Transcripts For CNNW The Impeachment Trial Of Donald J. Trum

make the case that donald j. trump is a victim in all this. jay sekulow came out and said look what he had to put up with with bob mueller, showing volume one i believe it was of the mueller report, not volume two, but volume one of the mueller report, saying that this is a president who had to put up with these fisa abuses. if the president was paranoid, he had a right to be paranoid. so they went back to the mueller case and said look, this is a guy who's been attacked unfairly, the democrats are just doing more of this because they want to get him out of office, and then jay sekulow went there on the conspiracy theories. he went there and raised the possibility that ukraine interfered in the last election. that is something that i wonder how the senators are going to react to that because again that is something that 17 intelligence agencies said didn't occur, the president's own fbi director chris wray said didn't occur, and jay sekulow went there again. one more fact i want to point out, they said the ukranians just did not know about any of this, they're forgeting the testimony of jennifer williams. the ukranians were asking what happened to the aid on july 25th. that was the day of course we know that the president had his kind of questionable phone call with president zelensky. so there are a bunch of things i'm sure that house managers are going to go back at in their presser. >> i think that's right. this was very much the greatest hits. there were hits on adam schiff, hits on the fbi, hits on the process in the house, going over that, the last person, he was a bit dry as we noted, very much into the process, and really making the argument somehow that the process in the house had gone correctly, that somehow the white house would have turned over all of these documents. >> and witnesses. >> and witnesses, right. that's why you see schumer making the argument, maybe they'll have documents and witnesses in. i think the central part of this, i think donald trump watching this will be happy about this, the central argument is that a, the call was perfect, and that donald trump is really, really, really concerned about corruption, that he is this crusader going around the world, trying to root out corruption wherever he finds it. the evidence of that call, the evidence of trump's record shows that he is singularly focused on corruption, whether it has to do with ukraine, the debunked conspiracy theory around a server that doesn't really exist or the bidens. they're laying the predicate that all of this makes sense and i think you'll see going forward, really hammering on the bidens, hunter and joe biden, and making the argument this president had every right to go after the bidens in the way he did. >> the president, somebody who interviewed him before he became president going back some 20 years, he never liked foreign aid to begin with, doesn't like u.s. money going overseas, he wants to keep that money here in the united states. why don't the europeans pay for nato, why don't the japanese pay for the troops in japan or the south koreans. he never liked that. and i suspect his opposition to u.s. money going abroad wasn't the result of corruption, it is because he wanted to keep that money here. he never understood why it was in america's national security interest to be spending all that money. you cover him on a day-to-day basis. >> that's right, about the aid. the other thing they focused on, they talked about how corrupt ukraine is, how pervasive corruption is among the highest levels of their government, which is true, but the question is is that the president's concern. when you read the july 25th transcript of the call that they focused on, that word isn't mentioned in the transcript of the call by president trump at all. also not mentioned in the april call that the president had, even though the readout at the time said they talked about corruption, we later got the transcript of the call, it also did not mention corruption. the president didn't bring it up. that's the question about the argument. i think they did two things. they criticized and attacked adam schiff which we knew was koch coming, the video of him reading the parody of the call, we could almost guarantee they would do that. it was in the first few minutes, i think the first video. and they focused on the transcript which is interesting. i think the main argument there is that we have been, democrats have been misreading the transcript and they're not knowing the president's intentions. the transcript is out there, everyone can read it. you look at the transcript and go through it, you can see what the president's concern is, it is not burden sharing. that's not his main concern, though that was the main defense as it came out of it today. it was an interesting argument and attack they took, which we hadn't exactly expected. >> the other argument, i'm sure the president was happy to see this, all of the clips of when adam schiff early on was talking collusion between the trump campaign and the russians, and they played all of the clips, and the quote from the mueller report. >> arguing that the president has a right to doubt the intelligence community. >> they were trying to undermine adam schiff's credibility. >> they did that on the question of the whistle-blower testifying as well, and made the point, why was he for the whistle-blower coming in at first, and was against it, and that change was because of the death threats that had come in against the whistle-blower after the president said he or she was guilty of treason, and then they sort of backed off that, but they didn't talk about that at all. the question is whether that's relevant either. >> you're the senate parliamentarian. the two hours, we heard white house lawyers make the case for the president. what did you think? >> i am less focused on merits of the arguments, i am willing to stipulate now at the end of 24 hours on the part of the president's counsel if they use it all, 48 hours from the parties, i am able to stipulate to a rhetorical draw at that point. what i am interested in seeing is what happens during 16 hours of questions from senators. i think things could get interesting there. as i said before, it is possible the chief justice could become involved in having to mediate arguments and objections at that point. i note that chief justice rehnquist unlaterally imposed a five minute limit on responses to questions. he said they could be fairly and honestly answered within five minutes or less. >> really. so basically during the 16 hours, probably two days next week, there will be written questions from senators, they're not allowed to speak. they will be given to the chief justice, john roberts. he will read those questions, let both sides, house managers and white house lawyers respond? >> the questions are directed to one party or the other. it will be up to the party to whom the question is addressed to respond. i don't believe there's any leeway for the other side to respond to a question that was not directed at them. >> is there room for follow-up? >> that's up to the senators. >> if somebody writes a follow-up. >> they have to be quick. >> you have to get it in there. >> we're expecting the house managers, adam schiff and company, to be holding a news conference momentarily. we'll get their response to what we heard from the white house lawyers. much more of our special coverage after this. oh, your mom just texted. she's landed. and she's on her way to our house. what. i thought she was coming next weekend. i got it. alexa. start the coffee. set the temperature to 72. start roomba. we got this... don't look. what? don't look. lets move. ♪ mom. the lexus es, eagerly prepared for the unexpected. lease the 2020 es 350 for $389 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. the good news? our comfort lasts all day. the bad news? so does his energy. depend® 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couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. president trump's outside counsel, jay sekulow, presented a case of the impeachment process started about a disagreement through the white house and intelligence community. take a listen. >> in his summation on thursday night, manager schiff complained the president chose not to go with the determination of intelligence agencies regarding foreign interference, instead decided to listen to people he trusted, and he would inquire about the ukraine issue himself. mr. schiff did not like the fact that the president denied blind trust, advice he was given by intelligence agencies. first of all, let me be clear. disagreeing with the president's decision on foreign policy matters or whose advice he's going to take is in no way an impeachable offense. >> that was jay sekulow. jennifer, the way he is phrasing it, the idea that they're trying to impeach him because he disagreed with his intelligence community, what do you make of that argument? >> he's acting as if he chose to believe one set of official united states employee advisers over another set of u.s. employee adviser experts. instead, he is talking to rudy giuliani, and now we know lev parnas, igor fruman. he is taking advice from people outside. it is a false argument. >> but sekulow is right that the president is allowed to listen to whoever he wants and disregard whatever he wants. that is a legitimate point. what's not legitimate is that that's somehow part of the accusation here. the accusation is not that he listened to the wrong people and therefore needs to be impeached, the accusation is that he engaged in a corrupt deal with the ukranian president. that's the accusation. i mean, he can listen to whomever he wants. it is just a straw man argument. >> except over and over at the house managers emphasized this is the opinion of official career staff at the state department, this is the opinion of the intelligence community, and i think trump's lawyers were smart to address that point, and i think we're going to hear it over and over again that it's the president they're going to say is responsible for diplomacy, the president that's in charge of implementing foreign policy, and it is the president can listen to whomever he wants. >> house managers are speaking. >> good afternoon. we want to take this opportunity to respond to a number of representations or misrepresentations that you heard during the president's presentation this morning. i'm going to make a few remarks. i will let my colleague, mr. nadler, address procedural arguments that counsel made and we'll be happy to respond to a couple of questions. first of all, what was most striking to me about the president's presentation today is they don't contest the basic architecture of the scheme. they do not contest that the president solicited a foreign nation to interfere in our election to help him cheat. i think they acknowledge by not even contesting this that the facts are overwhelming. the president invited ukraine to get involved in our election to help him cheat against joe biden. that is uncontested. uncontested in our presentation, uncontested in theirs. what they do argue is the following. first, they argue that the july 25th transcript doesn't show the two leaders making an explicit reference to a corrupt this for that quid pro quo or bribery scheme, as if you would expect two leaders on the phone to say this is how the bribery is going to work, this is how the shakedown is going to work. you're not going to get this unless i get that. and of course that's not what you generally see in a shakedown scheme, even if it were done by organized crime. what you do see is the following. they make the argument, there's no mention of security assistance or military support during this call. but of course one of the first things zelensky brings up on that call is how grateful they are for the military defense support and how they are ready to buy more javelins. now, the president's team acknowledges how important the javelins are, what a great weapon the javelins are against tanks. but what they don't really want you to pay attention to is immediately as in the very next sentence, immediately after president zelensky prbrings up e desire to get what the president's team acknowledges among the most important weapons they get from the united states, where does trump go? i want you to do us a favor though. so he goes right to the favor. they would argue there's no link between military support because he didn't say i'm extorting you, but instead moved right to the favor he wanted, right after zelensky brings up the javelins, the most important military aid i think they acknowledge today. they also say there's no explicit quid pro quo mentioned in the head of state call on the white house meeting, but of course they're prepped. zelensky was prepped for the call and the president was prepped by rudy giuliani for this call. so what you see, you see the ukranian leader being asked to do these investigations by the president and repeatedly committing to do the investigations. at the end of the call, you literally see the ukranian leader say we're going to do these investigations and then he says on the other hand, i'm really looking forward to the white house meeting. it doesn't need to be more explicit than that. now, we are meant to i guess believe for the presentation today that the call was all about burden sharing. he makes mention of how angela merkel and others in europe aren't doing enough, as if that was really the thrust of the call. if that was really the thrust of the call, you wouldn't have heard the president asking the ukranian leader to get in touch with rudy giuliani so much. you would have him saying call angela. instead, of course, it is call giuliani. but if you had any question about this, about whether this was really about burden sharing or it was about the two investigations that he specifically goes into, any doubt would have been removed the following day when he gets on the phone to his own ambassador to europe, gordon sondland, right? if the issue is really europe, burden sharing, he has the perfect opportunity to raise that the very next day following the call. so what does he ask gordon sondland. does he ask hey, gordon, how is the effort to get the europeans to do more. gordon, have you talked to angela yet? no. he has only one question for gordon sondland. is he going to do the investigations. and the answer is yes, he'll do anything you want. he loves your asks. does that sound like burden sharing to you? of course not. they also argue that president zelensky has not said publicly that he feels pressured. he hasn't said publicly that there was a quid pro quo, he was being shaken down, as if a country wholly dependent on us is going to admit to being shaken down, which would not only irrepairably break any relationship he has with the president but also it would reflect adversely on him with his own people, and yes, you can apply a little common sense. you don't have to be a mind reader to see why that would be so deeply damaging to ukraine. they don't want to admit it publicly but they have said it privately. they've said as you heard testimony that there was deep concern that zelensky didn't want to be used as a pawn in u.s. domestic politics. so they said it privately, even if they can't say it publicly. now, they also make the argument that the ukranians didn't know the security systems were withheld. okay, that's just not true. one of the things they didn't talk about today was the fact that the ukranian foreign minister, deputy foreign minister, now former ukranian deputy foreign minister admitted publicly they found out about the hold within days of that call, by the end of july. they received a cable from the ukranian embassy about the freeze on military assistance. but she was instructed, the foreign ministry was instructed by a top aide to zelensky not to bring it up, not to discuss it, to keep it quiet. she was planning to come to washington and she was told not to go to washington because they wanted to keep this quiet. and of course, they ignore the testimony of gordon sondland himself who said that he told the ukranians about the freeze. he told the ukranians about the freeze. are we supposed to believe, do we have to be mind readers to know when gordon sondland tells the ukranian counter part that they're not going to get the money essentially until they do the investigations, that they're not going to feel pressured about that, not going to feel pressured to do the investigation? that's absurd. we heard other witness testimony that they didn't play for you today, but we played earlier in the trial of katherine croft, one of the career public officials who testified that she was really impressed with the ukranian trade craft, how quickly they found out about the freeze on aid. you know, it is impressive because the ukranians found out about the freeze on aid before most members of congress did. this is the other key point. if this was so above board, if this was really about donald trump fighting corruption, why did they hide it from congress? why didn't they tell congress and the american people what they were doing? the reason they didn't tell the american people what they're doing is it was a corrupt shakedown to get ukraine to help them cheat in the election. next, they argue that the security assistance flowed september 11th, got the meeting on the 25th. it is the we got caught, no harm, no foul. as we discussed during the trial, there was enormous harm to the u.s./ukraine relationship, there was enormous harm, even with the pause in russia learning that this president could be so easily manipulated into withholding aid from our ally. there was damage to the confidence our allies around the world have in us because they would learn we would do such a thing. there was damage because without an act of congress, they didn't mention this today, without act of congress, literally took an act of congress, ukraine wouldn't have gotten 35 million of that aid because of the president's actions. he was caught, yes. and he was forced to release the aid. that does not mitigate his wrongdoing, nor does it lead us to have any confidence he wouldn't do it again. now, they also say the meeting took place in the european union, i'm sorry, at the united nations, and the house team didn't tell you about that. we did tell you about that. we showed video from that meeting. and what was said in that video we showed you of that meeting? zelensky saying i still like that meeting in the oval office. if we're to believe that a meeting on the sidelines of the u.n. is just as good as an oval office meeting of two heads of state, certainly doesn't seem that way to president zelensky who was still even as they were meeting saying you know, i still really want that meeting in the oval office. they also make the argument that the president strengthened u.s. support for ukraine. really? this is how we did it? by being unwilling to meet with the president of ukraine in the oval office, by withholding hundreds of millions of military aid, requiring congress to step in, by violating the law, violating the impoundment control act, keeping it secret from congress, this is how he shows support for an ally. with support like that, our allies should hope they get a lot less support. this was deeply destructive of the relationship. and of course, president zelensky still can't get in the door of the oval office, but the russian foreign minister can get in. the president is more than willing to meet with putin anytime, but not with our ally. now, one of the most extraordinary arguments, and this takes your breath away, and this also underscores the real danger to this country by this president's continued occupancy of the oval office is the argument that jay sekulow made essentially that the president has good reason not to trust his own intelligence agencies and the corollary of that, he has good reason to trust vladimir putin more. okay. that is hard to wrap your head around. but that is the argument of the president's lawyer. he has every right to disbelieve his own intelligence agencies and thereby accept the opinion of adversary vladimir putin. everything is perfect, including the president's performance in helsinki, apparently. now, they say that it is a false choice to say if russia intervened in the election, why couldn't ukraine have intervened, never mind that that contradicts what our own intelligence agencies and our own fbi director, what our own bipartisan senate intelligence committee found, what the democrats on the house intelligence committee found, what the republicans on the