it s a 50/50 tie, they have to depend on vice president harris to break a tie. so, to do this, when every single republican opposes them, they have to get all 50 of their members together to vote and then have vice president harris break the tie. right now we know that senators joe manchin and kirsten sinema oppose getting rid of the legislative filibuster. we think that there are others who are very nervous about that because they know they are going to be in the minority some day and the filibuster will come in handy to stop republican measures. so schumer has a very, very hard time getting this done. sandra: not to mention how far he has come on this issue since back in 2003 and 2005, play the tape. we are defending the constitution. we are saying there should be some balance. they want to make this country
and history will show them on the side of right. and the republican governor, i saw him on tv this morning, on the side of deep dark ugly wrong. i mean, i think that democrats know that they don t have the power here and that you have to just fight with any tool at your disposal. is that your read? yeah. look, i m afraid that what schumer said is incorrect. history is written by powerful. to the extent that republicans succeed in this effort to disenfranchise the vulnerable constituencies that support the democratic party, they re going to be writing that history and they re going to be writing it with themselves as heroes, saving democracy from the corruption of these non-american voters who have no right to participate in american democracy. so schumer s incorrect about that. where he is correct is that the federal government has to act here. texas democrats can t hold this off forever. it s just not a sustainable thing to have to stay out of the state indefinitely to block this
people act. we could talk six ways to sunday about manchin s motivations here, but let s talk about, if you re a democrat, how do you even go about dealing with this now? what does this now mean for the democratic agenda at large? reporter: geoff, it s an excellent question and it s obviously a question that senate majority leader chuck schumer is having to grapple with. but the reality is this was always going to be an uphill battle for leader schumer to get any of these democratic priorities passed. while joe manchin has made a lot of news in the past couple days, he just reiterated his position that he doesn t support eliminating the filibuster and that he does not support the for the people act, sb-1, in its current form. so this timing is really interesting and important, as schumer says, that these are pieces of legislation that he s going to get to in this month of june. so schumer has a couple of options. he can find ten republicans to
and it s attempting to get some kind of framework conceded to an advance by mitch mcconnell. she wants senator schumer, the minority leader has asked specifically for four witnesses, four top white house officials in the john bolton, the acting chief of staff and michael duffy, the omb official who wrote that to email asking the pentagon to keep it hush hush. so schumer has asked for these witnesses and also some documents. mcconnell is resisting. and pelosi wants to give schumer a little bit of umph. and on something that democrats feel will be fair and she doesn t want to release these articles until she s assured of that.
he was one of two democrats to vote against moving forward on the impeachment inquiry. he has made clear he planned to vote against both counts on impeachment on the floor of the house and privately all weekend he s been on the phone talking to fellow new jersey democrats about his decision to switch parties. the president urging him to switch parties and we expect him to do and as you mentioned, the six staffers resigning really leaving be a hole in this office, this freshman s office. these staffers put out a letter saying that sadly, congressman van drew s decision to join the ranks of the republican party led by donald trump does not align with the values we brought to this job when we joined his office. we will see what he has to say when he returns to washington today or tomorrow. guys? manu on the hill, thank you very much. cnn national correspondent suzanne malveaux with more on the impeachment trial negotiations going on in the senate now. so schumer has put out his opening