenges for the managers here and for the senate. you know, we don't know how long this could extend the trial. we don't know how quickly any of these witnesses could be called. we don't know whether the senate could do work on things like the biden administration's covid rescue plan while all of this goes on. it's a cliche, but we're just deep, deep, deep into uncharted territory here about how long and how far the house managers want to pursue this case in the midst of everything else that's in play politically. >> i am doesn't that lack of clarity play to the republicans' hand here? for the millions of americans who think what happened on january 6th is deplorable, who do point the finger at some sort of connection between donald trump and the attack, there are millions of americans who say, can't we get on with this? we're in the middle of a health crisis, we're in the middle of an economic crisis. when we hear, we're going to get to the witnesses in short order, we have no idea if short order is ten weeks, ten months, ten years. you heard all sorts of responses from people. it's delay, delay, delay. it's exactly what they want, isn't it, garrett? >> reporter: you'll certainly hear that. they'll say it's deunifying, delays work on the agenda they want to work and shows democrats can't acquit donald trump. they'd rather chase down accountability. again, you make of that what you will, but that's the argument you're going to hear from republicans here if this gets drawn out into some lengthy process. jamie beutler is in washington state. she'd do it by zoom. i can't imagine she's sitting around her computer screen and do this. the idea that this would move skpe skpe dishesly in a legal sense is not the same as your everyday life. we don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes. >> claire, you know the rules better than anyone does. senator graham has changed his vote to yes. he has said on fox news if the democrats want to call witnesses he would open as garrett said pandora's box. if you want to open a can of worms, we want the fbi to come in and talk about how they preplanned this attack and security at the capitol. claire, when they're voting on who can get called as a witness, are they going to vote individually on each witness? does that mean even though senator lindsey graham might want 50 witnesses, the fbi, xyz, he's going to need democratic buy-in to get that? >> yeah. here's what's going to happen. right now as you notice, the people making decisions are not on the floor with the exception of mitch mcconnell. chuck schumer has left the floor and i guarantee you he's in his office off the floor to your left of the screen with jamie raskin and they're figuring out the way forward. what schumer has in his pocket is 50-plus votes. mitch mcconnell does not have that in his porkt, nor does lindsey graham, and this vote just showed that. so if the defense tries go off the reservation and try to call a bunch of political witnesses to try to gum this up, i think schumer is probably pretty confident that he's got the votes to turn that back. but on the other hand, here's what mitch mcconnell has in his pocket. he has the power of the schedule. under the rules, mitch mcconnell would have to agree for the senate to go to other business, and that is not what the democrats want. they want to -- >> can you explain that rule, claire? can you explain why that is when they're not in the majority? >> well, it is because there is a rule in impeachment that once impeachment begins, the senate cannot do other things, and that is harder to change than some of the other things with the bear majority. so that is really what -- you know, mcconnell would have to agree that if, in fact, they're going take a week off to depose witnesses, now, you know, the good news is that they're supposed to be on vacation next week. i shouldn't say vacation. they're supposed to be working at home. it always bugged me when people called it vacation because there's more work to do at home than in washington. so they're home working next week. the question is will that be such end and will there be votes today to limit the time of depositions during the next week when the senate will not be in session? that may very well happen. but i will guarantee you this. if, in fact, they try to go off into some kind of netherland in terms of witnesses they want to call and depose, for example, camela harris. why in the world is kamala harris going to be a witness to this? then, of course, you're going to see chuck schumer pull those votes out of his back pocket and limit that to some procedural vote on the floor. but he can't say no witnesses by the defense. that would look terribly unfair. if they come up with witnesses that are relevant, i would assume the democrats would go along with it. >> here's what i do know the dem kramts want to call. they're seeking to call if in fact this were to happen as it looks like it's happened, d.c. mayor muriel bowser and house speaker nancy pelosi. dan, what do you make of that? >> reporter: i think it's dreadful dreadful strategy on trump's part. i think all of the threats from trump's lawyers are a pure bluff. if that lawyer we just watched were to depose nancy pelosi, you would see nancy pelosi run absolute circles around this guy and it would be a complete disaster for him. they do not want nancy pelosi. they do not want the mayor of d.c. they don't want any witnesses. but they will -- what will likely happen now is that -- i think what happened, frankly, is they had the debate on whether or not to call witnesses already. they just didn't vote on that. so what should have happened is jamie raskin should have said we want witnesses. then they go into a debate and then they went back and forth and then they vote on it. what they voted on for the first time is what they already had. they're trying to figure out how to move forward with this. what i expect jamie raskin will say is we've spoken to congresswoman herrera beutler, she is available for a one-hour zoom deposition tomorrow, she will provide us with her notes today, we will do that deposition tomorrow, we will present to you monday what she said, and we'll be prepared to close. now, the wrinkle here is trump's defense lawyers should be able to get an equal number of witnesses as what the impeachment managers will ask for. i think the democrats will vote for an equal number. certainly the last time around when we were talking about witnesses, there was always this notion of an equal number. i think that's what's perceived as fair. there will have to be relevant witnesses as claire pointed out from trump's side. it's very dangerous for them to call a witness that they don't know what that witness is going to say. the managers know what congresswoman beutler is going to say for the most part because she already said it. if trump's lawyers just call nancy pelosi out of the blue, i mean, she will destroy them and hurt them, so that is a terrible strategy. so i don't know, you know, if they want to call some fbi agent and talk about what threats they understood to be in existence beforehand, that's dangerous too. then, you know, berry burke, the chief layer for the defendant managers is one of the best in the country will get though and explain all about what the white house knew in advance of january 6th and in advance of what the plans were, and you will start to get that picture filled out about what trump knew before the riots actually occurred. so it is a very dangerous game that trump's lawyers are playing right now, and when push comes to shove, i think we'll either back off witnesses altogether or just pick one that's very favorable to them and they know what that witness will say. >> donna, is it dangerous for democrats as well or more specifically the white house? donald trump has a hugely ambitious agenda, and whether or not he held meetings and events this past week, you can't say this doesn't slow things down. >> well, it does and it doesn't, stephanie. i think at the moment we're talking about going through this next week of making sure that we get the depositions. i think the number of witnesses is going to be very limited. they'll do the depositions. and then the senate will come back. i don't think this is a significant delay, and i think, you know, the republicans have a real problem here because jaime herrera is a republican and she is adverse to the interest of the president. i don't what witnesses would be called on the republican side, on trump's side, that would support his position. and so i don't think this is a significant delay, and i think the managers are cognizant of what president biden's agenda is. and this is a way to close out the trial, and i think it's important. i didn't think it would happen, but now that it has, i think it should be get on with and that can happen in a couple of days. >> daniel, would the prosecution consider subpoenaing donald trump himself? i know they've asked him and he's declined. would they consider it? >> i don't think so for a couple of