house intelligence committee sometimes admit, sometimes not, never mind all of that, they say why couldn't both countries have intervened. well, first, they didn't, okay? there was only one systemic interference of the election, that was by russia. second, what they're talking about here, what the president is talking about here is the server, is the server. unless we are to believe both russia and ukraine hacked the same server and were responsible for the same hacking and dumping campaign, then we are talking about one country's interference and that is russia. and that the president continues to this day through his lawyer to say they should trust the opinion of vladimir putin and russian intelligence propaganda over their own intelligence agencies about this whole crowd strike crazy conspiracy theory, ought to alarm every american. they also, and this is the overarching argument, continue to maintain the president did nothing wrong. it may be the most dangerous point they make. that means basically you can seek as president of the united states to get a foreign nation to help you cheat in an election, and you can do it through any means you like. that is so deeply destructive of our national security and integrity of our elections, it is hard to overstate the matter. one last thing that really stood out to me and that was something that wasn't said, it was a name that in fact was never mentioned, and that is mick mulvaney. there's no mention of the president's chief of staff. now, they say no democratic witnesses said the security assistance was conditioned. i don't know what they consider democratic witnesses. that statement is wrong, too, there were any number of democratic witnesses that testified exactly the opposite, that security assistance was conditioned, it was clear as two plus two equals four. they put it in writing, testified about it. gordon sondland, they conveniently neglect to tell you had a direct conversation with the president where he says no quid pro quo, but here's the quid pro quo. no quid pro quo, but zelensky has to go to the mike and announce the investigations and he should want to. that's the quid pro quo. so i don't know, maybe they don't consider -- maybe they consider him a democratic witness, but what about mulvaney, when they say no witnesses made the direct -- no witnesses could directly put words in the president's mouth, first of all, gordon sondland did, but what about mick mulvaney who admitted in a press conference just like this of course we did, it happens all the time. get over it. no mention of the president's chief of staff. why is that? gets me to the final point before i turn it over to my colleague. why did they make no mention of mick mulvaney. why would they have you look away from the fact that the president's own chief of staff has admitted to the most pernicious part of the scheme, withholding of military aid to get ukraine to do these investigations. why would they make no mention of that. it gets back to something they argued in the first two minutes of the presentation when they were attacking house managers. they said the house managers' goal should be to give you all of the facts. that is our goal. it is just not theirs. mick mulvaney has some of these facts. another name you didn't hear was john bolton. john bolton has some of these facts. didn't hear the name duffey, blair, other witnesses that the president who is so confident this was really about corruption, not about trying to smear an opponent, doesn't want you to hear from. the one question they did not address at all is why they don't want to give the american people a fair trial, why they want this to be the first impeachment case in history without a single witness, without a single document being turned over. that ought to tell you everything you need to know about the strength and weaknesses of their case, which is they know exactly what the president did, the president's men know exactly what the president did. we proved what the president did. and the last thing they want is more of the truth to come out. mr. nadler. >> thank you very much. make a number of points, first a general point. you heard adam and i and most of the other managers say over the last few days that predict that the president's case would not go into evidence, would not deal with the substance of the accusations because they can't defend the accusations, they were going to process. talk about how the house managers are terrible about the produced proceedings are terrible, denied due process, et cetera, but wouldn't address the realities of the case. they couldn't address the realities of the case, and by the way, when they say that the house should have brought witnesses by now, where are the witnesses, remember the president gave a blanket order to everyone not to testify. all members of the executive agencies. the people who testified in front of the intelligence committee were defying direct orders from the president. there are witnesses we wanted in the judiciary committee, witnesses adam wanted and others in the intel committee, we had gone to court for them, have been in court eight or nine months for mr. mcgahn, for example, and haven't gotten them. why haven't they testified? the president told them not to testify. they will eventually, when the courts force them to. and then you hear the president's counsel get up and say well, they should have brought the evidence, had the witnesses, after doing everything they can to prevent witnesses and prevent any testimony. that's point one. point two. you heard them say today as they said the other day that we denied the president due process. again, it doesn't deal with issues of the case. we denied the president due process, we in the house. we wouldn't let them testify. they had secret hearings in the basement. well, the intelligence committee held hearings in the basement, all of the republicans and democrats from three committees were there, could ask any questions they want to. >> we'll continue to monitor that. i want to bring in the legal team here in new york. what do you make of adam schiff, and nadler saying this is wrong, they aren't arguing facts at this point. >> they're arguing some facts at the margins, they're arguing process, making other claims about overturning the election, these are rhetorical points. once again, you see adam schiff has, jeff and i were talking about this while watching, has command over every fact and detail in the case. he can come out without prepared remarks, respond in real time, in rebuttal fashion. he is going to one of the central points of the case, what's the reason the aid was withheld? the president's team said two reasons. one is burden sharing, and the second, he cared about corruption. fir they're contradicting each other. you want other people to pay money, at the same time you worry about corruption, why would you want other nations to share the burden if one of your central concerns is corruption in the country and then there's a question of whether or not the real reason was wanting to get this announcement of investigation against the bidens. what's missing from all this discussion, lots of human beings have multiple reasons for doing things. i don't believe reasons one and two. but even if it is true, part of the reason the president wanted to withhold money was because of reasons one and two, if there's a case that one reason was to get announcement of the investigation, depending on the law and depending what standards are, that is sufficient to be a crime. in other context and cases in southern district of new york, might have a politician votes one way on a bill, might be a bill he likes and is good for constituents, if part of the reason he voted for the bill is a bad reason like a bribe, you're guilty and you go to prison. >> again, why mastery of the facts is so important. remember, during the defense presentation the, again, i apologize, i don't remember which defense lawyer it was, said read the transcript. look at the multiple reasons why the president was interacting with ukraine. but schiff points out, what happens the next day, july 26, when he is on the phone with sondland, what does he say to sondland? he talks about getting the investigation. >> he is not talking burden sharing. >> and sondland is ambassador to the european union, so if he's concerned about european countries and burden sharing, ambassador sondland would be one of the people in on that discussion. what doesn't make any sense is why ambassador sondland is even involved in the ukraine operation since it is not his purview. >> ukraine is not part of the european union. he has been assigned this account, which obviously disturbed people in national security council, one of the things we learned during the testimony, but you know, the fact that you can pluck various purported explanations for the president's actions that are innocent, and i think this is why it is important schiff knows the facts, that doesn't get you away from what was really going on here, which was a correct deal. >> but this is a bit of a different discussion than we were expecting to have today. this is actually a remarkably substantive discussion we're all having in a way because the president's team i think actually did go through a lot of the facts, the interpretation you may not agree with, it was substantive presentation of facts. then schiff because he has such kman command of the facts did a comprehensive job of going through the facts, which allowed us to have this discussion. >> i had another reaction to all these discussions of the facts and interactions among various participants. anyone that knows how government works or how business works knows that when you are discussing any sort of policy, there are a lot of emails that go back and forth, a lot of texts. that's how business and government works. the idea that we are having a serious investigation supposedly of american policy in ukraine without looking at any government emails is just preposterous. >> you have to file a lawsuit to get the emails. >> someone should have -- well, i mean, the issue of who should have done it and when is a different one. but the idea -- >> if there were emails that showed the president really was just focused on burden sharing and that was his primary thing, you would think the white house would have very quickly made those emails available. >> well, as they immediately made available the summary of the call from july 25th when they decided i think misguidedly that it would help them. i think you're right, we're talking about what the president thought, why he did what he did. if there were documents about that, witnesses are touchier, you don't know what's happening, but documents don't have executive privilege issues. you could give all of the documents, not have those problems, and they would have done that if they exonerated him. >> privilege does apply to documents. this isn't the first white house to claim privilege and to refuse to turn over documents and information to congress, it is not the first, not the fifth, not the tenth, not the 20th. >> it could have been done more easily than a witness. >> that's right. but the notion of a back and forth, a tug of war between congress and the president over documents is not unusual. >> is the blanket nature of withholding, that's what makes it unusual, isn't it? >> that piece -- >> past administrations, obama administration on fast and furious, there was back and forth. those were specific things. >> that piece is what makes it unusual. and you guys know, i have been critical of the way the house addressed these issues. i think if the house filed an action in court, there would have been efforts to reach an accommodation. there would have been more information provided by the administration. >> wait. you think the administration would have -- didn't you read cippolone's letter, said we're giving you nothing, nothing, nothing. you think there would have been an accommodation with a subpoena? >> that's how it has often worked in battles between the white house. >> what happened before is not going to happen here. >> we won't know that because the house didn't file an action. >> because they're on a clock. various times have been critical of it -- not only do you not want a hearing or trial without having looked at witnesses or documents, you don't want to approach witnesses in the first place before you know all of the things they have said. it is extraordinary. there's one rhetorical cleverness exploited by the republicans, and it has a surface appearance of this. adam schiff correctly and others say, we have an overwhelming case. we have all the proof you possibly need, we're done, finished. we can go to the senate. use the phrase overwhelming case. on the other hand, we would like to have more documents and witnesses. that's hard for people to understand who are thoughtful and intelligent, the reason they're in that conundrum is they chose the lesser of two evils, wanted to proceed when they thought they had enough. it is odd to say overwhelming case, now we need more witnesses. >> that's been a challenge for head house managers from the very beginning. their argument is look, we have an overwhelming case, but there are facts out there that are important to explore. >> they're not complete. >> is there regardless of what happens now, assuming the president is not impeached, which there's no sign or is removed or found guilty by the senate, is there a chance the house will just file, will continue to move through the courts? >> i think -- >> to get the documents? >> i think it is certainty. the don mcgahn case has already been decided in direct court, judiciary committee subpoena to don mcgahn, who used to be white house counsel. they filed the suit in april. they got a decision from the district court in december. and now it is going to be on appeal to the d.c. circuit. maybe it will be resolved by the political conventions, maybe won't be resolved by the end of president trump's term. that's the problem. >> that becomes a very difficult political issue which is something that i think the house would be concerned about. they did this investigation, brought the case, the president is acquitted, and then they're going back and do the same investigation again. logically, it should be a certainty. it puts house democrats in a difficult position though. >> we're going to take a break. check that there was no quid pro quo. this is cnn special coverage. back in a moment. m is that i'm part of a community of problem solvers. we make ideas grow. from an everyday solution... to one that can take on a bigger challenge. from packaging tape... to tape that can bond materials to buildings... and planes. one idea can unlock a breadth of solutions. at 3m, we are solving problems that improve lives. i am not for ignoring the first sign of a cold.s. i am for shortening 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discussing removal of the president of the united states from office. there are very few things, if any, that can be as grave and as serious. >> so he was making the point at one of the hearings, adam schiff did what he described as parody of the president's phone conversation with president zelensky, and got into some serious trouble. >> it did, it was ill advised, i think schiff shouldn't have done it. i asked adam schiff about it, do you regret it, he said he didn't regret it. but i think people that work for him probably regret it, they know it was going to be used. you heard adam schiff in his prebuttal saying i know they're going to use this against me, and of course they did. i want to make another point, wolf, need to correct myself. earlier i said it was jennifer williams who heard from ukranians about wondering where the aid was, i misspoke. it was laura cooper who testified to that, she's the deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia. she said questions were raised to her on july 25th about the money. >> and that was interesting talking about jennifer williams and that testimony which you saw purpura talked about. the ukranians didn't know the president wanted a hold on the military aid at the time of the july 25th phone call, that we do know there were top ukranians who had been made aware by the president's own advisers that he did want to see these investigations, not always people that worked in the administration, a lot of rudy giulianis and other types pushing this. what he did say about jennifer williams, aide to vice president mike pence who was on that call, we didn't know she was on the call at the beginning until later, someone turned had he ever name over to investigators, said she was on the call. he said why didn't she flag it if she had concerns with it. she did say she believed the president's ask and bringing up burisma was unusual. the question about that, i talked to multiple people in the administration about that, her boss was on the call. that's general kellogg, national security adviser for vice president pence. their thinking was if you're on the call and your boss is on the call, you're leaving it up to them to bring it up with people like the vice president and other officials, not necessarily you, a deputy, bringing it up. >> one of the things that was effective from white house lawyers' perspective, playing sound bites and clips from those that testified under oath that were basically defending the president. >> tim morrison made a lot of appearances in the republicans' trump's attorneys' presentation. >> ambassador volker. >> and these are people, particularly tim morrison who listened the call, didn't necessarily think anything was wrong with it, didn't think it was necessarily illegal. that's what they're arguing. that bolsters the president's case that everything was perfectly fine. they're clearly putting on a truncated case focused on the call. remember, the president so interested in the call got t-shirts made up for his campaign, read the transcript. that's what they want to do. and of course, the democrats say this is a month long scheme, remember marie yovanovitch, that's when it kicked off, the idea of pushing her out to undertake this month long scheme. it is interesting to see this is completely in many ways i think from the mind of the president how he wants to be seen, focused just on this call, not on other calls, for instance, sondland's call with the president, when he is overheard on the phone saying checking in on investigations, and sondland's interpretation that the president didn't care much about ukraine. >> if it was a perfect call, why deep six it somewhere so nobody could get a look at it, that it had to be closely held. you don't make decision to do that unless you're worried about it, whether you think it is going to get bad press if it comes out or whether you actually think it is a terrible call. >> right. right. >> so they didn't really address that. >> we have a lot more we need to discuss. one republican senator by the way said she is leaning against voting for witnesses. we're live on capitol hill. plus, the secretary of state, mike pompeo, moments ago responding to claims by a reporter that he lashed out and cursed at her when she asked him about ukraine. huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker? i look around this room and i see nothing but untapped potential. you have potential. you have-oh boy. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. t-mobile 5g is here. and it's nationwide. while some 5g signals go only blocks, t-mobile 5g goes miles... beyond the big cities to the small towns... to the people. millions of americans can have access to 5g on t-mobile. this is just the beginning. t-mobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. stay resthe new rx,the icon thatcrafted by lexus. lease the 2020 rx 350 for $419 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. remember, you have out the hilton app. can the hilton app help us win? hey, hey-we're all winners with the hilton price match guarantee, alright? man, you guys are adorable! alright, let's go find your coach, come on! book with the hilton app. expect better. expect hilton. back with special coverage. the president's defense team delivered opening arguments. i wonder what you're hearing from senators today? >> reporter: democrats are united about the call for witnesses. some democratic moderates like joe manchin, he told me after it wrapped today, said the contention, there were virtually no witnesses that heard directly from the president means they should hear from people directly like mick mulvaney and john bolton. i asked if he may acquit the president at the end of the day, said he still hasn't made judgment on that. another democratic senator, moderate, up for re-election in alabama, doug jones also said it reinforces the need for further witnesses. heard that from other presidential contenders, elizabeth warren, mentioned that the president's team said cross examination is what helps get key information here, she said that's exactly what needs to happen. that's the democratic line coming out of it. ultimately, the question is will there be enough support for witnesses. talking to republican senators, most of them, saying they supported him, the president's team believes it undercuts adam schiff's team presented, but they're not willing to go forward. only people that are leaning that direction, mitt romney, susan collins, mitt romney we caught up with afterwards, told ted barrett he is likely to vote for witnesses once opening arguments are done, said he will make a final judgment. caught up with another possible swing vote from west virginia, she said she has to wait until the end of the day. it still seems an up hill climb for democrats to get enough votes in order to subpoena witnesses like john bolton, like mick mulvaney. they need 51 votes, there are 47 democrats, it is uncertain where the other votes will come from. more senators of course will make their views known, anderson, once the president's team finishes their case, and that's expected to happen early next week. >> thanks so much. coming up next, reporter says secretary of state mike pompeo cursed her out after questions about the ukraine scandal, he is now responding, says she lied to him. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. one of the many arguments made today by president trump's legal team was the continuously debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine interfered in the 2016 u.s. presidential election which would have given president trump more of a reason to launch an investigation in the country. here's what the president's outside counsel said on the subject. >> mr. schiff and his colleagues repeatedly told you the intelligence community assessment that russia was acting alone, responsible for the election interference, implying this somehow debunked the idea there might be, you know, interference from other countries, including ukraine. mr. nadler deployed a similar argument saying president trump thought, quote, ukraine not russia interfered in the last presidential election. this is basically what we call a straw man argument. let me be clear. the house managers over 23 hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either russia or ukraine but not both. they kept telling you inclusion of the intelligence committee and mr. mueller was russia alone, with regard to the 2016 elections. of course, that's not the report that bob mueller wrote, focused on russian interference, although there is some information in letters regarding ukraine. >> all right. but that argument simply ignores a major statement from the u.s. intelligence community, a statement from trump appointed fbi director christopher wray made just last month. >> we have no information that indicates the ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election. i think it is important for the american people to be thoughtful consumers of information, to think about sources of it. >> pretty strong statement from the fbi director. >> yes. and that is the president's handpicked fbi director, saying ukraine did not interfere in the election. now, i heard them try to couch it as the president's attorneys were speaking saying all interference, what they were referencing. you ask people in the administration what do you mean when you say that, they talk about op-eds, statements by ukranian officials, essentially saying they didn't want president trump to win. now, of course that goes after what the president said about ukraine during his candidacy, that's a lot of reason they made those statements, but of course the idea you're comparing an op-ed to this systemic and sweeping interference that you saw by the russians that was laid out in the mueller report which jay sekulow brought with him the first section which is all about russian interference in the election is notable. and of course, the president still does think ukraine tried to interfere in the election, despite the fbi director saying he didn't, despite the former homeland security adviser telling him he didn't, because he has people like rudy giuliani in his ear, telling him they did. >> it is important, gloria, to remember for a foreign leader, whether a leader in ukraine or any country, europe, africa, asia, write an article critical of a candidate, an incumbent president, critical of a candidate, critical of someone in the united states. it happens all the time. it is another thing for a foreign government, the intelligence service, the military intelligence service of that government to hack computers and steal information to try to help a candidate. that's what the russians were doing. >> right. >> that's not what ukraine was doing. >> well, but that's what the president believes ukraine was doing. the one person that jay sekulow didn't mention is rudy giuliani because this is rudy giuliani's theory of the game here. they were very careful not to bring up rudy giuliani because they know that he is not well regarded in the united states senate, but if you again look at this summary of the transcript of the president's phone call, the president talks about crowd strike, he talks about a lot of things that went on. i would like to have the attorney general call you or your people, i would like to have you get to the bottom of it, this whole nonsense, he talked about bob mueller and said a lot of it started with ukraine. this is part of the transcript that we did not hear from the president's attorneys today because they preferred to talk about burden sharing. >> that's been discredited not just by outside fact checkers but by the president's own intelligence community. >> that's right. i mean, this idea that ukraine meddled is a proven talking point. that's in some ways where this whole thing bubbled up, you had people pick it up, including rudy giuliani and folks on the conservative side of things, and you see the president there repeating it. we also know that the president in that helsinki press conference, right, basically took putin's side. he says i'm confident in my intelligence, i will tell you president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today, right, denial that russia actually meddled in the election. that was something that was obviously brought up in a powerful way i thought in the democrats, house manager presentation of information yesterday, but they keep hanging onto this idea of the ukranians meddled and that gives them the predicate to say listen, the president had every right to root out corruption which we know is based on this propaganda from russia. >> that's the question here. who is their audience? 100 senators. they all know russia meddled in the election. they have been briefed by the intelligence community, they did their own investigation. the question is not how does the argument resonate with us, with the president's supporters or critics, how does it resonate with the 100 senators in the room that know it was russia that interfered in the election, who would know if there was a serious investigation into whether or not the ukranians interfered in the election in that way, which of course they know. the question is you have to know your audience. that's what white house officials are advising the president, when he wants them to be fiery, aggressive, you have to know your audience. the senate is not going to be receptive. >> but also donald trump, they came out, said the phone call was perfectly appropriate, and b, maybe there were others in addition to russia that meddled to give the president cover. >> if the president was watching the two hours where his laurwye were making the case, i am sure he was pleased. >> i wonder if that's the tone they took. it wasn't as spitting fire and aggressive as some imagined it could be. we heard from a lot of the president's allies, after pat cippolone got emotional, which the president praised him for in the debates over the amendment, lot of people said no, pat cippolone should be the way he is every day, reserved, lawyerly type. that's not what the senate wants to hear, they don't want to see you come out and be aggressive. they have to square that with what the president wants, full throated defense, going to the mat, pounding their fist, defending him. they're essentially trying to please two audiences. >> maybe when they have a bigger audience, they will on monday and tuesday, whenever they want to use the next 22 hours, maybe in prime time, the president obviously mindful that not as many viewers on a saturday as there will be on monday or tuesday. >> let's see how many viewers today. how many next week. much more of our special coverage. plus, development in the global spread of the coronavirus. the u.s. is evacuating americans from a chinese city. we take you to the region. from l'oreal with pro-keratine complex. rich, radiant color. no color protects or covers grays better. so much care in one little box. excellence crème from l'oreal. available at walmart. 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comments were supposed to be off the record. first, i will play for the interview that upset secretary pompeo so much. >> people who work for you in your department, people who have resigned from this department under your leadership saying you should stand up before the diplomats. >> i don't know who these unnamed sources are you're referring to. i can tell you this. >> these are not unnamed sources, this is your senior adviser, michael mcken lee, an officer with four decades experience that testified under oath that he resigned in part due to failure of the state department to offer support to foreign service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on ukraine. >> i'm not going to comment on things that mr. mckinley may have said. i'll say only this. i have defended every state department official. we built a great team. the team that works here is amazing. i defended every single person on the team. i have done what's right. >> can you point me toward their remarks where you defended marie yovanovitch? >> i said all i'm going to say today, thank you. >> here is npr's mary lou ease kelly with what happened after she turned the recorder off. >> i was taken to the secretary's private living room where he was waiting and he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself lasted. he was not happy to have been questioned on ukraine. he asked do you think americans care about ukraine. he used the f word in that sentence and many others, asked if i could find ukraine on a map, i said yes. he called out for aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing or countries marked. i pointed to ukraine. he put the map away. he said people will hear about this. and then he turned and said he had things to do, and i thanked him again for his time and left. >> white house correspondent jeremy diamond is live at the white house. what part of the account is secretary pompeo denying? >> reporter: well, anderson, he's certainly not denying the substance of the conversation that he had with that npr reporter, not denying the f bombs or the fact that he berated her over an interview where she's asking legitimate questions. here's what the secretary of state is saying in a statement. npr reporter lied to me twice, first last month setting up the interview, then again yesterday agreeing to have our post interview conversation off the record. it is shameful this reporter violated the rules of journalism and decency. this is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt president trump, this administration. he also adds it is worth noting that bangladesh is not ukraine. putting aside that for a second, anderson, that not teller that that portion of the meeting would be off the record, and she said that we should not have agreed to a meeting, had it been stated to her that it was off the record. now, as for that part about the map there, look, kelly is a veteran national report fore npr, a masters degree in european studies and if you look at the map, you can see bangladesh is not anywhere near where ukraine is and certainly kelly, who covered these issues who has a masters degree from cambridge in european studies would certainly know where it is and pompeo is not directly accusing her of saying that she pointed to, that he is simply adding that at the end of the statement but clearly the secretary of state is not willing to shy away from this pretty petty squabble. >> and it is interesting he added the bangladesh thing at the end and he is not saying she pointed to bangladesh, even if she were to mistake a mistake, it wouldn't be pointing to bangladesh as a ukraine, and it would be something in eastern europe you might get wrong and not saying she did that, it seems like, a catty thing to do at the end, to kind of suggest that's what she did, without even actually suggesting. >> well, look, this is not the first time that we have seen secretary pompeo have some pretty contentious exchanges with the news media. you'll remember he accused a local reporter of being, of parodying dnc talking points when asking questions about the heart of the president trump impeachment. and i think this falls into the audience of one strategy that we see for many members of the administration including the secretary of state that ultimately all that matters is that he is pleasing president trump particularly when it relates to these contentious exchanges with the media. >> jeremy, thank you very much. with the legal team here, the outrage over, that he is claiming a reporter lied to him, i have yet to hear him say anything about the numerous lies that his boss has told and repeatedly told. but this notion that it was off the record, i mean any experienced report,er if something is off the record, it is off the record, but if some person didn't tell her it was off the record -- >> it reminds mae a little at what went on at the impeachment trial yesterday, where the manager schiff, congressman schiff quoted that line. >> the cbs news report about the heads on a pipe. >> and several republican senators got the vapor, you know, how could someone say something so outrageous, this morning, there was more -- >> i would say they were offended that the suggestion that they would be, that the senator would be intimidated by president trump. >> right. and at the same time, the president is tweeting, calling democrats sicko, and you know, all of the insults that we're used to hearing from president trump, on a daily, or multiple times a day basis, no democrat claims that they are so offended that they can't, you know, go on with their work, and i mean, i just think, one of the least, most distasteful parts of washington is sort of the phony mock outrage, you know, that secretary pompeo is so horrified by mary louise kelly, this veteran wonderful journalist, and the same thing, in congress, in the senate, that you know, these senators couldn't bear to hear adam schiff say a nasty thing. >> i do love he has a map that has no names on it, just at the ready -- >> you think it is from a coloring book or something? >> clearly, this must go how to demean your staff by asking them to point out things. >> i might try that. >> just as long as i don't have to do eastern europe. i'm all right. >> one other thing that this highlights though is secretary pompeo of course is one of the witnesses that people are talking about, they should call him, right? he is one person who would have had these firsthand conversations with trump and what kind of witness is he going to make? he is someone who obviously loses his temper. who doesn't want to be questioned and grilled and it gives you a little bit of insight, into f-they managed to get him on the stand, who knows what could happen. >> this is the kind of roy cohn strategy in picking your battles, he didn't believe in picking battles, he believed everything was a battle which is why we saw this press release. >> he is such a good mod toll emulate because it went so well for him. >> and going back, how would mike pompeo ask questions when there is an environment with no strong presiding judge and you have a chief justice who doesn't really control things. that q&a before the map, that is totally insane and she asked a legitimate question, an when did you defend marie yovanovitch, he repeats his conclusary statement so it is either a lie or it is not a lie but he doesn't answer questions directly even know if he knows it is going to be on the record and recorded. >> the president's defense team laying out their case and what happened, back in a moment. astef heartache and redemption. the lexus nx. modern utility for modern obstacles. lease the 2020 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. wyou can see relationships.gy, connections. patterns. you can see what others can't. ♪ johnsbut we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression 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your room with your phone. i can read minds too. really? book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. i'm wolf blitzer live in washington alongside anderson cooper, this is cnn special coverage of the historic impeachment trial of president trump donald j. trump, the president's defense team taking the spotlight today for the first day of opening arguments. the attorneys offering an abbreviated two-hour rebuttal to democratic charges against the president. they repeatedly referred to president trump's july 25th phone call with the president of ukraine and described it as a good call, saying the president did absolutely nothing wrong. >> we don't believe that they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden for what they're asking you to do. in fact, we believe that when you hear the facts, and that's what we intend to cover today, the facts, you will find that the president did absolutely nothing wrong. they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months. they're asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country, on your own initiative, take that decision away from the american people. the fact that president zelensky himself felt no pressure on the call and did not perceive there to be any connection between security assistance and investigations would in any ordinary case, in any court, be totally fatal to the prosecution. the judge would throw it out, the case would be over. >> the democratic senator saying that the trump defense team did something they did not intend to do, by making the case for more witnesses and documents, listen to this. >> the president's lawyers made a really compelling case for witnesses today. they said, well, you haven't heard anybody testify that the president told them, other than gordon sondland, to engage in this corruption. well, that's because the white house isn't allowing the people that the president talks to on a regular basis, like mick mulvaney, and john bolton, to testify. >> they made a really compelling case for why the senate should call witnesses and documents. they kept saying there are no eyewitness accounts but there are people who have eyewitness accounts, the very four witnesses and the very four sets of documents that we have asked for. >> a cnn congressional reporter lauren fox is live on capitol hill. i wonder what you're hearing from senators there today. >> well, anderson, i will tell you that after this two-hour briefing presentation from the president's defense team, that republicans are feeling very comfortable about where they are today. of course, all eyes have been on whether or not democrats can convince four republicans to cross the aisle and vote with them on key witnesses, like john bolton, like mick mulvaney. you heard democrats there making the case this is very compelling reasoning for why they need witnesses. essentially the president's defense team saying no one has firsthand knowledge that the president was directing them to do anything and democrats are saying that this is a perfect opportunity then to interview people like john bolton and mick mulvaney, but republicans say they are very happy with the tone and tenor that the president's defense team gave today in part because they felt like they were really targeting their message at some of those moderate republicans. basically saying, you don't want to overturn an election, do you? this is too grave of an issue to basically take away the american people's ability at the