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 whos 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 didnt occur, the president s own fbi director chris wray said didnt 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, theyre 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 im sure that house managers are going to go back at in their presser. I think thats 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. Thats why you see schumer making the argument, maybe theyll 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 trumps record shows that he is singularly focused on corruption, whether it has to do with ukraine, the debunked Conspiracy Theory around a server that doesnt really exist or the bidens. Theyre laying the predicate that all of this makes sense and i think youll 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, doesnt like u. S. Money going overseas, he wants to keep that money here in the United States. Why dont the europeans pay for nato, why dont 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 wasnt the result of corruption, it is because he wanted to keep that money here. He never understood why it was in Americas National security interest to be spending all that money. You cover him on a daytoday basis. Thats 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 isnt 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 didnt bring it up. Thats 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 theyre 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. Thats 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 hadnt exactly expected. The other argument, im 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 schiffs credibility. They did that on the question of the whistleblower testifying as well, and made the point, why was he for the whistleblower coming in at first, and was against it, and that change was because of the Death Threats that had come in against the whistleblower after the president said he or she was guilty of treason, and then they sort of backed off that, but they didnt talk about that at all. The question is whether thats relevant either. Youre 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, theyre 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 dont believe theres any leeway for the other side to respond to a question that was not directed at them. Is there room for followup . Thats up to the senators. If somebody writes a followup. They have to be quick. You have to get it in there. Were expecting the house managers, adam schiff and company, to be holding a News Conference momentarily. Well 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. Shes landed. And shes 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. Dont look. What . Dont look. Lets move. Mom. The lexus es, eagerly prepared for the unexpected. 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Oh no, here comes gthe neighbor probably to brag about how amazing his Xfinity Customer Service is. Im mike, im so busy. Good thing xfinity has twohour appointment windows. They have night and weekend appointments too. Hes here. Bill . Karolyn . Nope no, just a couple of rocks. Download the my account app to manage your appointments making todays Xfinity Customer Service simple, easy, awesome. Ill pass. President trumps 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 hes going to take is in no way an Impeachable Offense. That was jay sekulow. Jennifer, the way he is phrasing it, the idea that theyre trying to impeach him because he disagreed with his Intelligence Community, what do you make of that argument . Hes 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. Whats not legitimate is that thats 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. Thats 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 trumps lawyers were smart to address that point, and i think were going to hear it over and over again that its the president theyre going to say is responsible for diplomacy, the president thats 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. Im going to make a few remarks. I will let my colleague, mr. Nadler, address procedural arguments that counsel made and well 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 dont 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 doesnt 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. Youre not going to get this unless i get that. And of course thats 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, theres 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 dont 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 theres no link between military support because he didnt say im 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 theres no explicit quid pro quo mentioned in the head of state call on the white house meeting, but of course theyre 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 were going to do these investigations and then he says on the other hand, im really looking forward to the white house meeting. It doesnt 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 arent doing enough, as if that was really the thrust of the call. If that was really the thrust of the call, you wouldnt 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, hell 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 hasnt 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 dont have to be a mind reader to see why that would be so deeply damaging to ukraine. They dont want to admit it publicly but they have said it privately. Theyve said as you heard testimony that there was deep concern that zelensky didnt want to be used as a pawn in u. S. Domestic politics. So they said it privately, even if they cant say it publicly. Now, they also make the argument that the ukranians didnt know the Security Systems were withheld. Okay, thats just not true. One of the things they didnt 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 theyre not going to get the money essentially until they do the investigations, that theyre not going to feel pressured about that, not going to feel pressured to do the investigation . Thats absurd. We heard other witness testimony