reasons. first of all, it's never been the case that either body of congress has subpoenaed a sitting president. it's happened 150 years ago with former presidents, but they were removed from presidency, and it didn't relate as much to their own role as commander in chief. there are real executive privilege issues and decor rum issues. it could be litigated. in addition to sort of standard practice, it would also be litigated in courts, and that would delay things significantly. the reason they requested his testimony earlier is because they made the decision they weren't going to ask for a subpoena of him. they wanted to be able to say as they did yesterday, we gave you the opportunity to come tell your story and you refused, so don't now complain that we don't have your story, and that's exactly what happened yesterday. so they set that up quite nicely by asking for his voluntary testimony, but they will not to brings in all sorts of pow issues and litigation. >> what about mike pence? >> you took the words out of my mouth. >> mike pence is someone you'd want to consider. but the problem from a prosecutor's perspective -- let me talk about how this would ordinarily work in court. you don't call an adverse witness or a witness who has traditionally been aligned with your adversary or deft without knowing exactly what they're going to say because there are always surprises, and you once calling that witness sort of vouch for whatever they say. so if they then say things that are bad for you, it really, really hurts your case. so it would be very risky to call mike pence. and, frankly, i'm not sure mike pence is the right person to call if you want to know what donald trump knew at the time mike pence himself was being evacuated. reporting are that pence did not speak to trump. what pence could give you is his role in calling the national guard what trump was not doing in calling the national guard. but, again, you're going to bring in litigation. you're going to bring in executive privilege issues that very well may be litigated, and that will delay this much, much longer. >> well, then, daniel, who would you call? >> well, i think they're being very smart in narrowly tailoring it to the republican congresswoman. i think kevin mccarthy is, again, a little riskier. yes, he might be able to describe the conversation with donald trump, but he's also already made amends with trump and has voted against impeachment, voted against certification even after the riot, so, you know, that's a very risky prospect. at this point you don't want to do more harm to your case. you've put on a very powerful case. the only witnesses i'd want to put on is ones where i was certain they were going to help my case. and i don't know what investigation they've been doing behind the scenes. i don't know whether they have spoken to people at the fbi or people at secret service or people who, you know, could give information. i mean, one person i would consider calling is the governor of maryland, larry hogan. i was kind of surprised they didn't didn't play a video clip of his press conference the day or two after the january 6th rye the 0s where he said that he had the maryland national guard ready to go into the capital but they waited for two hours to get the okay from the department of defense. that i thought was very good evidence. and larry hogan could give a little bit of the aftermath perspective of the delinquency of the federal government to call in the national guard. but the most important thing here is do not harm to your case. you do not want to call anyone who might ultimately give testimony that you're aware of that will hurt your case because that will destroy the entire case. that will be all that anyone talks about. that will be all that anyone focuses on, and all of the good work that you've put into this point will just be irrelevant. >> what we are talking about here is the beginning of the process, right? that senate vote we just watched is the start of the process to call witnesses in this second impeachment trial. what this was not was a vote to subpoena the one individual that lead impeachment manager jamie raskin called out specifically by name, congressman butler. garrett haake, you were on capitol hill and had a chance to talk to sources here. talk about what happens from here. >> i think this is still being worked out very much in realtime. all we know is the desire to get jamie herrera beutler, the congressman from washington state, the one witnesses democrats said they affirmatively said they would call. remember, this was a situation that was discussed in the context of the last impeachment trial but a similar vote here was defeated. so we've never seen this in the context of the impeachment trial. the clinton impeachment, witness depositions were already done by the time we got to this stage. so the idea we're going to figure out in realtime how they're going to do this and how they will corporate it is new. it's also worth remembering again and again and again, this is not a criminal trial. the normal rules don't apply or procedures don't apply in exactly the same way. by that i mean you don't have to introduce something for senators to know about it. they're going to read it and hear it on cable and national news, politico, the same reasons they are making decisions wholly as litigants. they are not locked in to what is presented about the trial. so you may have the managers wanting to get congressman butler for history, posterity, to make it part of the argument for the trial here. her statement is out. what she said is known to everyone in that chamber but what she says to them becomes a part of the historical record here, becomes a part of how this trial was conducted and the managers want to conduct it as completely as they possibly can. beyond that, the idea we might see several votes now, individual votes on individual witnesses with different numbers of senators voting for each. some republicans who crossed over to vote for witnesses might vote against specific witnesses even called by the prosecutors. some of them might vote for witnesses called for the defense that might be relevant. again, the numbers are going to be changeable, they're going to be malleable as each part of this debate moves forward. and what we could end up with at the end of it is totally unknown at this point. if democrats keep their 50 together on everything, presumably they could defeat any motion that republicans make. but, again, that requires them keeping all of their 50 together and we'll see what the defense puts forward. >> it is a tightrope, to put it mildly. let's bring in nbc's monica alba, who's in west palm beach covering the former president. i know there was a motorcade we saw this morning taking the president to his golf course presumably. what is the reaction from trump team to what we are seeing right now? >> well, earlier in the week, katy, we got a pretty good indication from david schoen who said hey, if the house managers want to bring witnesses, we have a long list of them. we would be happy to accommodate that. but at the time the thinking that was not bog to happen because there wouldn't be enough votes or indications electric both sides and both parties that was something they wanted to do. there was very little appetite even just hours ago for prolonging this trial. obviously now, this has all shifted and you've got the best picture from mukal van der veen who went up and said you want to play the witnesses game? we can call 100 of them. what i thought was so striking was they had the first two speaker nancy pelosi and d.c. mayor muriel bowser to talk about some of the events january 6th. you also have republican senator lindsey graham, who changed his vote from no to yes on witnesses. he's somebody that over the last couple of weeks have been talking about potentially bringing in the fbi to talk about some of the other elements of the capitol insurrection. now you have the trump team essentially huddling behind closed doors trying to determine how to play this. depend, they're happy to bring more witnesses they say but what does it mean for them if other people want to potentially subpoena donald trump as you guys were just discussing? we don't have a lot of indication what that means for a former president, prior citizen. we know for his first impeachment trial, he submitted answers to questions he worked on with his legal team. but i think we have to underscore for people, this is a pretty bar bones group of attorneys around donald trump now. he's on, by all accounts, his seventh, eighth or ninth team sense becoming president. he's really cycled through a lot of different lawyers. now you have here somebody who even admitted to morning, michael van der veen, he was only brought 0 on about a week ago and he doesn't have all of the key pieces or elements to this and now they have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how they're going to play this. the other thing to watch though is when we will hear from donald trump publicly. he