ballot box, and republicans say that is a very important art to convincing those moderate republicans. i talked to roy blunt who is in republican leadership, just a few minutes ago, and he told me, he thought the president's team essentially did the perfect thing today. they only spoke for about two hours, basically giving members an opportunity to go home, take a little bit of a rest, take a breather, come back monday, ready to hear a more robust argument. now, the tension has always been about whether or not the president's defense team is going to listen to the president, who wants this robust defense, maybe a little more fire and brimstone, in the room, versus republican leadership, who have been telling the defense team, listen, what you need to do is go in there and convince people like lisa murkowski, mitt romney, susan collins and lamar alexander that they don't need to hear from additional witnesses. now the universe of republicans who are going to be willing to support witnesses seems to be shrinking a little bit. lisa murkowski's comments last night saying she had concerns about adam schiff's closing argument essentially puts a little more pressure on democrats when they are trying to find those four republicans. i've been also talking regularly a with lamar expander who is sounding a lot less like he is willing to hear from witnesses at this point, arguing that what he wanted to do was make sure the defense had a fair case, make sure that the house managers had a fair case, and he feels very comfortable about where they are right now. now, nobody is going to make any decisions until next week, when that crucial vote on witnesses comes. anderson? >> lauren fox, thanks so much. and president trump urged twitter followers to watch the lawyers present the case. and we bring in john from the white house. and i'm wondering if the president is pleased with the team's performance. >> we know he wasn't pleased it took place on saturday. he said so on twitter. we weren't sure if he was pleased with the low-key performance of his attorneys this morning because he hasn't singled them out by name but we do know from his twitter account that he was pleased with the overall message. he sent out a message a short while ago saying that any fair-minded person can see that he was treated unfairly, this should never happen again and he retweeted congress members who were making the same point that the trump defense team had done well so the main point the defense team raised were they asserted that trump had never said that there was a quid pro quo, that the aid eventually flowed, that trump was a better friend to ukraine than president obama had been. now, at the same time, our colleagues on the cnn fact checking unit have pointed out that in fact, there was considerable testimony that there was a quid pro quo, including from trump's appointed ambassador gordon son land and the fact that the aid only flowed after the whistle-blower had stepped forward. nevertheless, that was the case they made today. and they made it in a fairly focus and brief way. and i think as we heard a moment ago, roy blunt says republican senators can hold on to and use to justify a vote to block witnesses, and to acquit if they are in cleaned , inclined to do >> we heard from didn't hear from harvard professor dershowitz or ken starr and i assume that will be part of the presentation monday. >> monday or tute, that's right. and dershowitz has the fall-back position, which is even if democrats prove an abuse of power, anderson, that that is not an em impeachable offense. the other question that i think surprised some of us today and is a question for monday and tuesday, as laush lauren alluded to, is the president's defense team going to go very aggressively after joe biden or the dnc server issue, these discredited theories that were pushed by russia, the rish by that of course, as fiona hill testified, that is russian advocated propaganda. oes on the other hand, the president likes a robust defense and which way the lawyers are guided will depend on vote counting which am sure is going to be repeated over the weekend. >> thank you very much. >> wolf, back to you. we are joined by one of the impeachment jurors, senator hirono of hawaii. what did you think of this morning? >> i thought it was a very meager defense. a couple of things i wanted to mention, because the democrats have been very focused on the need for witnesses, and more documents, and i know that the president's team said oh, the poor president, he has to rely on his defense, on the documents and evidence presented, by the house, and why is that? because the president did not produce a single document out of some 71 document requests. now, they also said, oh, by the way, we haven't heard from direct witness, so people who were there, and why is that? because mulvaney and bolton were told by the president, you're not going to testify. >> do you think these lawyers today, the two-hour opening session, they got 22 hours to go over two days if they want to use it all i suspect, they won't be using it all. do you think they at least today gave some of the more moderate republican senator, who may be on the fence right now, an opportunity to support the president and vote against witnesses and documents? >> i don't even know if there are any so-called moderate senators on the republican side left. to tell you the truth. because they, the votes that were taken on tuesday, were a really good indication that they really don't want to hear from any witnesses. >> so you think, senator, senator susan collins, for example, and some of the other more moderate senators, that we describe as moderate senator, they basically already made up their minds? >> i think some of the senators, the republican senators are probably wrestling with their conscience. but what they know is they have a ferocious, vicious president who will go after them, tooth and nail, if they even step out of line. >> lisa murkowski you say is scared. mitt romney is scared? >> i think fear is a really good aspect of what is going on and essentially, that's my view, and this is the situation, where, you know, courage is going to have to overcome fear, because it is only not just what the president's vote is, with supporter, there is a lot of money attached to supporting the president, let's gets real here. >> so let's say monday the white house lawyers wrap up opening hours and tuesday and wednesday, questions, eight hours each day if they want to use all that time. this whole thing, if they're not four republican senator who could vote with the democrats, it could all be over by next thursday or friday. >> i don't think it will be over, because there will be evidence trickling in, information trickling in. >> the trial would be over. >> the trial part, yes. and sadly, i don't think we will find senators as courageous as say my good friends heidi heitka heitkamp and claire mccaskill in the kavanaugh situation, who knew if they voted against him, they would be in trouble. and they were. and the signs are not good. but the way i look at it, this is not over. the president, when he gets exonerated he will run around doing more of the same. and there is no question that this is a president who believes that he can do anything he wants, under article two, and that means that he is going to feel totally free to shake down wherever else, find other pots of money he can do things with, and that's what is going to happen. >> if he is re-elected? >> if he is exonerated. >> i assume he is exonerated and he if he is not convicted, acquitted, he will have until january 20 of next year and he might get re-elected. >> there is that too, and there is a tremendous fear and that is why whatever information that comes out, whatever factual information, that shows that this is a president who only cares about himself, and oh, the other thing that i have to write down, because i take excessive notes on this one, what a locker, when his team said the president always had national security interests in mind when he did the hold is, that why mulvaney and esper and others told him you better release the money? because he had a national interest? give me a break. >> and were you surprised that the white house lawyers made no significant mention of the bidens, we assumed it is part of the arguments. >> it is not over yet. they're going to find all kinds of ways to provide, to throw a lot of distractions at the wall, and the bottom line is, well, that you know, if they have dershowitz come in, saying, regardless, even if he did all of this, it is not impeachable, that means that you can abuse your power, it is not impeachable, and that is what we call, he did it, the so what defense. >> and we're just learning from a well-placed republican source, that the president is extremely pleased with the way his lawyers behaved during that two-hour opening argument today. if you were the president, would you have been pleased by what they did? >> anybody who says he did nothing wrong, i think that is the view of the president, that is basically what his team said, he did nothing wrong. nothing is here. and they point to the july 25th call, as though that's been the whole scheme and when it began and the notion that the president cared about corruption and the ukraine, even as he was getting rid of the anti-corruption ambassador, ambassador yovanovitch, and even as he was praising the corrupt former prosecutor, he really cares about corruption. even if the d.o.d. had already certified that they had met their issues related to corruption. >> i assume you are going to be busy. >> i see my time is up. >> senator hirono, senate judiciary committee and armed services committee, we will discuss more but not today. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. the president's defense team outlining six key points that they say proves that president trump did not commit an impeachable offense but are the facts on their side? stay with cnn special coverage. one of the products i helped develop was a softer, more secure diaper closure. as a mom, i knew it had to work. there were babies involved... and they weren't saying much. i envisioned what it's like for babies to have diapers around them. that's what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even those who don't have a voice. at the end of the day, we are people helping people. even those who don't have a voice. the better question would be where do i not listen to it. while i'm eating my breakfast... on the edges of cliffs... on a ski lift... everywhere. for a limited time, go to audible.com to save $50 on your first year of membership. t-mobile 5g is here. and it's nationwide. while some 5g signals go only blocks, t-mobile 5g goes miles... beyond the big cities to the small towns... to the people. millions of americans can have access to 5g on t-mobile. this is just the beginning. t-mobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. white house deputy counsel laid out six points he said are key to the president's defense in the opening argument today in case you missed it. the first claimed there were no conditions on the aid the president withheld from ukraine. take a look. >> the transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything. the paused security assistance funds aren't even mentioned on the call. >> so the counter-argument to that is they're focusing solely on the transcript, as if that's the only communication. >> it is not a full transcript. >> it is a readout of the call. >> right. >> what do you make of his argument? >> look, he is going as far as you can go, because there's no explicit conditioning and he said a couple of times, i used to work with mike, he is a great lawyer, a smart guy, you never in life, unless you're the luckiest prosecutor in the world, get an explicit conditioning on tape or in the transcript that says if you do this thing for me, i will do that thing for you, or i will withhold this thing unless you don't withhold your thing. what has happened time after time, you have common sense, and you have other evidence of the power differential, and what the expectations were, and complaints that were made, and the actual fact of withholding of something, that went outside of what everyone else was counseling. we keep talking about this evidence, is it important that the president of the united states was going outside of normal channels and he was relying on rudy giuliani and talking to lev parnas and these other people and he is allowed to talk about whatever he wants and to me that misses the point. the relevance of all of that is, if you're doing something that is in the national security interest of the country and it is consistent with what the national security community thinks and wants and what everyone else in congress says they want, and is voted for, and you then yet go outside of that, that is further supportive of the argument that you're doing it for some personal gain. and you're withholding the money for something that you want yourself, combined with his constant refrain, i want an investigation of the bidens, an announcement of an investigate. >> i want to play one of the other arguments that the defense team making that there was no quid pro quo. let's listen. >> president zelensky and other ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that there was no quid pro quo, and no pressure on them to review anything. >> this one i've never understood. just common sense tells you, ukraine is still needing the united states. we are their biggest partner, as the president himself said, the rest of europe is not giving as much as the united states. they are still beholden to the trump administration. >> they are. and that's how it works. you heard something over someone, it doesn't have to be explicit. you know what a threat is. you know when someone says i'm going to do this to you if you don't do what i want. >> president zelensky, it would not be wise for president zelensky at this point to say he was pressuring me, it makes him look weak. >> and he needs to still work with the administration and he may need to work with them another four years, there is no way he would come out and say that. >> it it is not like the white house would be vindictive or anything to the country. the defense team said they did not know there was a hold on ukrainian aid. >> high ranking ukrainian officials did not even know, did not even know that security assistance was paused until the end of august. over a month after the july 25 call. >> what do you make of that argument? >> see, i actually think the first three points really go to the notion that it's an impeachment trial, there is no firm burden of proof, you know, there's nothing to require senators to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, or by clear and convincing evidence, but there's general agreement that the standard is very high and the house managers have that burden of proof, and i think these first three points go to the notion that the trump lawyers are saying, when you look at the evidence, they haven't actually met that standard. and yes, it may be true that in a certain of these things, you wouldn't necessarily expect to be explicit, but the trump lawyers are being smart, they're pointing out that there aren't explicit, you know, this for that discussions, there aren't explicit words, and they're going to go into more detail next week, and their point will be, putting aside whether it is explicit, or not explicit, even the circumstantial evidence doesn't add up. that's going to be their point. >> the president's defense team says there was no connection between the ukrainian aid and any investigation into the bidens. listen. >> not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance, in presidential meeting, or anything else. >> gordon sondland said he assumed and he believed that president, that's what the president wanted, but he himself said that the president didn't directly tell him, that's why they're saying there were no actual witnesses saying that they saw the president say this, or heard the president say this, the president's acting chief of staff admitted as much, that the president did, from the podium, of the white house briefing room. take a look. >> this is a corrupt place, i don't want to spend a lot of money to spend it and waste it and line their own pockets and did he mention to me in the past the corruption related to the dnc server. absolutely. no question about that. but that's it. and that's why we held up the money. >> you just described a quid pro quo. funding will not flow unless the investigation into the democratic server happens as well. >> we do that all the time, with foreign policy. >> he later came back had, to issue a statement and kind of walking that back. the idea that the democrats have sort of jumped on what the president's attorney was saying this morning, as the case for, as making the case for why you need to have witnesses, because there are people who have direct conversations with the president, mick mulvaney being one of them. >> look, as we have been talking about this over the course of the day, the republicans have a good talking point which is adam schiff says over and over again, we have an overwhelming case, overwhelming case and yet we need more witnesses and that has a powerful appeal and republicans have an equally powerful appeal and this is a trial and at a trial you have evidence and witnesses and it is especially compelling when you have a statement like that from mick mulvaney that you played without a chance to elaborate on it and even worse, john bolton who may have been one of the people that mike purpura won't be able to say, triple negative there, john bolton won't be one to be able to say what was in the president's mind but he is not permitted to be called even though he says he is available and prepared to testify if he is issued a subpoena, and even though he has a book deal, that information is going to come out so the democrat's other powerful point is we might as well have the witnesses now because it will come out eventually anyway and how is that going to look so in some ways they win every way, they get the witnesses now which is good and if they don't get the witnesses now, they come later and every republican senator who voted against john bolton testify maybe faces a consequence. >> we will take a quick break. and our special coverage continues. we will talk about the possible questions the senators may ask next week. this is my body of proof. proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. proof of less joint pain... ...and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain 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(tim) when people ask me what makes verizon 5g different, i talk about the future of emts. an ambulance can only go so fast. but verizon 5g ultra wideband is being built to transmit massive amounts of life-saving data in near real-time. so someday, doctors could begin their work before the patient even arrives. that's a difference that could save lives. that's a difference that will change everything. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we're back with our special live coverage of the president's impeachment trial, his defense team wrapping up their first day of opening arguments, and they say they won't necessarily take their full three days. which means after that, it will be time for senators to ask both sides questions. the former senate parliamentarian, 16 hours potentially of questions where the senators will be able to ask both side, the house manager, as well as the white house lawyers, questions. walk us through first of all, how that will be implemented. >> i think this will be the fun part of the trial. from the standpoint of those of us who enjoy process. the organizing resolution does provide for 16 hours of questions. at this time, it does not divide that evenly so that suggests it will be a grab bag, first come first serve and the questions must be submitted to the chief justice in writing. >> the senators are not allowed to speak. >> once again, the senators are supposed be mute. you're not supposed to hear them at all. they're supposed to be submit the questions in writing and the chief justice is supposed to read them. chief justice rehnquist had fun back in the clinton trial first imposing a five minute lip on and also got into it in terms of of making sure that senators didn't try to sneak in debate, in the forms of reservations of objections, and parliamentary inquiry, but the chief justice in the clinton trial did not get the credit that he deserved for maintaining order, for maintaining dignity, and also maintaining a sense of humor as the process wore on. >> well, let's say which senator asked the question, will it say which senator asked the question? >> yes. >> and you have to direct it to a certain attorney, correct? or do you have to say the president's team? >> the senator, it is up to the senators to name the question. >> so you could just direct it generally and both sides could answer? >> well, i don't think, the questions would be directed to one party or the other. >> okay. >> i don't remember questions being directed to a particular manager or a particular counsel. my recollection, that questions were directed either at the manager's generically or the president's counsel generically. >> and so there has to be a question, there can't be a long statement. >> once again, chief justice rehnquist was on top of it. he was, and i think in part, on advice of our office, very mindful of the fact that senators are very good at speaking when they're not supposed to speak. prefacing a question with a long preamble that could go on for hours, that's common senate stuff. the chief was having none of it. and he, as i said, we were having none of it as well. we were very, very careful to %-pe rules, strictly, as best as possible. >> and they have to write out, with a pen, on a piece of paper, the question, right? they can't do it online or anything like that? >> well, in 1999, we weren't online. they can't have their devices in the chamber. so i suspect this will be a challenge for those who are handwriting challenged. >> what about bipartisan questions? there was one in the clinton trial, if you anticipate there will be any bipartisan questions? >> oh, that would be wonderful. >> that would be amazing. >> yes. >> you mean being asked by both sides. >> and i think there are question, i mean for example, if you're going to ask about witnesses, you know, you're going to want to ask both sides about bolton and mulvaney. i mean you're going to want to ask, you know, you want to ask the republicans, well, why not clear things up and have john bolton and mick mulvaney testify. >> i don't remember questions going to both parties. i do have a vague recollection that there were bipartisan questions going to one party or the other. but i have no recollection of a question being directed at both parties. >> earlier today, i want our viewers to listen to president trump's defense team tell senators earlier today how it would be judicious and be considerate of their time for them to pay attention to the white house lawyers. >> i want to start out just very briefly giving you a short plan for today. we're going to be very respectful of your time, as leader mcconnell said, you heard the house managers speak for nearly 24 hours. over three days. we don't anticipate using that much time. >> manager schiff, manager garcia, demming, relied heavily on selected clips from ambassador sondland's testimony. automatic. i am not going to replay those. my colleague, mr. purpura played those for you. it's clear. we're not going to play the same clips seven times. >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate, i have good news. just a few more minutes from us today. >> well, he did spend two hours today, i think the opening manager schiff made was two hours. >> it doesn't look like they will take as much time and he kept saying over and over and over how much time democrats used, they had 24 hours, they used 24 hours, they got 22 more hours, maybe they wrap on monday, maybe they wrap on tuesday, but we do know that this is a president, this is a party that wanted to get this over with, right? so the idea that they're going to use their whole time, it doesn't seem like it, and they're sort of using that as a way, in some ways to ingratiate themselves to senators there. >> the burden is on the democrats to make a case and that's why they had to take a lot of case and now the burden is on the republicans saying we're not them and we care about you and we're in the going to take as much time and we're not going to waste your time and i'm putting that in air quotes, waste your time the way the democrats did, because we're more considerate of you. now, that's knowing your audience. which is who are tired members of the senate. obviously. but that doesn't make the case. >> the latest we heard from white house sources is they do expect to go for two days so we don't expect them to come on monday and make arguments and go ahead on tuesday, that of course could change things, they're fluid with this kind of stuff all the time, you never really know exactly what they're going to do but it raises the question, because you heard nearly 24 hours of arguments from the democrats and now there are two arguments of defense pushing back from the president's team, not on every point of course, that the democrats made, because of such a constrained time period, but now the democratic, and these moderate senators, that they're counting on, debating whether or not they're going to vote for witnesses, are going home, and they do have until monday to be thinking about these 24 nearly hours of arguments from democrat, two hours from the white house, and i wonder how, if that will affect -- >> if they want to use all their time, 22 hours, 11 hours on monday, and 11 hours on tuesday, and starting at 1:00, on monday, could go way into the night. i suspect that will not happen. meanwhile, a lot of developments in front the camera. what about what you're not seeing? up next, cnn takes you behind the scenes of the impeachment trial of president donald trump. plus, a new development in the global spread of the crocor the u.s. evacuating americans from a chinese city. we will take you live to the region. today, i'm earning on a charger. so, just the charger then? ummm... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ yeah! 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stop! put those away! ...with air wick essential mist. nature... with kits starting at just ten dollars you can transform natural essential oils into mist at a price that is just right. our cnn reporters and producers, they have been our eyes and ears basically inside the u.s. senate chamber, sharing us with, the happenings, woe can't necessarily see on camera, and joining us now, three of them, alex rogers, clara fora, and congressional reporters for cnn politics and jeremy, cnn politics reporter. guys, thanks so much. i know you have been working hard, thanks very much for what you're doing. alex, first of all, tell us what you're seeing behind the scenes that we just don't necessarily see on television. >> sure. i get to sit on the back left-hand corner, been in there the in the beginning of the trial, every day at 1:00 p.m., and we get to see what you guys don't get to see on camera. so we're on the republican side and we get to see the senators who are disaffected who aren't really into the house managers argument earlier this week, play with their fidget spinners, doodle pictures of the capitol, and then later, you know, today, when the defense team gave their first argument, we saw them way more attentive, way more engaged, writing down notes that they think they will have a point that they will use before next week and maybe how to vote. >> and there were efforts by the white house lawyers to really undermine the credibility of the lead house manager adam schiff. were you looking at him? were you trying to see how he was reacting to those attacks? >> i was in the room today, when, as you said, the defense team really started their kind of going after adam schiff and making him a central focus, and bringing up video clips, playing statements he made in the past, to try to raise questions about his credibility, and it was a really intense moment in the room. you have to remember, it is very cramped in there. they have these tables set up for the president's defense team, and the house managers, and it is all kind of tightly sort of squeezed in there, and so schiff was sitting not very far away at all, from the defense team, as they are making these arguments about him, and he really seemed to be making a concerted effort to kind of turn his body toward the defense team, as they were making the arguments and staring at them, without much of an expression, he wasn't portraying any emotion but an intense unbroken gaze directing toward them. >> jeremy, when you look at some of the republican senators, four, five, six of them, that potentially could be the swing votes and vote with the democrats, in allowing witnesses to come forth, how they were reacting? >> yes, absolutely. and the republican side, the house manager, you had a lot of movement of senators who weren't really paying attention and who were getting up and out of their seats. that was not the case with susan collins or lisa murkowski. they were sitting next to each other, the entire time. susan collins was taking notes. murkowski, she would lean back in her chair, but she was absolutely watching the entire presentation. the others, too, corey gardner, took a lot of notes. lamar alexander, he had some trouble sometimes at night, it kind of looked like his head was tilting forward, but when he was attentive, he was also watching. so those key, half a dozen or so republicans, they are definitely the ones paying attention. >> today, alex, it was only two hours. >> right. >> not ten hours or 11 hours. >> right. >> like it was the other days. >> i assume no one was doing cross word puzzles and stuff like that. >> not today. i think one of the interesting points was when they pick up their pen, and so when susan collins and lisa murkowski today picked up their pen, it was because when the defense argument was giving the points, that this would not only overturn the results of the last election, but it also take the person off the ballot for the next one. so to me, the most interesting thing that i saw today, was when the republican senators picked up their pens and they thought to themselves, this is something i'm going to use next week. >> very quickly, remind our viewers why they are not seeing wide shots of the u.s. senate, and the 100 senators. >> yes, well the way that the rules were set up for this trial, it's just, you know, the cameras are just focusing on whoever is at the front of the senate, making the argument. so whether that is the house manager, or the defense team, or you know, the chief justice, when he does speak which isn't very often but he gavels into session and out but the cameras are not showing the senators so this is really a rare glimpse that reporters that are in the press gallery are getting to see and kind of watch this unfold, that the cameras and television audiences back home don't get to see. >> these are senate rule, not rules for the radio tv correspondents association or anything like that. >> correct. >> guys, you're doing a great job for our viewers, thanks for coming in, i know you're working hard, like you're supposed to. the secretary of state mike pompeo now responding to claim bis a reporter that he lashed out and cursed at her when she asked him about ukraine. >> plus, new details about the deadly coronavirus outbreak that is prompting the u.s. to evacuate americans right now out of china. stay with us. uhh, excuse me, is there a problem here? 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>> reporter: well, wolf, details are still being finalized as we speak. for example, they're still deciding between sending the narrow bodied 737 and the wide body 767 and the flight plane where this plane will be landing in the u.s. and a lot depends where the chinese authorities allow the u.s. to do this. but so far, the chinese according to a source have been very cooperative. what we do know is the u.s. is pulling out about three dozen diplomats and families from wuhan and offer a chance to buy a seat on the plane to any americans in the city who have registered with the consulate, which of course is now closed. and the flight will be staffed with medical personnel, to treat anyone with symptoms and also to contain the virus if needed. and wolf, the u.s. is not the only government doing this. south korea and the british for example are also making arrangements to pull their citizens out of the city, which is of course, the epicenter of the outbreak. wolf? >> very, very scary and worrisome development indeed. steven jack jang, we will stay in close touch, thank you very much. 75 years after the last prisoner was liberated, the name still haunts all of us, auschwitz. tomorrow i will take you to the place of unspeakable horror and unmatched heroism revealed through the eyes of those who were imprisoned there and those who lived to tell their story, we have a special review of the director of shindler's list, stephen spielberg's. walking these grounds changed stevphen spielberg's life forever, as it did mine. >> i walked under that sign. and when i saw the crematorium, the gas chambers, it was a powerful, powerful moment. >> the second time i went to auschwitz with my wife, a rabbi took us and we said a prayer, and he asked me to come over, near where the remains of the crematorium were, and he said, you know, you could put your hand in this sort of like mud hole, and i did, it was very soggy, it had been raining and i put my hand in there and i brought my hand out, and there was wiped sort of bone meal all over my hands. because the remains of everyone over those years of mass murder rained back down on to the earth, and they're still there. and that's something i'll take to my grave. >> we hear from four auschwitz survivors. anita was a celloist, a young girl. martin was a tailor. renee was also a designer in the making. eva, she was a ten-year-old little girl when she was brought to auschwitz. why did they survive? where as others died. just to say luck, that's not enough. it's not luck. it's more than that. >> these survivors somehow hung on tenaciously to life, whatever didn't cause their death, disease, hyper thermia, murder, somehow this group of kids made it out and were able to lead very, very productive and almost inspired lives. this is the last significant commemoration of the worst atrocity in, i believe, human history. >> and you can hear more stories from survivors of auschwitz, hear about the people who overcame the evil that was meant to destroy them. the courageous voices of auschwitz, airs tomorrow night, 11:00 p.m. eastern, right here on cnn. thanks very much for joining us. i will be back here later tonight for a special edition of the situation room, starting at 5:00 p.m. eastern. much more ahead, as we continue our special coverage of the senate impeachment trial of president trump, right after a quick break. woah, is this real gold? where did it come from? you know i'm not sure. who's peter samuel? daddy? yeah? who's peter? well sweetie, he's your great-great grandfather. does he look like me? yeah. yeah? yeah. turn questions you've always had into stories you can't wait to share; with ancestry. turn questions you've alwyour amy what work?zing! you need a website! very soon you're gonna be very famous! lady that is the last thing i would ever... huh? stop! put those away! tit's great actually, i've been listening to audible. it's audiobooks, news, meditations... gotta go! ♪ ♪ hey! you know, i do think it's weird you've started commuting when you work from home. i'll be in my office. download audible and start every day off right. diarrhea? pepto diarrhea to the rescue. it's 3x concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. the leading competitor only treats symptoms it does nothing to kill the bacteria. treat diarrhea at its source with pepto diarrhea. ♪ ♪girls on the floor gotta thirty point lead and a minute left♪ ♪queens on the team in real life not just on the internet♪ ♪all strength, we ain't stoppin' believe me♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait, we're taking everything we wanted we can do it♪ ♪all strength, no sweat ♪all strength, no sweat good afternoon, live in washington, you are watching cnn's special coverage of the impeachment trial of president trump. today the president's legal team delivered their opening arguments and a preview of their defense plan in just about two hours and they kicked off with a familiar office. read the transcript. saying the president's call with ukraine's president shows he did nothing wrong and it should be up to the voters to decide the president's fate at the ballot box. >> we ask you, out of respect, to think about, think about whether what you've heard would really suggest to anybody, anything other, that would be completely irresponsible, abuse of power, to do what they're asking you to do. to stop an election, to interfere in an election, and to remove the president of the united states from the ballot. let the people decide for themselves. >> today's opening arguments come after the democrats spent more than 21 hours making their case for why the president should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office. we have our team following all of the developments here, let's start with lauren fox, on capitol hill, and lauren, i want to ask you, how are these opening arguments by the president's legal team being received there by democrats and republicans? >> well, very differently, obviously, brianna, republicans are arguing that they feel very competent in the way that the president's defense team laid out their case today. essentially, one of the fears from republicans in leadership was that the defense team would come out with a fire and brimstone type method, one that may alienate some of those moderate republicans that democrats are trying to win over in this fight for witnesses. like john bolton and mick mulvaney. but they felt like today, the defense team was really evenhanded in the way they delivered their message and they said the fact that they went shorter rather than taking the full eight or nine or ten hours today was very important and a very smart strategic decisions because members are tired, they're frustrated, they are ready for a break over the next couple of days before everyone has to come back monday. and democrats were arguing that essentially what the defense team did today was it made it easier for them to make their case, that more witnesses and documents are needed. because the defense team repeatedly said that there was no direct evidence that the president was asking for any of this. and what the democrats are saying, is if you want that evidence, you need people, like mulvaney, you need people like bolton, to come and actually testify. so that is where republicans and democrats stand, after just about two hours of opening arguments from the president's defense team. >> jeremy, we're actually hearing the president is pleased with the performance. tell us about this. >> that's right, brianna, a republican source close to the president who actually spoke with him today told me that the president was extremely pleased with the legal team's presentation, he thought that they made a compelling case and we are hearing as much from the president on twitter who writes an hour, a little over an hour ago, he wrote any fair minded person watching the senate trial today would be able to see how unfairly i have been treated and that is indeed the totally partisan impeachment hoax that everybody, including the democrats, truly knows it is. this should never be allowed to happen again. now, brianna, we know of course, that the president had been pushing for a much more theatrical flashy defense and that's why he considered for so long putting some of those fiery house republicans directly on the senate floor to make the case for him but for now at least, it appears for a president who has known sometimes for yut undercutting his staff, who are trying to put out a message that is beneficial to him, that will help him in the long run, that the president is giving his team some leeway. >> another interesting thing to note, to lauren's point about the argument that democrats are making, that the president's legal team essentially made the case for witnesses today, we just got off a call, with sources close, on the president's legal team, and one of those individuals told me, in response to a question, that it's a desperate interpretation, that the democrats, for democrats, they argue that the president's legal team made the case for witnesses, they are arguing instead, that house democrats initially said they had overwhelming evidence that now they're asking for witnesses, they're asking for additional evidence, to be introduced, and the president's legal team saying they're not putting much stock in that democratic interpretation of their arguments. >> a