the president and get him upset about this idea that he s not going to have his exoneration trial and they re not going to have 67 votes for removal, maybe you d get a couple of republican votes to convict, but at this point i m curious if you ll get any, then i could understand that the strategy what the strategy is and it would make some sense. if they re really trying, pelosi and schumer to agree to more favorable terms for a trial, meaning witnesses and process and things like that, i don t think this will work. what mcconnell is most concerned about is protecting his vulnerable 2020 senators from tough votes. there are about a handful of them. so if they never have to vote on any witness list. if they never have to vote either for or against the president, that would be just fine with him and he could spend his time handling the united states/mexico, cana states/mexico/canada trade agreement and confirming more judges and things like that. leverage would be there if mcconnell fe
affected. that is mitch mcconnell when he agreed to go along with this week long shorthand investigation. reporter: yeah. did he get a commitment from flake if he does this, he ll vote yes, if he didn t find anything big? reporter: my reporting doesn t necessarily bear that out, chris, although, clearly, mcconnell felt as though this was a way that he could potentially get the votes he needed from this group of people. so there certainly was that level of understanding, but i don t think that there was any, you know, straight out commitment that this is fine, you know, we ll vote yes. because, also, we don t know what s in the report. what are we hearing right now? is that the protesters right now? reporter: they re actually right over my shoulder. i think you can only really see the trees, but they re in a trent. they re going to be here totally overnight. we could hear a little earlier bernie sanders very distinct voice. i spent a lot of time on the trail with bernie