was told by aides and allies not to weigh in as this continues to unfold. he is at his golf course. we will see if he ends up hitting the links today. he has been watching some of the proceedings there from and some from mar-a-lago. i'm told he was happy with how this went yesterday but we don't know yet how he thinks the rest of this is going to go and what his thinking would be on the question of witnesses. >> david schoen is observing the sabbath. it might not even be clear he knows about this yet. >> that is true. daniel goldman, what would the rational be to even call speaker nancy pelosi? on january 6th, mitch mcconnell was the senate majority leader. nancy pelosi has no chain of command, no jurisdiction over the number of troops, the military and security. it has nothing to do with this, on january 6th, she was potentially fending off an assassination attempt on her own life. >> there is no basis for -- there's no advantage that the trump team would get from calling nancy pelosi. all of this from the trump side leading up to it today, calling 100 witnesses, lindsey graham changing his vote, saying there will be many, many witnesses. it is all a bluff. it is all a desire to try to convince house managers not to call witnesses. you heard michael van der veen there lay out the four reasons for acquittal. and he said basically jurisdiction, rule 23 that the article itself charges multiple -- includes multiple charges, due process and the first amendment. what is now there is anything related to the conduct of donald trump. if you call nancy pelosi, you are getting into -- back into what occurred on january 6th. if you call muriel bowser, what is she going to give you, the fact she doesn't have control over the national guard and she was horrifying with what she was seeing? there's really -- i'm really struggling to come up with any witness for the republicans that could possibly be helpful to them other than just someone for perhaps like kevin mccarthy, but i wouldn't call kevin mccarthy, because then he can be cross-examined. someone who esa-a stlaunch supporter. maybe you call jim jordan. i don't know. but all of these threats about calling all of these hundreds of witnesses and deposing them in philadelphia and all of that, it's all bluster, it's all bluffing. it's designed to dissuade senators from voting for house witnesses because the notion it would continue on for weeks is potentially bad for their own desires on the biden agenda. >> it is just about 11:00 a.m. now. the point we already thought maybe we would already be in closing arguments from house managers and the trump defense team. that obviously went out the window just about 50 minutes ago when congressman jamie raskin, lead house impeachment manager, announced he wanted to seek a subpoena from jamie herrera beutler, who's talking more overnight in breaking news about a call she was briefed on between former president trump and kevin mccarthy in which the former president, by her telling, declined to send help when kevin mccarthy asked about it. i want to bring in somebody who's been on the floor and might be able to shed more light on this, especially after the senate vote 55-45, to move forward to call witnesses, senator jeff dirk merkley from oregon. >> good morning. >> so where do things stand now? >> so now you have to decide how many witnesses, are they going to call them by name or number, and go over each side how many each will call. what we witnessed this morning was a tantrum by trump's attorneys where he accused basically the house managers in their word, basically, you're trampling on the constitution. you could just feel the sense of resentment among the members of such an accusation. overall, this trial is about trampling on the constitution but not by the attorneys representing the house managers, but this is about trampling on the constitution by the president of the united states of america who didn't defend american against attack and the last thing those defense lawyers want is more information about how the president was besieged by mulvaney, besieged by others saying you've got to stop this, you've got to end this, you've got to tell everybody to stand down, you've got to call in the national guard and the president just celebrated. so this is really why democrats and really every senator should be saying, we want to hear exactly what happened so we can understand, was or is there a case that trump didn't want this to happen or is this exactly what he wants to happen? was this the result of his incitement to insurrection? >> i'm curious looking at our screen on the center floor what senators cornyn and mcconnell and it looks like senator coons might be talking about now. as i'm looking at the back of head. this is obviously as you said wild wild west. who knows what will happen next? it is though a slim majority the democrats mann taken. what are the risks here? >> i really see no risks. maybe that's too cavalier but the point is, the truth matters. so if we get information about how trump behaved, that is very valuable to the historical record. it is very valuable to the consideration of whether the president incited this insurrection. it's very significant to the state of mind of my republican colleagues who have been wanting to hide between the thinnest veneer of excuses for not holding the president accountable. so i think the real risk is on the defense side. they wanted to wrap this up, shut this down, get their vote, put it in the history books and go, okay, we're done. >> but, sir, with all due respect, we have that information and many republicans don't care. >> many republicans are struggling. i -- you say they don't care. i think many of them feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. their hearts, they understand what the president did was absolutely unacceptable. they also have a base that doesn't listen to that information, that feels trump can do nothing wrong, that's going to play a big role in their next primary election. if you have a series of testimony of people who actually spoke to the president, and it's not just reported through some third party press but we are hearing directly about what they have to say, what did mulvaney's conversation with the president actually consist of, et cetera? that could really give them a basis for pivoting and it certain will you is important for everyone in america to understand what happened. >> senator, there had been some reporting prior to this point that if we got here, that perhaps the path would be to form a special trial committee, according to "the washington post." basically a small group of senators to be able top hadal things like depositions, legal challenges, et cetera, while the is that goes about the rest of its business, according to paul cane. is that your understanding of what would happen next here? >> my sense is the depositions would take some time. so some process like that would be set up. whether that is a week or three weeks or who knows for how long, then we would come back 0 with that information in hand, with that testimony in hand, and resume the trial. >> your former colleague, claire mccaskill was on our air moments ago saying democrats will need to allow some defense witnesses, otherwise, it will look un-farr. what's your take on who the democrats should allow that the defense might want to call? >> i really think it should be up to the defense. this might -- as i said, my personal philosophy is each side should be able to call who they want, up to a certain number. is that five per site, ten per site? i know that's the sort of negotiation that will take place. i don't think it needs to be by specific name. i don't think the republicans gain anything from talking to kamala harris or nancy pelosi. they're going to not fill in the story in a way that's helpful or to the defense, and that's the challenge the defense has, who will testify that the president made phone calls trying to stop the assault on the capitol? to our knowledge, the defense would have brought that forward if it exists so we don't think it exists and quite the opposite exists. so i just think an even number of witnesses per side, let them choose who they want, to me, is the fairest way to proceed. >> and there's reporting from split kol that there was perhaps a raised voice incident between senator 0 rahm johnson and senator mitt romney in the chamber while this was going down. did you happen to see that? >> no, i did not. >> senator merkley, thank you very much for joining us. i know you have to get back. i just want to read a little bit about what the congressional reporters are telling us about the color on the floor. rand paul are talking maskly, tuberville is huddling in the corner, mitchell is showing her hurt arm in the corner, that's why i was asking what you're seeing open the screen now, according to judy, who's on the hill. >> and saying why do i want this job? i had a better life before. >> potentially. >> and joining us now is adam kinzinger, he was one of the ten republicans who voted