very consistent interpretation that they're having. jeremy, thank you. lauren, thank you. and with me now is lawrence tribe, a constitutional law professor at harvard's law school. he is also the co-author of the book, "to end a presidency, the power of impeachment," lawrence, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. >> i want to start just by getting your reaction to these opening arguments from the president's legal team. what did you think about this today? >> i think they were stylistcally clever, because they were calm, they were brief, they gave reassurance to 53 republican senators who have already made clear that their minds are pretty much made up. at the same time, i think it is clear that every time they said, well, this was not a witness who spoke directly to the president, this was not someone who was in the room, where it happened, they were basically making the case, whether they liked it or not, for calling mulvaney, for calling bolton, for calling those who were in the room. you know, when all is said and done, the case made by the impeachment managers for the house, was a very strong one, but it was somewhat circumstantial. that is, at the very end, you have to make inferences, two plus two equals four, there is no one who actually heard the president say in so many words screw those ukrainians unless they give me an investigation of my opponent and that's not the way they talk but when we hear from bolton, from mulvaney and others at the o mb and elsewhere, we will have reason to know exactly what happened and if we don't, we will have a quandary but we haven't heard yet is the bombastic argument of alan dershowitz and others, we don't care what happened, none of this is impeachable, even if the president shook down a foreign adversary without actually committing a federal crime, or something that is crime-like. that would be a terrible precedent to set. >> i want to ask you, because the president's attorneys today, they kept bringing up what the president was concerned about, they said was this burden sharing, and also corruption, and they tried to make the case that the hold on military aid to ukraine was actually driven by the president's belief that other countries were not doing their fair share, and financially supporting ukraine. the democratic house managers sort of prebutted that argument. let's listen. >> if it is burden sharing, he has the perfect opportunity to raise that the very next day following the call. so what does he ask gordon sondland? does he ask him, hey, gordon, how's that effort to get the europeans to do more coming, hey, gordon, have you talked to angela, yet? no, he has only one question for gordon sondland, is he going to do the investigations. and the answer is, yes, he'll do anything he wants. he loves your, okay, does that sound like burden sharing for you? of course not. >> i should say they rebutted that. in the press conference after what we saw today. who was more convincing and were the president's lawyers convincing enough in that argument? >> well, not to me, but then i'm not entirely objective. i haven't taken an oath of impartiality. i would try if i were a senator. i'm not wholly impartial because adam schiff is one of my favorite former students. but i think he had the better of the argument. because if it was all about burden sharing, then what changed when the hold was suddenly lifted? nothing really changed. the only thing that changed was that the president was caught. in fact, all of the evidence points to the fact that the whole reason for the hold was neither a concern about burden-sharing, nor a general concern about corruption, after all, the department of defense, the department of state, had given clearance to ukraine, saying they had met the anti-corruption goals, and the president was nonetheless dissatisfied. it seems to me that really suggests that his real concern was what it appears to have been, and that is, can we get an announcement that they're investigating biden and burisma, and this crazy crowdstrike theory about ukraine. an announcement. that's all they needed. they didn't actually need investigation into corruption. now, if you care about corruption, what you want is an investigation. an investigation that's undercover, if necessary. certainly you don't want to alert the bad guys, by saying we are investigating you. so all together, the argument, the reason for the whole hold, the hold of this vitally needed air was the concern of corruption and burden-sharing, doesn't add up. and if we have any doubt, there is a way to resolve it. that is to call the witnesses who were in the room when it happened. and could exonerate the president, and why wouldn't they -- >> do you think the republicans are going to allow that to happen? that they are going to allow witnesses to testify at this trial? and if they don't, how is that going to impact how this trial is viewed? >> i think they probably won't. and i think that's sad. i think among other things, that means the trial will be viewed as not a real trial. a real trial, everybody knows, has witnesses. a real trial has evidence. i think it will be viewed as a whitewash, as something where the fix in was with mcconnell to begin with and that means the president will not really be exonerated. he will be impeached forever. and that is a burden he will take with him, talk about burden-sharing, into the 2020 election. and i think that's what history will say, it will say that republicans didn't do all they could to get to the bottom of things, but simply gave a pass to their guy, in order to stay in office, not to have trump go after them with primary opponents, who would destroy their careers. they care more, it seems, about their careers, than their country, and i don't think that's the way i would want to be remembered if i were a public figure. >> just hours before these opening arguments, there was new audio that surfaced of the president apparently demanding that former u.s. ambassador marie yovanovitch be fired. she of course is the ambassador to ukraine and the president has since responded to this audio. let's listen. >> the biggest problem there i think where we need to start is we need to get rid of the ambassador she is still left over from the administration clinton administration. walking around everybody just wait, he's going to get impeached. it's incredible. >> one of the first things -- >> get her out. >> get her out. take her out. okay? do it. >> i probably would have said it with rudy there or somebody, but i make no bones about it, i want to have ambassador, i have every right, i want ambassadors that are chosen by me. i have a right to hire and fire ambassadors. >> do you think that new reporting, lawrence, impacts the case against the president at all? >> i think it does in a number of ways. for one thing, the language. take her out. that's kind of something that's echoed in the semi-transcript of the call later, she's going to go through some things, it shows a degree of vindictiveness and wrecklessness that makes this guy seem dangerous. besides that, it shows that there is a constant flow of new information that keeps coming in. so that republicans who vote to acquit this president are taking the risk that when the trial is over, all kinds of stuff, like the bolton book and everything he has to say, will come out, making it look like they gave their guy a pass. even though he had his own interests at stake, was not doing things for the good of the country. i think that's going to look terrible for those republicans who by simply casting a vote to hear the actual witnesses who were there, and to demand the documents, after all, zero documents were produced, in response to all of the requests from the house. it's going to make them look pretty bad, and the stonewalling of this administration, totally unprecedented, not just invoking real legal privileges, but demanding that mulvaney, bolton, everybody else just shut up, clam up, no documents be turned over, you know, if you're innocent, you don't take that stance, if you're innocent you would want the stuff that would show your incense, , innocence, public. that's not what they have done. >> lawrence, thank you. >> thank you, brianna. up next, a juror in this trial, senator tom carper, reacts to the allegations the democrats are trying to interfere in the 2020 election. and veterans are demanding an apology from the president after he down-played traumatic brain injuries sustained by soldiers in iraq after the iran missile strikes. for what's next. 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>> well, the european union provides a whole lot of aid to the ukraine. mostly economic. they provide a fair amount of help to the ukraine as well. mostly military. there is a sharing of responsibility, and there should continue to be. the issue here isn't the appropriate amount of burden sharing from the european union, or from us. the question is, did the president hold up aid to an ally, fighting the russians, in order to try to get, to extract from the president of ukraine an agreement to call a couple of investigations to discredit joe biden and help this president. >> the lead impeachment manager adam schiff gave closing remarks last night. many republicans were angry at what they heard from him. let's listen to part of it. >> cbs news reported last night that a trump confidante said that gop senators were warned, vote against your president, vote against the president, and your head will be on a pipe. now i don't know if that's true. >> so let's listen to what senator lisa murkowski, a republican colleague of yours, had to say about that. she said i felt that the final moment was over the top. it was unnecessary. and she said it really offended a great number of us. what did you think about that, that head on a pipe comment. was that too much? >> i thought he pulled punches quite frankly and this is something, a reporter, didn't just say i made this up, or i heard this here, he said, it was actually reported by cbs, and said you know, here is the deal, lord help us, lord help us if my republicans friends find most offensive with them in the last three days, the testimony that we heard, was that alluding to a cbs news report. they ought to be offended by the statements, the words, literally caught on tape, by this president, with respect to our u.s. ambassador, to the ukraine. how we got to getrid of her. get her out of here. i mean that's, that is one of most highly recommended ambassadors who handled that part of the world in my lifetime and that's the way we're going to treat her? that's offensive and that was the president's own words. >> inside the senate chamber, you said that you have been taking more. ♪s yourself. i'm curious why that is, but also there have been a number of other senators who have been taking notes as well. joany erns. lamar alexander. susan collins. lisa murkowski. lisa perdue. they could all be seen taking notes in a sort of marked way, when the deputy white house counsel mike purpura gave a list of what he called the six facts that refute the democrat's argument. why have you taken more notes and when did you see republican colleagues doing that? >> i frankly wasn't watching my republican colleagues take notes. i will say this. when adam literally closed the last two day, the closing segments which i thought were extraordinary, almost every republican put down their notes, they watched, they weren't talking to one another, they weren't getting up and walking around and they listed on it what he had to say and my hope is that the american people were listening too. i was taking note force a couple of reasons. one of the primary reasons is every time i would hear a distraction, i would right write that down, every time i would hear a bright shiny on that takes away from the real core subject, i would write that down. every time i heard them mention burden sharing, suggesting that this was the source of it, i would write that down and every time they mentioned the work of the mueller probe, and i would take that down, because they never mentioned 17 intelligence agencies, including the fbi, the cia, and a whole host of others, all agreed on one thing and what they agreed on was the russians are going to be in the election in 2016 and they agreed that they did so on behalf of donald trump and were successful. >> and i'm just curious about this, how many pages of notes did you take? >> all together, i probably am up to about 15. i write small. i write small. and my staff will tell you, not very well. my first grade teacher would say, not very well. >> we all have areas for improvement, senator, thank you so much. senator tom carper, we appreciate it. >> thank you so much. a reporter says the secretary of state screamed and cursed at her, after an interview. also pop quizzed her. what she asked that made mike pompeo so upset. t-mobile 5g is here. and it's nationwide. while some 5g signals go only blocks, t-mobile 5g goes miles... beyond the big cities to the small towns... to the people. millions of americans can have access to 5g on t-mobile. this is just the beginning. t-mobile, the first and only nationwide 5g network. ♪ new fixodent ultra dual power provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. fixodent. and forget it. you don't use this old tno!g, do you? or how 'bout this dinosaur right here? nope! then why are you still using a laser printer? 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during a conversation that pompeo says was off the record. the fiery exchange between pompeo and mary louise kelly came after this contentious interview on npr. >> i have defended every state department official, we've built a great team, the team that works here -- >> sir, respectcally, where have you defended marie yovanovitch. >> i've defended every single person on this team. i've done what's right for every single -- >> can you point me toward your remarks where you have defended marie yovanovitch. >> i've said all i am going to say today, thank you. thank you for the repeated opportunity. i appreciate that. >> following that conversation, kelly said pompeo's aide asked her to come into his private state department living room without a recorder and that's when pompeo repeatedly directed the f word at her, and says that pompeo also said do you think americans care about ukraine, and people will hear about this. kelly said pompeo had an aide bring an unmarked map to quiz kelly on where ukraine is, and she pointed to ukraine on the map, and then she said the secretary put it away. at no point did the aide say that the conversation was not reportable, according to kelly. and this morning secretary of state mike pompeo responded claiming that kelly lied twice, first when setting up the interview last month, and then again yesterday, when he says kelly allegedly agreed to have that post-interview talk off of the record, and then he went on to slam her decency, and also the media, as a whole. let's bring in cnn global affairs analyst susan glasser to talk more about this. you have covered mike pompeo extensively. you are also very familiar with mary louise kelly. and certainly her fine work. i mean i think you can hear in that interview that she is a pretty straight talking journalist. i just want to get your off the top reaction when, not just to the statement, but just when you heard what had happened in this interaction between them, after the interview. >> well, first of all, i have to say, i've known mary louise kelly for three decades and she is a person of unimpeachable integrity, and you know, professional courage, and frankly, it takes a lot of professional courage at this point, to be attacked baselessly by the secretary of state. i have to say, in this day and age, when it is hard to maintain your sense of shock and outrage, when there are so many things, i've never seen a statement like this from the secretary of state. i was the editor in chief of foreign policy magazine, i have a biography of secretary of state women have baker coming up, that's a disgrace to the state department, that statement that you just presented to your viewers, has multiple outrageous lies and falsehoods about a fine reporter impugning her career. first of all, he says she lied twice. she has in writing confirmation, with his staff, that she was going to ask him about ukraine. second of all, he claims that the conversation was off the record. it was not. i had spoken with her. she says not only was it not off the record, she would have refused to go into his office on those conditions. this is just a lie. and the secretary of state should retract that statement. to malign the integrity of a journalist doing her job, is just out of control. >> one of the things that i thought was such a tell from the statement, and i wonder if you'll agree with this, too, the idea that she is, he basically says she didn't pick out ukraine, as the country that she picked bangladesh. bangladesh is not ukraine. the statement says. i have the biggest difficulty imagining that really any journalist whose covered ukraine at all, would make that mistake, and certainly, in her case, with her experience that she would make that mistake. >> well, look, i mean obviously, it is on an entirely different continent, and you know, if you know where russia is, you know where ukraine is, and of course, but my point is -- >> but my point is do you think this is a lie in the statement? >> it is a falsehood. it is a falsehood. and by the way, what he said in the interview with her on npr was also a lie because he said i rerepeatedly defended marie yovanovitch and he ended rudely the interview when she correctly challenged him on it because in fact he has never defended this career ambassador. who was smeared and fired by the president of the united states. and you know, that's a fact that he misrepresented in the interview, which caused him to shut is down. pompeo has done an interesting thing. since he's become secretary of state, he has essentially walled himself off from rigorous questioning, by the national press. it is not the first time that he's attacked a journalist. >> cursed at them like this? >> absolutely. my sources tell me repeatedly in what he thought were private settings or where he did say off the record, he has sworn and cursed and used the f word as he did with mary louise, the only difference is now he has now been called on it publicly. >> susan, thank you so much. susan glasser, we really appreciate you being here. and still ahead, the spread of the deadly coronavirus is accelerating. we'll have the latest on the growing crisis. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees and account minimums. so, you can start investing wherever you are - even on the bus. download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. cake in the conference room! showing 'em you're ready... to be your own boss. that's the beauty of your smile. crest's three dimensional whitening... ...removes stains,... ...whitens in-between teeth... ...and protects from future stains. