divided between both sides. we ve been hearing some republican senators, pat toomey of arizona, basically saying what the president did was inappropriate but it does not rise to the level of impeachment and removal from office. we got the statement from marco rubio from florida. nobody thought they would support removing him from office, but it goes a little farther than inappropriate, because the premise of his post is, assuming everything the democrats say is true, just because the standard rises to the level of impeachment doesn t mean it s the standard of the country to remove the president from office. there s rubio saying even if you think this is completely true and horrible and he should be impeached on it, and he s not disputing this point, believe it or not, i don t think it s enough for removal of office. so on the one hand you re saying what the president did was wrong, but on the other hand saying it does arise to the
did that was delivered to the white house and they talked about this. it s not that rudy denied he was engaged and involved in it, he didn t deny it, he said they were in two different contexts there were two different meetings, one was about the biden and the 2016 election interference that the president s own security adviser called a debunked security theory and they said ukraine did not interfere in the 2016 election. that s a debunked theory by the president s own adviser and aides. as you know, the president doesn t necessarily believe all the things coming out of the fbi. i m just saying the president is very suspect about those types of, quotes, debunkings. alex, you re the former parliamentarian. this report was denied by the
right now. the people in that meeting is pretty significant if bolton s account is true. if it s true, correct. that s an important if. this is why, you know, house i know the president has said that the house didn t call bolton. it is true that they didn t take him to court over it, and then bolton said he would comply with a subpoena from the senate. this is why people who want witnesses are arguing it would be important to get bolton under oath. we should also note that the white house has argued that bolton, who was often at odds with mick mulvaney and with secretary of state mike pompeo, that bolton himself, you know, was a disgruntled employee on bad terms and had an ax to grind, which is why the importance of being under oath matters. but there are all kinds of complications of bolton testifying. it s not just the question of
having witnesses. he s going to say, i don t need to hear more. it doesn t rise to the level. that s not going to fly with everybody. 80% thinks there should be witnesses. this is not sufficient enough to remove the president. i want to know if we ll hear from rick s former colleagues on article 2. i think you ll find democrats on board with this one, personally. against it. voting no on article 2. really. i do. i thought you would see republicans voting yes on article 2. absolutely not. i think the idea that the democrats are saying, you know, we don t have time to go through the normal process of checks and balances and going to the third branch of government and getting the third branch of government to adjudicate this dispute. to me it completely eliminates the ability to control their privilege under the constitution. and then maybe you ll start
his manuscript. there are real executive privilege issues that i think you would hear the white house put in play. right now we have one person s account in a manuscript and we have denials from one of the people involved, so we ll see what happens. maggie haberman doing excellent reporting as she always does, thank you very much. we re only moments away from the resumption of the trial of the president of the united states. there will be eight hours on the senate floor equally divided by both sides, and then we assume there will be a final vote on witnesses. much more of our special coverage right after this. i wouldn t be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. it s just a loan designed for older homeowners, and, it s helped over a million americans. a reverse mortgage loan isn t some kind of trick to take your home. it s a loan, like any other.