last month to impeach trump. thank you for joining us. your reaction to what we are seeing? >> chaotic but, look, we need answers to what happened. i know everybody is in a hurry to move on. but i think the only way to truly move on is to get to the bottom of what happened. from the defense they want to show it wasn't a big deal. from the prosecution, they want to show it was. if there's a witness that can shed light, it needs to happen. this is january 6th, january 6th was a huge day. it is not one we can easily bury and move on from. we need the bottom line what happened. >> you got to be, i'm sure, surprised by what you're seeing happening now. do you think it would be a good idea for the defense to -- as we've been reporting they would like to do to call house speaker pelosi, the d.c. mayor, et cetera? >> i'm not sure -- they have a right to and they should be able to call who they want, especially if the prosecution is able to. but i'm not sure what light they can shed on it besides it would be a little bit of a distraction going to a realm that has nothing to do with the president did or said on january 6th and prior, so i'm sure they're going to try to bring people in to confuse the situation, give some of the senators who want to acquit the ability to say the reasons they're acquitting. the bottom line is, what we need to get to the bottom of is when this started to the end of the night, what was the president's actions? what was he doing? what did he know? obviously, the conversation with kevin mccarthy about the yelling, i can't imagine kevin was yelling because the president was quickly jumping on every possibility to stop this insurrection. there's a lot of deit's always details we need to know. >> i want to jump in we just caught up with congressman castro in the hallway and we asked how many witnesses would you call and his response was loss, which tells you something about what the timeline of this might be. >> it could take a while. again, the thing people need to keep in mind is, the most important thing now, dealing with covid will be number one but getting to the bottom of what happened january 6th so we know we have a full historic record of it and we could never have anything like that happen again. that's going to be important and as many as takes as necessary. >> congressman, president trump basically left office in shame. many, many of your republican colleagues, why they weren't rebuking his actions as you did, they were staying kind of silent. as we two through these days and more and more republicans who are sort of contorting themselves, kevin mccarthy included and especially to stand with or defend president trump, does this not put him in a stronger position and what you're doing trying to distance yourself and really create a new mission, does it weaken yours? >> no, i don't think so. i think in the temporary there's going to be probably a little rally around the flag action. but the reality is there are a lot of people intentionally or unintentionally trying to be blinded to what happened and trying to minimize january 6th and everything that led up to it. in the long term, we need to know. i think the more information that comes out, the more people are going to realize this has been a trump first party up to now and it actually needs to be a country first party again. and in terms of the mission, all i want to get through is truth and telling people the truth and i think this is the way to get here. >> congressman, we need to jump to scoop mccaskill. it seems you have reporting from us. what are you hearing from some of your former colleagues? >> you muted yourself. >> oh, i did? no? >> now we hear you. >> okay. let me walk everybody through where we are. we're in section 47 of the resolution -- of the senate resolution, 47, section 7. and here's what happened, there's going to be a resolution put on the floor for witnesses to be called. what they're negotiating now is what that resolution is going to look like and the majority is going to decide what that resolution looks like. they're probably trying to get some agreement right now with what witnesses will be included in this resolution. but it's amendable. so if they bring that resolution -- when they bring that resolution to the floor, which they must, the other side can try to amend it with individual witnesses and each amendment would be a separate vote. so i will not be surprised if a resolution comes forward and people like lindsey graham or ted cruz or josh hawley try to keep amending it to add more witnesses. in light of their bluff, because it won't peace, the amendments won't pass, because they're going to be political amendments. then what happens is anybody who is agreed to as a witness has to be deposed. after they're deposed, the language of the resolution says very clearly, the senate decides whether they testify. so just because a witness is being deposed doesn't mean the senate is going to allow them actually to testify as part of the proceedings. it's a two-step process but they're not allowed to testify unless they are first deposed by both sides so both sides know what they're going to say. that make sense? >> it makes sense. and let me -- senator mccaskill, just correct something i said. it was actually bruce castor, the trump defense attorney, who said they're planning to call lots of witnesses, not the house impeachment manager. >> that didn't make sense to me. >> it was interesting news, misheard, but we have all good questions laid out. what does that mean for the timeline as far as days versus weeks here? and what can you tell us about the possibility that has been raised apparently about the idea of a special trial committee made up of a smaller group of senators that would handle some of these things while the senate goes about, for example, issues related to the biden agenda and so forth? >> i'm very familiar with the small kpity handling it because i chair chaired one of the signal committees for the impeachment of a federal judge, judge porteous. we had the evidentiary hearing in a small committee and brought the results of the proceedings to the committee for a final vote on conviction. so that's possible. but maybe more probable is the resolution by the majority saying this is who we want to call, this one witness. the deposition is going to be done in the next two days and that's it. and the defense gets one witness also. but that deposition must be done in the next two days. then they can try to amend that. who's really important in this process right now? guess what? it's the same ones we keep talking about. it's the republicans that voted with the democrats to give them more than 50 vote. as long as they hold on to romney or collins or murkowski or ben sasse, they're going to get to decide what witnesses, when the depositions will be taken and whether the trial can reconvene after a deposition of the witnesses and then testify. and that's another vote of the senate. >> and you would have to imagine there's a lot of pressure on ben sasse and romney and murkowski and collins. there's already a lot of pressure from their home states and others. there's reporting from split coal romney got into a shouting match with rob portman. we have not confirmed that. but, claire mccaskill, when you talk about the crisis of this situation, not just this trial but the pandemic crisis, economic crisis, how long can this get dragged out? and what's the parallel for democrats, and joe biden, if this draws down everything else we're facing? >> i don't think it will. again, this is when majorities really will matter. chuck schumer is in charge. as long as he holds on to one, two, three, four republicans votes, he can make sure it doesn't drag on. he can make sure the depositions are all taken next week of whatever witnesses end up being endorsed by the senate by a majority vote. he can make sure it's reconvened quickly. and that's what he's going to want to do. remember, this is -- nobody wants this to be dragged on. i mean, we've got covid relief to worry about. >> the white house is on covid relief. the goal is march 14th. does this push back 14th back? >> i think what they will try to do, katy, is make sure this doesn't push march 14th back. they have the ability to be do that as long as they have 50 plus 1 votes. >> daniel goldman, do you want to jump in here? >> yes, i think the clinton impeachment is a good lesson. what happened there is this did agree to have several witnesses. they adjourned the trial, went and deposed those witnesses by video and then they played excerpts of the video depositions to the entire senate when they came back. and i agree with claire, i think they're probably trying to work out an agreement right now on how many witnesses. jamie raskin only mentioned one and an hour-long deposition. they're probably trying to figure out if there's one relevant witness trump actually wants, not this bluster and bluffing and threats of many, many witnesses, which is really hogwash. and then they'll try to figure out if they can get this done