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. can be a sign your feeling digestive systemhed down isn't working at its best. taking metamucil every day can help. its psyllium fiber forms a gel that traps and removes the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption, promoting healthy blood sugar levels. so, start feeling lighter and more energetic by taking metamucil every day. take the metamucil two-week challenge, lighten up. just take metamucil every day for two weeks. available at your local retailer. the death toll from the intensifying coronavirus outbreak is rising and officials now say it is at 41 people in china have died, there are now 1400 confirmed cases globally. two of those here in the u.s. the centers for disease control confirmed to cnn that it is working with the u.s. government to evacuate all u.s. citizens from wuhan china which is the epicenter of this outbreak. cnn senior producer with us from beijing an steven, during the meeting on the coronavirus, the president of china xi jingping says china is facing a grave situation and he warned that this outbreak is accelerating. tell us how things are where you are. >> reporter: that's right, a warning from china's most powerful leader in decades, and he used some war-like globalization language and saying among his top priorities is to save lives and also to stop the spread of this virus at any cost. now, to that, of course, the authorities have locked down an entire province, 16 million people, affected, there is no way for them to basically leave where they live. and of course, the more visible involvement of president xi is probably going to inject some sense of control over an increasingly chaotic and depressing situation on the ground, brianna, because in the past few days, what we have been hearing most is the local hospital system has been completely overwhelmed in wuhan where people are lining up for hours only to be turned away, even when they were displaying all of the symptoms of this virus. now, they are saying that they are sending in reinforcements in medical supplies, and medical personnel, and also, building two brand new facilities with more than 2300 hospital beds, from scratch, and promising to complete the construction within two weeks. >> steven, the cdc released a statement about the effort to get u.s. citizens out of wuhan saying quote, department of state has the lead for the state, the expedient departure of all u.s. citizens from wuhan china and cdc is aware and coordinating in the planning. what more are you learning about that effort? >> reporter: well, details are still being finalized as we speak, but you know, they are still trying to find out what kind of aircraft to send, a narrow body boeing or wide body, the flight plan and where this plane where be landing in the u.s. and a lot of this of course depends on what the chinese authorities allow the u.s. to do but my source is telling me the chinese have been very cooperative. what we do mow is the u.s. is pulling out about three dozen diplomats and families from wuhan and also offering a chance to buy a seat on this plane to any americans in the city who have registered with the consulate which of course is now closed. and this flight will be starved with medical personnel to treat anyone with symptoms and to also contain the virus on board if needed. and this is now the only, the u.s. is not the only country doing this. britain and south korea are doing some things very similar, to pull their people out of the epicenter. >> steven, thank you so much. steven jang in beijing for us. america's largest combat veterans organization is demanding an apology from president trump after he down-played the injuries that some u.s. service members sustained from the iran missile strike in iraq earlier this month of the pentagon originally said no one was injured but now confirming 34 service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries from the missile attack. earlier this week, the president told the reporters he does not consider the brain injuries to be very serious compared to combat wounds visible from the outside of the body for instance a limb and went on to describe the severity of the injuries as headaches and there are 17 who are still being treated and others have returned to duty in iraq. still ahead the election is nine months from now and the president's legal team does not want you to forget it. will this strategy pay off? 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karolyn? nope! no, just a couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. they're asking you, not only to overturn the results of the last election, but as i've said before, they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months. they're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in american history and we can't allow that to happen. >> that was white house counsel pat cipollone and with me now are two cnn political analysts going to break this down with us, julie pace, washington bureau here the the associated press and ryan lizza, chief political correspondent for "politico." i wonder, largely, i'm curious, how you thought today went, but just specifically, that argument, where cipollone is saying, you know, he's turning what democrats have said on their head, this is about abuse of power on the part of democrats, this is about democrats messing with an election. what did you think, julie? >> it is interesting because both sides have been trying to hold out the election as something to consider in this process. republicans say hey, if you want trump out of office, you can do that in nine months through the electoral process but democrats say, imagine trump goes and wins re-election, imagine how emboldened that he would be if he does, if will is no check on his power so it is interesting how they're both holding that out. i think for republicans, it's interesting that they're skipping past some of the substance of what trump did, and just saying, if you actually want him out, if you actually think what he did was bad, there is another way to deal with it. >> what did you think? >> i think that has always been one of the most powerful arguments against impeachment, it gives republicans a way out, a way of not deciding this on the merits and to just say, i'm going to defer to the voters in the fall, they now have all of these facts before them, so if you really, due actually have to take a position on the case, by playing to this, let the voters decide argument. this is the first impeachment that has happened in the first term in modern history, right? so nixon obviously, resigned but already been re-elected and bill clinton already been re-elected and there is an argument that is available to the president and his defenders that wasn't available to the last two presidents who faced impeachment. schiff hit this head-on in his final presentations on thursday and friday. i was in the chamber on thursday and friday. and the rep captiublicans reall paying close attention to the final he addressed this. he said the reason you can't let the voters do this is because the whole case is about the democratic process. he repeatedly said he cheated and got caught. he'll do it again. the argument -- one thing that strengthens the argument, democrats would say is after the mueller report came out, this behavior sort of accelerated. exoneration -- >> his call with zelensky came right after the mueller report. >> mueller's testimony. anything stick out to you? anything surprise you? anything make you say, no we're not going to see witnesses or maybe we will. what did you think? >> one of the things that was surprising today is it seems like trump's team is saving some of their arguments about joe biden for monday when they expect there will be larger audience. that's probably in line with what president trump wants them to do. they have been previewing this idea they will turn the tables on joe biden. it does seem like they are saving that. that's very little movement among republicans in terms of interest among witnesses. we heard mitt romney. a few others who said they are open to it. they need four. that's really, really tough hurdle for them at this point. >> you've been in the chamber. give us a sense of what is it like? what sort of struck you that you kind of have to be in there watching to notice? >> it depends on the time of day. when it starts at 1:00, people are very engaged and taking notes. as you get later into the evening -- >> chugging candy. >> people's attention flag and it depend os on what the presentation is about. when schiff was presenting, he would go first or last and kind of tie everything together. he tended to seize every one's attention. when some of the other managers were taking people through the slog of facts, you could see people's attentions was just sort of flagging a little bit especially on the republican side. you have some people who are very aggressive notewarren. the snenators look up at us. i think after the first day when there were lots of tweets and commentary about what every one was doing, they were on better behavior because they knew they were closely watched. >> do you think there will be witnesses and can you imagine -- let's think into the future, a decade or two looking back and if it would have mattered if there weren't witnesses. >> i think it's a great question. in terms of whether there will be witness, we have seen so few examples over the last couple of years of republicans really acting counter to the president or mitch mcconnell's wishes. it's just not what they do. i was talking to a couple of republican sources who said there could be three who will go for witnesses or nine if it looks like there's a big rush but can there be four. is there one brave republican senator who will say i'll be the fourth and put you over the finish line. romney has said he looks likely to vote for witnesses. susan collins. lamar alexander who is retiring and another senator, cory gardener in colorado who has a tough re-election fight. they have to decide what do they think is in their political interest versus what might be the best vote to make for history. >> what's your best on this? >> i wouldn't predict. i don't know. it does seem like most republicans are looking for an argument to -- they are look for something to seize onto where they don't have to make a judgment about whether a future president can do exactly what president trump did. that's what's happening here. we're setting a pres dent about presidential behavior. when i talked to republicans that's the thing they worry a bit about. they want to move past this but not endorse the invieting a foreign power to interfere in the election. even with some of the commentary over the last few days when people got mad at nadler for being too mean or schiff talking about the head on the pike thing. you get a sense that republicans are looking to find something to move past this. i think it's less likely they will have witnesses. >> all right. we'll stay tuned. that's a really long way of saying i don't know. thank you so much. i did enjoy it. thank you both. that does it for this hour of cnn newsroom. we have more on the first day of president's legal team's opening arguments in the senate impeachment trial after a quick break. 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download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. are you currently using a whitening toothpaste, but not seeing results? try crest 3d whitestrips. its enamel-safe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100% noticeably whiter teeth or your money back. try crest 3d whitestrips. hello. you're watching cnn special coverage of the impeachecachmen trial of president trump. for the last few days house impeachment managers made the case that president trump should be founld guilty of abusing powr and obstructing congress and he should be removed from office. today the president's defense team struck back. >> we don't believe that they have come anywhere close to meeting their burden for what they're asking you to do. they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months. they are asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country. >> disagreeing with the president's decision on foreign policy matters or whose advice he's going to take is in no way an impeachment offense. >> dwroo you know who didn't sh up in the judiciary committee? chairman schiff. if they don't want to be fair to the president, at least out of respect to all of you, they should be fair to you. impeaecachment shouldn't be a sl game. they should give you the facts. >> jeremy, i want to start with you because we won't be seeing the president today but you have learned he is extremely pleased with today's proceedings. tell us more about this. >> i spoke with a republican source who spoke with the president today and that source said the president was extremely pleased. he felt like his legal team's argument was quite compelling. this is interesting because we know the president has been pushing for more theatrical defense. that's where he was leaning before the trial got under way. it seeps he's giving his legal team some leeway. we saw on twitter making clear he was pleased with his legal's presentation. he believes the american public will see this is a hox that's the impeachment he is facing. perhaps the legal team didn't make it with the same flashness that the president would have hoped for. they making the points the president has made. including the impeachment is an attempt to overturn the results of the last election and remove him from the ballot for the next one. listen in. >> they are asking you to do something very, very consequential and i would submit to you to use a word that mr. schiff used a lot, very, very dangerous. that's the second point i'd ask you to keep in mind today. they're asking you not only to over turn the results of the last election, but as i've said before, they're asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approximately nine months. they are asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative. take that decision away from the american people. >> reporter: now we know that the president's legal team today also argued there's not enough direct evidence. talking about why the president withhold this security aid to ukraine and trying to link that to this pressure campaign and get that investigation into joe biden announced. we had a call with the president's legal team and asked about this democratic account saying that the president's legal team was making the case for more witnesses and one member of the president's legal team told me that's a desperate interpretati interpretation. that's how they are responding as of now. >> lauren, i want to ask you about mitt romney. he's really seen as the republican most likely to say yes to seeing witnesses. he's talking about this issue. what did he say? >> reporter: he said just a little while ago that he was very likely to want more witnesses, to want more information. he said ultimately he's not going to make up his mind until after those 16 hours of questions from senators, which we expect to begin next week after the president's defense team has laid to rest their case. he is one of only four members that we're watching very closely. the other one susan collins who weeks ago when i asked about her witnesses said he tends the like more information rather than less. just remember, she is one of those members who is up for re-election in 2020. all eyes will be on her. there are others like lisa m murkowski signalled she was frustrated with adam schiff's closing argument. she's another one that democrats are trying to convince to vote with them on witnesses. the question is, are those four republicans going to be there in the end and right now republicans and leadership are feeling confident about the fact that democrats might get one or two but maybe won't get lamar alexander or lisa murkowski. it's their vote and we don't know how things will shake out until every one is asked to step forward and vote. >> they need that magic number. we will be watching along with you. thank you. i want to bring in our panel now. michael is a law professor at the university of north carolina. thank you so much to all you have for being here. i want to ask you, jeff about -- the president is happy with how today went. he has reason to be. i think a lot of us are in agreement on that. i wonder even as jeremy said he's happy because he heard some of the arguments he's made. we know how the arguments are made is very important to the president. who do you think he's most happy with because there were a few of his lawyers up there today. >> there were. it struck me this different style between a few of them. cipollone was mild mannered. sekulow was bombastic. my suspicion is he really liked jay's stoyle. he likes the fact the argument was made well. stylistically he might have preferred the way jay did it than pat. >> what did you think about how today went and what that means for the president? >> first happy lunar new year. i think, like jeff, the president had to be pleased overall with the way his team performed. i wouldn't point to any one of the lawyers. i saw them laying down a base of fire. i think they will save their big arguments, the ones that resonate with the base for monday and tuesday. today is saturday. people are taking kids stocker practice. you ahead them make the technical points about rule ten. did the house take a full vote to initiate impeachment proceedings. you heard them introduce words like paused and flowed instead of released up after being caught. they got that out into the bloodstream. i think they paved the way going forward. >> would you say this was a good day for the president? >> i thought it was relatively weak. i thought it was meager and what it did open by them saying, what the democrats didn't show you were all of these facts. they didn't show do you this fact. they didn't show you that fact and they didn't put it in context the fact they did show you. what does that tell you then as a trier of fact, these senators. it tells you i need to see other facts. if i need to decide then. context, more context. then i need to see other facts. how do i get other facts? well, how do i get them? i get them through other witness, other documents. the only way to do that is to vote for other witnesses and documents. i think they just made a huge hole in favor of witnesses and documents for the democrats. >> that's a very good point. when you look at polling, even though the country is split on whether the president should be removed, on witnesses and documents they are clear. the majority of americans hold the lead there should be more witnesses. they want to hear more information. i wonder if you thought this was a day that served the president or not, michael. >> i'm split. i would agree stylistically. the lawyers toned it done a bit, for those lawyers. they weren't pounding the table as i expect they will eventually. that probably served them well. perhaps they demonstrated the president, shouting and yelli i doesn't always make the best argument. we can sound reasonable. sub stp i thought it was awful. it had no basis in facts. when cipollone said the democrats are guilty of the worst attack on democracy. that could be for president trump. they will call the other side all the names which might well fit themselves better. i think you heard that throughout the entire arguments today. >> i'm curious, no basis if fact, you argue. sometimes i wonder does that matter. is this going to be something the president's supporters believe. >> i disagree. there was no basis if fact. some of their arguments were downright illogical and as you said, i think it makes the case for witnesses. if you're the president's legal team and you know one, that the president is not going to be removed and you know there may not be anybody to -- any republicans stroet fto vote fro witnesses then you can work from that stance and argue this. >> you're trying to make a record here. this evidence will come out at some point as we're seeing today more and more evidence will come out to the public. whether or not the senators will be able to vote on it or not. >> i don't think they care. i think they just want to get it over with. >> we said this stylistically, political theater. in that sense, i think the white house lawyers probably performed well. i would emphasis what they were talking about was a lot of talking points. in the same talking points that were made not just in the house but on the campaign trail and elsewhere. talking points are not really legal arguments but they are politically effecteffective. >> it seems like they have gone on the political fight knowing unless something nuclear happens, the president will remain in office. we saw just two hours of these opening arguments. some of the key themes emerging. impeachment is this attempt to of turn the election, influence the next one. ukrainian officials felt no pressure or quid pro quo. jabs at adam schiff. this is politics. this just partisan. let's listen to pat cipollone. >> you know who else didn't show up to answer questions about his report in the way ken starr did in the clinton impeachment. ken starr was subjected to cross exami examination. do you know who didn't show up in the judiciary committee. chairman schiff. he did not show up. he did not give chairman nadler the respect of appearing before his committee and answering questions from his committee. he did send his staff, but why didn't he show up? >> i'm sorry. i was on the judiciary committee for the democrats during the impeachment of president clinton. i know how that process worked and i was there when kenneth starr appeared. we had he was independent council. he was set up differently. schiff is now going to be a manager in this trial, so there's no way he could appear before the committee, judiciary committee when he was going to be a manager in the senate trial. it wouldn't have worked that way. starr was not going be a manager at the upcoming trial. this is apples and oranges. >> let me ask if this is a reasonable illustration. in a mnormal trial you might se the investigating officer. you're generally not going to see the prosecutor take the stand. >> it's an excellent point. this demonstrates one of the favorite techniques of the president. that's to attack the other people, the other side and do it personally. if we're not going to attack what schiff did, let's attack schiff. there's this kind of character assassination or insinuation of he did something wrong. whatever he did, it's in the record. many republicans were there. >> i think we're getting a sense of where they will go next week. focusing on people like schiff. focusing on biden, former vice president biden and hunter biden. another piece of their strategy is do no harm. they do right now have the votes to be sure that the president is acquitted. following a little bit of the president's play book by focusing on people he's already tweeted about, he's already criticized will be part of keeping some focus on that while not messing anything up with the senators who they need to be sure they don't. >> jeff, david, michael, thank you so much for this conversation. we have much more ahead. we'll be back in just a moment. ♪ new fixodent ultra dual power provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. fixodent. and forget it. think you need to buy expensive skincare products [♪] to see dramatic results? 