in the next couple of days. if not, certainly, with less than a week. for the senate is in reverse next week as claire mentioned. i wouldn't expect this to drag on for weeks and weeks and i don't think the managers, at least from what jamie raskin said, indicated they want a lot of witnesses. what is interesting he said he wanted congresswoman butler and anyone else who comes forward who has information relevant to what occurred in the aftermath of the riot. and they're honing in exactly on that time period when donald trump was doing nothing to protect the capitol, was sending mean tweets to mike pence while they knew he was being evacuated and under threat. and they want to flesh that out because that seems to have really resonated with some of the republican senators. >> daniel, claire, stay there. back with us nbc news political director and moderator of "meet the press," chuck todd. charles, republicans do want to drag this on. you know better than any of us, mitch mcconnell is a political calculus mastermind. by him showing his hand this morning saying he's voting to acquit, did he give the house impeachment managers, democrats, no choice but to call witnesses to sort of keep hope alive? >> you know, stephanie, you read my mind. i was like riddle me this, if mitch mcconnell leaks word this morning he's going to vote to convict, does jamie raskin ask for a witness? we're never going to know unless you want to build a time machine for us and go back and try an alternative timeline. so you're right, whether the two are linked or not, it's hard not to wonder allowed on that. but at the same time, it certainly seemed last night that the congresswoman butler, she was sending a signal, hey, there's more information here, more people need to talk. i'm willing to talk. you don't reconfirm this version of a story that she's noted for the fifth time over the last month, and so now there's not going to be this excuse, any sort of deathbed anti-trump conversions six months from now when a senator who voted just to aquick said oh, if i only had that information at the time. now there's going to be less of those excuses. but look, if using the clinton model, we're looking at this now probably extending a week but not that much longer. we're talking a week max of everything, the depositions and the decision of what gets played in the trial. we're not looking at weeks and weeks and weeks. we're looking at a week max. >> what about mitch mcconnell, is he going to try to inflict political pain by forcing this to be drawn out in the sense he's going to hold up all of the other work of the senate to make it work for democrats or will he follow the clinton model, not recess, but recess the trial, do the depositions and come back and vote? >> i guess i'm going to take mitch mcconnell at his word from earlier this morning that this was a close call. so while he may disagree on jurisdiction, he also continues to say words that everything here is a vote of conscience. so if everything is a vote of conscience right now in this trial, i don't think he's going to be punishing -- trying to make this -- because he's going to be then punishing four, five of his own members there. i actually think -- i would be surprised if he became very uncooperative here in the way you're describing. maybe i'm charlie brown and you're lucy and the football, but i will take mitch mcconnell at that. >> can you see that? you're lucy, you're charlie brown and i just appreciate chuck todd as charlie brown. i hope that makes me snoopy and maybe hallie woodstock. >> when you're born a charles and you were at 5 years old, every single gift i got as a 5-year-old was something charlie brown. >> careful, chuck, you might get a new nickname. >> chuck, we're going to get to mike memoli in a second, but before you do, i want to go back to something you said, you alluded to congresswoman butler who is sending a signal where she stands on this. she put it in black and white. to the patriots standing up to the former president as the conversations are happening or even the former vice president, if you have something to add here, now would be the time. i wonder how you take that and what specifically as she called out mike pence, the pence factor is? >> well, it's not just mike pence. i think she's talking about her colleagues on the house. i think she's talking about kevin mccarthy and himself. so i don't know if mike pence knows per se, right? mike pence may not be the most direct witness here. maybe it's people around mike pence might have more information on this. >> chuck, even if delaying things only lasts a week and they were supposed to be on recess anyone and it won't make a difference, however, for the moment does it make a difference? do to my mom and dad's dinner table tonight when they're seeing, aren't we going to move on with things? that polling matters, all of these senators and congress people check polling in their home states constantly and whether it's true or not, all of those people going can't we just move on? >> i know, the social media eye roll, cue the eye roll emoji. i understand that because i think unfortunately, we have conditioned -- we have conditioned people that somehow everything is tidier that we move on, on a specific schedule. you know, i guess -- i think unfortunately, we failed to do accountability properly in washington i would argue the last 20 years because there's always this perception there's pressure if you don't -- if you let this linger, this is going to become a political problem. there's short-term political problems and then yet it's always in the long term, whatever you rushed, you end up wishing you hadn't rushed. so i get it and i know because we conditioned viewers and social media cycles viewers so we don't have this attention span, but this is how it works. >> chuck, what about the lawyers? there was "the new york times" reporting on thursday night the trump legal team was about to fall apart again with someone threatening to quit, trump had to call him on the phone to keep him. if this goes on any longer do we stand to see a ninth legal team coming in? are these lawyers going to hang on? >> katy, you know how trump world works very well. you've gotten a five-year education on it, if not longer. >> we all have at this point. >> exactly. we know how his world works. we know he likes the aggressiveness of this new lawyer. but he really doesn't know anything about this process and i think he's hurting himself and former president cause by his behavior in some of the senators. so at the same time what lawyers are ready to jump in front of this freight train for the former president? >> remember last night -- >> there are a lot of them who do not want any part of this. >> remember he said last night, i am having a hard time in washington here. and he said you should have been here january 6th. they're talking about their lives being put on the line and she's complaining about arguing in front of the senate. >> and van der veen is a guy for all of his finger-pointing here in the chamber last year sued the person he's not representing for false claims of vote-by-mail fraud. chuck todd, thank you very much. i know you have a lot to go to. i want to go to mike memoli live at the white house. you talked about the idea of the biden agenda and what this delay now in the impeachment proceedings, impeachment trial will mean for that. i understand you might have new reporting from folks you're talking to? >> that's right, hallie. all week it's been hard to get the white house to even acknowledge this impeachment trial is really even happening as far as they've been concerned. they're trying to paint the picture of this administration going full-speed ahead, especially on that covid relief bill. but what a white house official is telling our team here now is if there's a delay because of witnesses being called, they don't believe it will seriously impact how they're proceeding. now, on the process, i think that's technically right here. as senator mccaskill was saying earlier, this is a vacation -- not vacation but work-from-home week for the house. so it's not like they would move on to nominations or covid relief bill. but on politics, it's a very different story. as we talked about this counterprogramming strategy over the past week, the president meeting with mayors, governors, ceos, having that bipartisan meeting in the oval office to look at their next legislative agenda, which is an infrastructure package, yes, that was designed to show the president at work not being distracted by this impeachment trial but it was also sort of a recognition he wasn't going to be much part of the story line this week during the trial anyway. they had been planning for this coming week ahead to be one in which he very much went back out with ideally a impeachment line behind them to build support of that covid relief bill which they want to see the goal towards having by mid-march. we saw the white house scheduled, yes, a televised town hall in wisconsin tuesday night, visit on thursday to michigan to vaccine distribution center to try to show progress green chutes here in the fight against covid and use that to continue to build pressure on lawmakers in washington. if we're still going to be seeing witnesses being deposed, the trial very much front and center, that would impact the ability to hope for the who us to again take the spotlight back here. certainly one more situation here, a spokesperson for vice president kamala harris said while the president is at camp david, a white house official telling her as well he's been meeting with a national security team today even as he enjoys the president's day weekend there, the vice president is at work and defers the process to the senate. what is that about? we're trying to get a sense of the impeachment trial like we saw in the reconciliation vote. we have a close call with 50/50 going forward, and would the vice president be a tiebreaking vote here? we're trying to get ahold of that process question. i will defer to my friends on the hill as well to help answer that question. but she's very much ready if called on to go to the hill on do that. >> let's bring in one of our friends on the hill. garrett haake, back with more reporting. what are you learning? and give us a sense, we're all surprised by this, we don't know what's happening, but how serious is this now? what's the tone where you are? >> it's quite serious. i just ran over to the chamber to try to get a sense of what was going on. most of the senators stayed on the floor or in the cloakrooms. they're waiting for further instructions and largely talking amongst themselves, trying to get a sense of exactly what's going to happen here and what it could mean for the senate agenda, for their own schedules over the next few weeks. here's what i can tell you, and i have done a little historical review here and i'm happy to correct my previous reporting on the clinton impeachment, because it's going to be a model potentially for what we see next. the senate rules for impeachment only get us up to the point of what happened if a decision is made to call witnesses. that's the decision just made on the floor in that bipartisan vote. now we're going to see essentially two different sets of votes. one will be on which witnesses should be called. in the clinton impeachment trial, they ultimately made a decision to call three. and then a separate decision will be made about what's the format for this? you heard a little bit of debate about this on the floor with jamie raskin saying he could depose butler in an one-hour zoom session and another congressman saying i would rather have 100 witnesses down in philadelphia. that will be another thing debated on the floor or pushed to vote, or they can look to the clinton model. either way, it's going to be time for depositions and attorneys. and there's a third set of decisions or votes that could come much later, what depositions are used on the floor in what way? are they playing video, are they bringing people in to testify live to back up their video depositions? all of those are decisions the senate will have to make. they can start from scratch and pass those rules as they sort of pull them together, they can laep on the model that was created during the clinton impeachment. but again, all of these things will be subject to votes at 50-throat threshold or 51-vote threshold with the tiebreak here. >> all of this is going to be a bit of a negotiation. if the democrats get witnesses, this will he want to go on just the one? the republicans will want it defeated unless some of the republican senators who voted with democrats and some things think would be germane. it's hard to imagine whom that could be. a lot of decisions in front of the senate right now. and that's something that the majority leader, now chuck schumer, is going to have to work out and it's not clear -- and this is going to be a focus of my reporting for a little while now how much he knew and when he knew the managers would go this route. it's not as if they had a snap resolution ready to go to move forward on how they would pursue witnesses or if they have, they haven't revealed it yet. this may have caught both the president's defense attorneys and republican party defenders and senate democrats who are leaning towards conviction or looking towards conviction. it might have caught them both flat-footed. we will see if and when we get a look at the resolution and who the additional witnesses might be. >> speaking of the defense attorneys, let's go to monica alba. monica, i asked the question earlier, what will happen with the legal team? "the new york times" is reporting that schoen almost quit on thursday night. what are you hearing? >> that's right, katy, he was contemplating it according to "the new york times" before donald trump had to call him and ask him to stay, which obviously he did agree to because david schoen was part of the short presentation yesterday. he's not there today because he's observing the sabbath. honestly, we're all wondering whether if he has any idea of anything that's going on right now because it's very possible he has not been clued into or briefed on what is going on here because of that religious observance. setting that aside, the current trump legal team garrett just presented a great question of whether this caught them by surprise. i can tell you, according to a source close to the group, the answer to that is yes. they were expecting to completely wrap this up today and leave washington and be done with it and they were really optimistic they were going to have an acquittal in hand when they left d.c. this is something the trump team was hoping would be wrapped up and done by mid-afternoon. that's not going to be done. so they're huddled trying to define their strategy. and you heard the republicans blustering saying we would be happy to call dozens and dozens of witnesses. but you need an agreement with the senate how that would happen, a vote for each person agreed on and all of that. but what's really interesting is we're getting reaction from people in the orbit of the former president, for example, former white house officials telling kristen welker, what does that mean for me? am i someone who might be called and have to testify? and they're concerned about that. you have multiple players and a lot to juggle during this break as they're trying to figure out what's next. it's likely the former president, donald trump, is speaking to his team and also trying to discuss what their approach should be next. we know right now for example donald trump is at one of his golf courses here in west palm. we have not spotted him on the course as we do sometimes. obviously he's taking on the proceeding like us watching this unfold in realtime. again, there's an absolute element of surprise here. they were expecting this would be done tonight conversation you were having moments ago with chuck todd about this defense team, the reason this group of attorneys is much smaller is because they were so optimistic this was going to be a speedy and swift trial and did not necessitate more people. if this stretches on, they may have to bring more people on board but as we've been reporting for weeks, they had a hard time finding people to come and work with the former president since we've already seen so many attorneys essentially say i cannot work with you because i'm not comfortable with the former president's desire to make some of this trial about the bogus voter fraud claims. >> if this stretches on, there's also another layer to this too, and that is former president trump. i have talked to sources -- i know you have talked to your sources about this. he's been counseled to basically say nothing, stay silent. yes, we talked about he doesn't have his twitter account. that's a big megaphone he used. but there's a myriad of other ways he could get his message out to people. he's chosen not to do that, because we understand, he's being counseled not to. that could end up hurting his case. if this trials goes on let's say another week or two weeks, as it did looking at the clinton model roughly, is it sustainable that donald trump stays out of the public spotlight? >> i think for him this is something he's been itching to do to re-enter the spotlight and in some way urged him to stay out of it as the trial is ongoing. but this is so out of character for donald trump, somebody who likes to seize the limelight. hallie, you're right, if this was last year i would be looking down at my phone 30 seconds to see if donald trump tweeted some reaction to this news. that's not something we're experiencing this impeachment go around. but he can at any time release a public statement from his official office. he can also call a press conference at mar-a-lago, not too far from where we are here, but he has been told not to do these things and derail what the trump team thinks is a sure outcome. don't step in it is the message for donald trump and he so far heeded that advice. but i think he may get antsy, and you