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(woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. when you have nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. try pepto liquicaps for fast relief and ultra-coating. nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. get powerful relief with pepto bismol liquicaps. as senators mull over day one of the president's defense strategy, the house has received more evidence about the president's action at the center of the impeachment charges. the intelligence committee is in possession of an audio tape that appears to be vote of president trump at a dinner with lev parnas in 2018. we hear the president demanding the firing of marie yovanovitch. this is all according to parnas's attorney. abc news obtained the audio. let's listen. >> the biggest problem is we got to get rid of the ambassador. she's left over from the clinton administration. walk around tell everybody wait. he's going to get impeached. just wait. >> get rid of her. get her out. i don't care out. get her out tomorrow. take her out. okay. do it. >> we should point out that yovanovitch wasn't fired until a year after that conversation right there. the president has insisted, dedoesnd he doesn't know parnas. let's listen to what the president has said. >> i don't know parnas. i guess i had pictures taken which i do with thousands of people including people today that i did meet. just met him. know nothing about him. he's trying to make a deal for himself. >> all right. his conversation with parnas really refutes what he said. >> first of all, there's a sort of don't believe me, believe your lying eyes or however that goes. >> lying ears in this case. >> he portrayed it in that clip as if it's someone i shook hands with on a rope line. maybe they're not best friends but clearly they know each other. they have been at more than one event together including the one on tape. first of all, the president is being, at a minimum, not forthcoming. perhaps just out right lying about this. i think it's worth remembering is that, look, the ambassador to any country is the president's personal representative to that country. if he doesn't like that person, he simply can go through channels and have them dismissed or reassigned. there doesn't need to be this nefarious, off the books sort of negotiation of how to get rid of her. >> what was really amounted to a smear campaign. that's what people in that space are saying. it's worth pointing out this isn't the first time we have heard the president say i don't know them, never met them. i don't know that person well. never had a conversation. what dwo you make of this throw away line? >> i think it is formulating. i think it's a good word. lots of people, his supporters just don't mind. he'll say something like that. he'll dismiss it. whether it's something about a person that he knows or he's interacted with or about a policy. it's just part of how he acts and part of how he says things. >> i think sometimes because it seems pretty clear which way the senate is going on this, you wonder if this is going to matter. we know it's probably not going to matter in all of this, but if it should matter -- >> it should matter. >> why should it matter? >> it goes to context and putting forth a scheme to get rid of this ambassador. clearly this scheme had sprouted up a here before she was gotten rid of. he can go through the regular channels and just fire her but that's not what was happening here. it goes to the context of why did he really want to put a stall to the money. it fits into if you're a prosecutor, putting together a case, you want the jurors to see all of the evidence. it goes into that context. that's why it matters. it's coming forward because if he is trying to make a deal, that's why you're hearing this information now. you are hearing about this information and that's why the senators should hear about it as well. >> let's shift now to mike pompeo. he was being interview eed by n and she pressed him on whether he owed yovanovitch an apology. he abruptly ended the interview. >> i was taken to the secretary's private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for the same amount of time for the interview had lasted. he was not happy to have been questioned about ukraine. he asked do you think americans care about ukraine? he used the f word in that sentence and many others. he asked if i could find ukraine on a map. i said yes. he kaucalled out for the aids t bring him with no writing or country's marks. i pointed to ukraine. he said people will hear about this and then he turned and said he had things to do and thanked him again for his time and left. >> let's bring in cnn senior media correspondent bryan stelter to talk about this. tell us what reporting you have on this and also what is pompeo side of the story. >> this shows the trump administration disrespect for the press and how it's trickled down from the president to his top aides and throughout his government. i think there are staffers who were appalled by his behavior. he's kind of sort of denying a bit of it. here is part of the statement he came out today. a stunning statement. he says npr reporter lied to me twice. first, last month in setting up o our interviewing and agreeing to have our post-interview off the record. pom ppeo is not denying. he is claiming it was off the record meaning she wasn't supposed to describe the conversation. a couple of things about that. kelly says there was no off the record agreement. it's a two-way agreement. the reporter has to agree and off the record is not way to have chance to scream at reporters. pompeo has a history of hostility toward members of the media. he's engaged in this with other reporters in the past and he's also criticized reporters in interviews as well. there's a kind of a spat going on here but it's kelly at npr that has the credibility. it's pompeo in a situation like this. it leads into pattern both of hostility toward the media and an unwillingness to answer questions. ultimately that's what this is about. pompeo does not want to talk about the ukraine scheme. >> he doesn't. this is prompted a letter from senators to pompeo. tell us about this. >> from four democratic senators. four of them have written a letter to pompeo saying his insulting comments to the npr reporter are beneath the dignity of the secretary of state. they say at a time when jury room i-- journalists are being jailed and killed, your assaulting comments are beneath the office. that's a new statement from four democratic senators. i got to suspect if president trump is watching he's pleased to see his secretary of state insultsing a reporter, using profanity in her presence. i suspect he enjoys seeing that although many others are disgusted by it. >> yeah. count me. i won't speak for you guys but count me among those folks. it's even clear by listening to the interview that she does, it's a good interview. her follow up questions are on point. he says something that isn't true. he says he's defended all state department employees. she says what about marie yovanovitch because he did not defend her. >> she just asked a follow up question. just show me the paper. show me the statement where you have. it's a very good -- >> show me evidence. >> show me the evidence. >> cite, whatever she says. cite where your statements are. >> you said you have done it so cite me that. a very simple thing. that's when he loses it and the demeaning aspect of having an aide, call her back to his -- where ever. >> private living room. >> and pulling this map out and you got to think that's not the first time that's happened. >> he pulls out an unmarked map which seems weird. who has that lying around. i'll tell you who does. maybe like fourth grade teachers if you're quizzing your kid on it or something. go on. >> that seems very odds to me that's just lying around and his aide has to pull this out and demeans her like that. really sort of strips her down in front of this aide saying you've got to do this. think about yourself in that situation that you've got to do this and you don't really know where to go and you've got to do it. she's so smart, she knows it. >> i can't believe he would quiz this on her and for her to tell it, so i pointed to ukraine and he put the map away. he says in the statement. >> bangladesh. >> what do you think about that? >> i think reporters get yelled at. we've all gotten yelled at. >> off the record is not to get yelled at. note to self. >> we can handle it. it doesn't say anything about the reporter. it says something about the person behaving in that way. the most important thing is the reporter's work and her work speaks for itself. >> i'm not surprised he asks her this. members of this administration hold us in con temtempt in a wa that past administrations haven't. ukraine is easy to find on map. it's to the right of germany and the left of russia. it's not a bigami mystery. i don't know why that was supposed to be hard test question. >> demeaning. >> the secretary didn't want to answer the factual question and so he made it a personality conflict and the other thing is haven't we all been taught by our parents to be the bigger person. secretary pompeo you hold the job that was first held by thomas jefferson. it's ridiculous. >> what was horrible, he said. don't people in the u.s. don't give an expletive about ukraine. how awful is that? isn't that his job to make sure that americans do care about ukraine? >> absolutely. to act like just because this wasn't his understanding of what was many the interview. this is topic a in america. he should expect it. >> it's an ironic thing to be saying now. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate it. we have breaking news from china. a warning from the president there. his country is facing a grave situation. pardon me. as the coronovie vrus outbreak spreading fast. frequent heartburn? not anymore. the prilosec otc two-week challenge is helping people love what they love again. just one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. because life starts when heartburn stops. take the challenge at prilosecotc dot com. until i found out what itst it actually was.ed me. dust mite droppings! eeeeeww! dead skin cells! gross! so now, i grab my swiffer sweeper and heavy-duty dusters. duster extends to three feet to get all that gross stuff gotcha! and for that nasty dust on my floors, my sweeper's on it. the textured cloths grab and hold dirt and hair no matter where dust bunnies hide. no more heebie jeebies. phew. glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. sleep this amazing? 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let's check in with daniel dale. you fact check everything for us. it's fantastic. ukraine has been at the center of this impeachment investigation from the beginning. i want to play this claim from a couple of members from the president's defense team this morning. >> president trump then turned to corruption in the form of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election. there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking a foreign leader to help get to the bottom of all forms of foreign interference in an american presidential election. >> mr. schiff and his colleagues told you that russia was acting alone, responsible for the election interference implying they debunked the idea there might be, you know, interference from other countries, including ukraine. >> what did you think of that? fact check us for that. >> it's the intelligence community that's debunked the idea this ukraine interfered in the election opini. just a month ago christopher wrey was on record and said we have no information that indicates ukraine interfered with the election. we know that in and around november the intelligence community gaving a briefing to senators saying this was a russian operation to convince people that ukraine was responsible for what russia did. in the first clip they said trump brought up corruption. what trump brought up was a nonsensible theory about a company that is not ukrainian but trump thinks is ukrainian. trump didn't bring up election interference, he braugought up nonsense. >> they quoted fiona hill while ignoring right out of the gate she said this is a russian conspiracy theory. another claim, this is about the impeachment process. >> if you are really confident in your position on the facts, why would you lock everybody out of it from the president's side. >> were they locked out? >> there's a kernel of truth here but not every one was locked out. the kernel of truth is trump's lawyers were prohibited from participating in the house intelligence committee hearings but not every one on the t president's side was prohibited. republican committee lawyers were allowed to question witnesses and republican lawmakers were not locked out. in addition, trump's lawyers were allowed to participate many the house judiciary committee proceedings. they declined a formal offer from the committee to be involved. yes they were locked out. trump's legal team from part of the process but not every one was kept out. >> they said no to where they could be involved. timing is very important. this is something we heard them making points on a lot. they wanted senators to pay attention to this. >> they are asking you not only to over turn the results of the last election but as i've said before, they are asking you to remove president trump from the ballot in an election that's occurring in approxmately nine months. they are asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country. >> assess that for us. >> this sounds like hyperbole but i think it's true. >> if trump is convicted by the senate he's not disqualified from running again. he can be on the ballot. after a conviction they are allowed to hold a second vote to disqualify the impeached and convicted person from holding public office again. do democrats want to do that? it's not clear but in the articles of impeachment, they do say his behavior does merit disqualification. i think there is truth to the point that democrats don't want him on the ballot. >> it's important that's true because it seemed eed that's a argument some republicans will seize on. how important is it that the talking points for some of these republican senators are more on the true side if they want to grab onto them. >> i think thaiey've managed to make a lot of hay with talking points not on the truth side. the president has kept the support of 40% of the people. he's a serial liar. i don't know how important it is that republicans are truthful. >> is it weird to still fact check these things over and over because they keep bubbling up to the surface? >> with trump he's not corrected by people like me. he doesn't care. a lot of politician, you fact check them and tell the public they are wrong, they will correct their statements. trump doesn't care because he knows that much of his base is not reading me, not watching cnn and he can get his dishonest message to them through other means. >> i care. thank you so much. as the president's lawyers make their arguments in the senate impeachment trial, the democrats make their closing arguments to iowa voters. state of the union has the latest in the trial and on the trail tomorrow morning at 9:00 eastern on cnn. veterans are demanding an apology from president trump. their message about the real danger of traumatic brain injuries. take in fragrance inspired by nature with air wick essential mist. it transforms natural essential oils into mist. experience the latest in air care by air wick. oh, hi, samantha. you look more like a heather. do you ever get that? 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try crest 3d whitestrips. its enamel-safe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100% noticeably whiter teeth or your money back. try crest 3d whitestrips. oh no, here comes gthe neighbor probably to brag about how amazing his xfinity customer service is. i'm mike, i'm so busy. good thing xfinity has two-hour appointment windows. they have night and weekend appointments too. he's here. bill? karolyn? nope! no, just a couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. america's largest combat veterans organization is demanding an apology from president trump after he down played injuries. the pentagon gone said no one was injured but it's confirming 34 service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries from the missile attack. earlier this week the president told reporters that he doesn't consider brain injuries to be quote very serious compared to physical combat wounds like losing a limb, for instance. going onto minimize the severity of the injuries is just headaches. of the service member who is were injured there are 17 who are still being treated and others have returned to duty in iraq. inside the senate chamber this week some odd rules are making for some curious moments. here is cnn's bryan todd. >> do you swear. >> reporter: after hours and hours of testimony the trump impeachment trial has become a supreme test of senators ability to sit down and be quiet. >> all persons are commanded to keep silent on pay or imprisonment. >> reporter: among a restriction of senator, keeping your mouth shut even refraining from whispering to the person next to you. there's no use of cell phone or other electronic devices. no reading materials are allowed unless related to trial and no standing. senator s have to sit in their seat. >> you cannot move during the course of the trial. now, what that will do for middle aged and older men who may need to bring in catheters is another story. >> reporter: senators aren't great at following the rules. senators have been seen leaning into their neighbor, whispering to each other. some have left, others have been seen standing. >> you're not missing a thing if you're standing instead of sitting. >> reporter: senator vs been observed dipping into personal stashes of candy, drinking milk playing with fidget spinseners. they don't believe it's too much to sit quiet in a proceeding with the gravitas of a president's impeachment. >> jurors in our court system are required to sit still and listen to what's going on and i think it's part of that general culture that they are trying to make it clear to the senate. you're expected to be there, you're expected to listen. you're not expected to be doing other work. >> reporter: to be fair, most senators have been attentive. among a group of people not known for wide attention spans or discipline, it's not surprising that some rules have been broken. >> senators are not used to being reigned in. this is not just reigning them in, pst putting them into chairs with straps around their arms and legs. that's not something that's going to sit well with an awful lot of senators. >> reporter: a key question is what happens to senator seen talking out of turn or looking at a cell phone. it's not quite clear what the senator's punishment could be. they could get kicked out or get arrested although most believe it would never really come to that. >> we're just about one week away now from the iowa caucuses and a new poll has bernie sanders now holding a clear lead. a special edition of "the situation room" with wolf blitzer is up next. so i use my freedom unlimited card to buy all the latest tech stuff. today, i'm earning on a charger. so, just the charger then? 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