know this after covering him so many years, katy, you too, obviously, he loved to call in media outlets and do interviews on-camera appearances. he hasn't done many of that since leaving office last month. we know he's been having all of these behind-the-scene conversations and meeting with those at mar-a-lago to discuss the next steps as he continues to decide what his political future might be and we know he hasn't ruled out running again in 2024. >> monica, stay with us. let's bring in former senior member of the mueller investigation and investigator andrew weissmann. theoretically, the democrats have more time. right now the focus is connecting the dots, that phone call that afternoon. what president trump knew when. is there not another avenue to pursue around law enforcement and security? we know the capitol police were understaffed. we know they were directed not to fire unless they were fired at. there was 140 police officers injured, is that an avenue to be explored if there's more time? >> you know, the answer to that is there are different ways to have approached this trial. you could have had a long investigation and proddened it out to all of those issues. you could have had depositions about the various outreaches by donald trump within the department of justice to various secretaries of state. you could have the reaction to how they were setting up for january 6th, which my view is sort of a really racist way of doing it compared to what they did for the black lives matter movement. so all of that could have been done. i think at this point though, getting this particular witness is really interesting. think where we were last night where everyone was focused on the vice president and sort of depravity of the president throwing his own vice president under the bus, and so many questions coming from senator collins, murkowski. well, the statements have degravity not just respect to the president but also with respect to congress where he's lying to kevin saying, look, people really care more about a valid election than you do and kevin mccarthy saying, who do you think you're talking to, as if he's going to buy into that false story. and so i think that really gives the answer to the senators on the republican side -- to convict here, and it also fills out the story to the american public. one other statement i would make is i find the mcconnell statement fascinating. the mcconnell statement, and i'm not sure because there's a witness still to be heard from, but even if he lands where he says he's going to land, he does not come out and say that former president trump did not incite. he does not defend him on the facts. in fact, his answer to the sort of january exception argument by the democrats is to say, you know what, the answer to the january exception is a president can be prosecuted criminally if he committed crimes, and there are violations of this in january. so that is really an invitation to the secretary of state or department of justice to look into this. but we don't have mcconnell saying nothing happened here. to me that was sort of a fascinating way in which mcconnell was saying, look, i may vote to acquit but don't think i'm a fool in terms of what happened here. >> we just got an email in our inboxes from one of our capitol hill producers with a picture from jason miller showing all of the defense witnesses that they plan on calling. it says 301 and counting. that's a lot. andrea, i was talking to somebody close to nancy pelosi a little bit earlier today and they were saying they believed the defense is going to try to pin all of this on her and mayor muriel bowser, saying that security, the lack ever security ask, they're to blame for it. not the president, not anybody else. lo and behold, we've just gotten a few tweets from lindsey graham where he said, "it's my firm belief the house managers are trying to investigate the case after it was brought to the senate. it's better for the country to go to a final vote. he adds, we can start with speaker pelosi to answer the question to whether or not there was credible evidence of preplanned violence before president trump spoke. what do you think about this -- this red herring? >> so i view it exactly the way you do, which is a red herring. having done a lot of criminal trials, this is what a lot of defense lawyers do as part of their job, which is to distract. and i don't mean that in a negative way. they have a client to represent and they want to get the person off and if they can get jurors to think that's a valid argument, that's fine. but let's assume that there's truth to the idea that nancy pelosi should have done more, or the mayor in d.c. should have done more. let's keep two ideas in our head at the same time. let's assume the truth of that. does that make donald trump any more or less guilty of inciting what happened on january 6th? yes, more could have been done to try to prevent his incitement, but that doesn't make him any less guilty of what the charges here and the evidence that we're presumably going to know here about the conversation between donald trump and kevin mccarthy goes so strongly to the former president's intent on that day because you have kevin mccarthy reportedly pleading with him directly to say, you know, we need to call off the dogs and we need to get safety for, just remember, every member of congress and the sitting vice president were in that building that day, not to mention the entire staff and employees of congress. so just a target-rich environment. and what is the president's response? he's not, i'm shocked, shocked to hear what's going on here. instead he's saying, you know, they're willing to overturn the election. where are you? >> the objection, hearing none, we stand in recess until 12:30. >> thank you, mr. president. >> andrew, i'm sorry to cut you off. we wanted to listen in to senator majority leader chuck schumer. the senate is in recess now for about 45 minutes. they are coming back at 12:30, presumably figuring out next steps to get a timeline on where this goes. i don't know if we have garrett haake standing by. if we do, love to go to him. garrett, this seems to be the figure-it-out portion of the afternoon, given we are in, as we say, very much unchartered territory here. >> yeah, i think that's right and the indication they will take another 45 minutes in recess tells me, or at least partially answers the question i posed earlier, which is when did chuck schumer know they were going to ask to call witnesses. i think he found out the same time we all did, this is the next step to figure out. a debate around witnesses, who would be called. i think the president's defense team is going to put forward witnesses. you were just talking about having speaker pelosi at the top of their list. i don't see them getting 50 votes for that to be completely frank with you. but if you get further down the republican list, there are figures who might get 50 votes. they asked about calling the former sergeant in arms and those removed in the position in the aftermath, robert conti, the d.c. police chief. i don't know how that sheds any light on former president trump's conduct, but it may be of interest to the senators who ran for their lives on january 6th. again, we're now in this position where you have to figure out two things, the total witness list, who will be called, will there be an agreement on this like the last impeachment trial, one for one, two for two? small number of witnesses agreed by both sides so a bipartisan agreement or like the clinton impeachment trial, a number and manner, will they be on part zip bases? i think given the nature of this impeachment trial, a partisan basis is more likely. we have to see how this shakes out and largely the managers, democratic majority, decide what they want to work through here. mcconnell and republicans and to some degrees the fence team will have a role in this. but with more than 50 votes in the bag at least for some witnesses, you've got romney, cassidy, murkowski, collins, excuse me, not cassidy, ben sasse and collins, thus far in favor of at least some witnesses, democrats have the stronger hand to play here. we're going to see a lot of closed door, frustrating and this is what they pay me to do, find out what's going on in the rooms over the next 45 minutes to see how they want to shake this out. >> let's bring in claire mccaskill. for the last three days people are going on and on what lousy lawyers former president trump has, but does he? president trump's number one goal is stay the star of the show. he is that right now and the circus is only getting crazier. that is his favorite thing. if michael van der veen was actually following the rules, the law and stating facts, he'd infuriate donald trump. instead today, yesterday, he's absolutely pleasing him and now you've got donald trump's guys like jason miller parading around to control us saying we have 300 people on our witness list. does this not play into his hand? >> first of all, the 300 witness list is silly. these lawyers are so ill prepared, they don't understand the rules of impeachment. there will be no witness called that the senate doesn't agree to period. this isn't a trial. this isn't where this lawyer makes somebody go up to philadelphia and take a deposition in his office. that's why everyone laughed, because he's so ill prepared. he doesn't understand how the impeachment process works. what they're trying to do now, i have been on the phone with a lot of people, including people very high up with the congress and let me say this, there's nothing about today to delay the covid relief package. the house is not finished with their work, they still have to go through the budget process, it will be at least a week before it's ready to send to the senate. secondly, the president is getting the press he needs and wants every day by emphasizing what he wants to emphasize so that's not a problem. thirdly, any witnesses called have to be agreed to by the senate. in the clinton impeachment trial, they brought witnesses to be called and three different amendments voted on. so that's probably what you're going to see happen here. i'm toemd also right now they're trying to get an agreement to wrip testimony submitted and have that be the end of it. congress would submit written testimony and affidavit of sorts to go into the record. i don't know if they're going to get that done. >> would that be instead of the zoom deposition, is that what you're hearing? >> yes, instead of the zoom deposition. there's an effort to get it just to be a written affidavit. but if in fact that fails, then what i think you will see is a resolution that will tightly control the number of witnesses that will be deposed and the time in which they would be desupposed. and then there will be officers by the trump caucus, sedition caucus of the far right to try to blow this up with political talking points and amendments. once again, as i said before, everybody has to remember georgia, georgia's on my mind. so georgia gave chuck schumer the majority. talking about a tied vote, a tied vote is a loss. so that is why those few republicans are so important. and kamala harris, the vice president, cannot vote in the impeachment matter. she's not allowed a vote. she's not relevant to this discussion. so these votes where we lose by 50/50, if all of the republicans stay on one side and democrats on the other, more likely these votes will win by a 51-52-53 margin or lose by 51, 52, 53 margin based on who was present egg the various amendments. i hope that wasn't too complicated. >> no. you've actually done very well to i abunch of laymen like us, which is really the whole country because who understands the arcane rules of impeachment better than somebody than you. so ben sasse and collins and murkowski will have a lot of influence over what happens in the next few hours, few days. let's go to congressman schiff, the lead house impeachment manager in the first trump impeachment trial. congressman, thank you so much for joining us. first off your reaction to what's happening. >> i think it's a very interesting decision and smart decision by house managers. there's little risk to calling jamie herrera beutler, a member who is respected and voted for impeachment, who talked about that conversation with kevin mccarthy and appearing to others to come forward, there's a chance her testimony will open the door to other witnesses in the white house or outside who can also talk about how the president cared about nothing on that bloody day except stopping the peaceful transfer of power and trying to instill himself as a perp pet all president. so i think it is a very tactical decision and could open the door to compelling testimony. >> congressman, you're obviously somebody who's been in the shoes of jamie raskin just a year ago. one of the few people who knows what it's like to be in one of these moments. can you take us behind the scenes? what would be happening now as the senate is in a recess until 12:30, and what should happen next? if you're going to be leading this process, where would it go? >> i would say to dial back 24 hours probably last night the managers got together and had a conversation should we call witnesses and what witness or witnesses should we call? they probably came to an agreement we should call jamie herrera beutler for these reasons and the speaker, you know, enormously supportive of the judgment and discretion of his team that has done such an able job so they went forward. what will happen now i'm sure there's outreach to jamie hilaria butler to figure out when will she be able for deposition. the she would want an attorney present to represent her during that deposition. they will be thinking about whether there are witnesses they want to pursue now or wait until after her testimony to pursue. and they will be hoping do people need to reach out to them, do they want to use a subpoena to compel people to testify, know egg that could be a prolonged legal fight, not just a fight within the senate. and i'm sure as claire is pointing out, the senate is not going to go along with a term of retaliatory harassment by trump's lawyers. they said the same thing a year ago if we called john bolton they would call nancy pelosi and adam schiff and dozens of others. basically, we will make you pay for it if you want to hear anyplace. but this time the majority just changed and they won't have that ability. if they have witnesses who are pertinent and relevant, the senate will consider that and may approve that but they're not going to approve witnesses for the sake of retaliation or delay. >> congressman herrera beutler said on the report what she heard from kevin mccarthy about that call. she will potentially be deposed here. while a number of media outlets were reporting on that call for weeks, kevin mccarthy is conspicuously silent. we know after he admonished the president after january 6th, he since visited him at mar-a-lago and said to be side by side with him. what happens when and if he changes his tune? >> look, we saw kevin mccarthy go down to mar-a-lago, make the pilgrimage, kiss the ring once more, tie his own fate to donald trump, tie any chance the republicans have in the midterms to donald trump. so kevin mccarthy has now created this huge and present center to protect donald trump. this is why i think the reason house managers understand he would be an unreliable witness because you can't count on him to be truthful, to put it bluntly. so what would kevin mccarthy do? i'm sure there's a lot of pressure to the white house to issue a statement coming to the president' defense disputing congresswoman herrera beutler's testimony, but he would have to do that under oath and they have to be concerned about submitting a declaration under oath and not being truthful. i imagine those discussions are going on between the trump defense team and kevin mccarthy and who knows where that will end up. >> congressman adam schiff, thank you so much for joining us and for your perspective. one of the people who has been talking the last couple of days is senator ted cruz. let's listen to what he has to say. >> what she knew specifically and in particular she could testify we heard already the house sergeant in arms turn down national guard protection from the capitol on january 6th because of, quote, the optics. i think speaker pelosi can testify as to whether she made a decision based on optics, based on politics, not to have additional protection at the capitol to prevent the terrorist attack that played out. my view remains is we don't need witnesses but i think if the democrats want to open this pandora's box, i don't think it's going to work out well for them. >> should president trump be one of the witnesses himself? and why not? >> there's a long is that digs tradition in our trials, reflected in the bill of rights, no person is forced to testify against himself, and i don't think we should force the president to testify. this is -- the house's burden is the prosecutors and they haven't proven their case. the reason you're seeing this hail mary is everybody knows the outcome -- >> you're listening to senator ted cruz provide the republican perspective on this. a president trump ally, somebody we have seen huddling with president trump's team for legal advice and counsel, based on what we heard. we're going to take a quick break. we will be right back in a couple minutes. ould stay fresh for weeks? now they can! this towel has already been used and it still smells fresh. pour a cap of downy unstopables into your washing machine before each load and enjoy fresher smelling laundry for up to 12-weeks. my husband and i have never eaten healthier. shingles doesn't care. i logged 10,000 steps today. shingles doesn't care. i get as much fresh air as possible. good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but no matter how healthy you feel your immune system declines as you age, increasing your risk for getting shingles. so what can protect you? 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