be the hero world needs right. washer. hello i'm sam is a than this is the news hour live from doha it's 1500 g.m.t. that 10 am in washington d.c. we're bringing you special extended coverage of the 5th day of donald trump's impeachment trial in the u.s. senate as it approaches its conclusion or senators are reconvening soon we'll find out if we are heading to

a final vote on the charges that trump incited an insurrection at capitol hill on january the 6th the senate needs a 2 thirds majority to convict him on friday trumps lawyers wrapped up his defense taking less than 4 of the 16 hours available to them let's go 1st to alan fischer he's live for us at capitol hill in washington d.c. so allan let's start with how things will kick off and the big question today is whether or not they're going to end up calling witnesses right. there's been a huge debate overnight among the democrats in the house managers about whether or not they should call witnesses key to be called would be kevin mccarthy the leader of the republicans in the house for the telephone call he had with donald trump asking him to send help when the capitol was overrun and also to call mike pence the vice president all about when he was at risk and when did the president know

that and whether or not the president expressed any concern now the debate is the thing that senators have already made up their minds they know the timeline they know what happened they're well aware of all the facts but many of them decided they're standing by donald trump anyway and they are going to acquit so the question that the house managers are juggling with is there any value in calling witnesses at this stage given that the votes are probably accounted for we know that mitch mcconnell has in the last hour he of course is the leader of the republicans in the senate has said it's a close call but he is going to vote to acquit this is a man who said this was a matter of conscience and many thought could be a swing vote so if he is going to vote for acquit it seems unlikely that the democrats are going to win their case here's another thing that's concerning them the trump defense of said look if you call witnesses it's going to get messy we're going to call nancy pelosi will call the mayor of washington d.c. we'll ask what they did to make the capitol secure on january the 6 so this big debate is still ongoing i was told just even in the last 10 minutes they were still

talking about whether or not to call witnesses will only know if they're going to go ahead with that when the senate reconvenes if they do not call witnesses and it's 2 hours each for summing up and there's every possibility we could get a vote by the end of business on saturday here in washington or allan stay with us has tons for us to talk about with you but let's for now go over to andy gallacher he's live for us in west palm beach in florida and they were approaching what we think is kind of the end of this process depending of course on how it goes with the whole calling of witnesses the challenge was explaining there but are we hearing anything from donald trump. an eerie silence in the. very eerie silence particularly when we got used to over the 4 years he was president this constant stream of consciousness over social media of course he's banned from his favorite platform twitter remember his 1st impeachment trial he tweeted 140 times in one day i had an interesting conversation with one of the poor

reporters here in west palm beach who's covering any potential press conferences by the president he said that he thinks the lawyers that are working for the former president now told him they would do so if he stayed quiet during this entire trial now we can't confirm that but it would explain i think why the president has been the former president i should say as been so quiet for so long on thursday he played golf we think for sure he was watching on friday and most likely today for the final results of the 2nd is each what do we. or i thanks alan let's go back and the i should say let's go back to allan now and take us through then you are just getting through the process then allan once they decide whether or not they're going to actually call should point out that's patrick leahy there who is presiding over the senate trial so we're going to have to watch things we have to jump in but until we do allan take us through what will happen today

once we get one way or another pass this vote on witnesses. may proceed just to touch on the question of donald trump being very quiet i was told that his legal team and others around him have said say nothing we've got this good results almost you don't need to do anything to me raskin who is leading the prosecution for the democratic house managers has taken the platform in the senate why don't we go into the senate and hear what he's got to say i'm all find out whether or not the call in witnesses to match and then continue this incitement even even as he failed to defend us from the ensuing violence we've supported our position with images videos affidavits documents tweets and other evidence leaving no doubt that the senate should convict we believe we've proven our case but last night congresswoman jamie herrera butler of washington state issued a statement confirming that in the middle of the insurrection when house minority

leader kevin mccarthy called the president to beg for help president trump responded and i quote well kevin i guess these people are more upset about the election then you are. needless to say this is. an additional critical piece of corroborating evidence further confirming the charges before you as well as the president's willful death a dereliction of duty and desertion of duty as commander in chief of the united states his state of mind and his further incitement of the insurrection on january 6th for that reason and because this is the proper time to do so under the resolution that the senate adopted to set the rules for the trial we would like the opportunity to subpoena congresswoman herrera regarding her communications with house minority leader kevin mccarthy and to subpoena her contemporaneous notes that she made regarding what president trump told kevin mccarthy in the middle of the

insurrection we would be prepared to proceed by xoom deposition of an hour or less just as soon as congresswoman herrera butler is available and to then proceed to the next phase of the trial including the introduction of that testimony shortly thereafter congresswoman butler further stated that she hopes other witnesses to this part of the story other patriots as she put it would come forward and if that happens we would seek the opportunity to take their depositions via xoom also for less than an hour or to subpoena other relevant documents as well. thank you senators good morning. and good morning to the american people the 1st thing i want to say on the issue of witnesses is that the house manager just got up here and described the articles of impeachment and of the charges

there is no plural here that's wrong there's one article of impeachment and there's one charge and that's incitement. of violence and insurrection what you all need to know in the american people need to know is as of late yesterday afternoon there was a stipulation going around that there weren't going to be any witnesses but after what happened here in this chamber yesterday the house managers realize they did not investigate this case before bringing the impeachment they did not give the proper consideration and work they didn't put the work in that was necessary to impeach the former president but if they want to have witnesses i'm going to need

at least over 100 depositions not just one the real issue is incitement they put into their case over 100 witnesses people who have been charged with crimes by the federal government and each one of those they said that mr trump was a cute coconspirator with that's not true. but i have the right to defend that the only thing that i ask if you vote for witnesses do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses that i can have i need to do a thorough investigation that they did not do i need to do the 911 style investigation that nancy pelosi called for

and should have been done already it's a dereliction of the house managers duty that they didn't and now at the last minute after a stipulation had apparently been worked out they want to go back on that. i think that's inappropriate and improper we should close this case out today we have each prepared our closing arguments we each i mean i had 8 days to get ready for this thing but we each had those 8 days equally to gather to prepare ourselves and the house managers need to live with the case that they brought but if they don't please in all fairness in all due process

do not limit my ability to cisco ever discover discover the truth that would be another sham and that's the president's position my position is. this rascal. thank you mr president. first of all this is the proper time that we were assigned to talk about witnesses this is completely within the course of the rules set forth by the senate there's nothing remotely unusual about this i think we've done an extremely thorough and comprehensive job with all the evidence that was available last night this was breaking news and it responded directly to a question that was being raised by the president's defense counsel saying that we

had not sufficiently proven to their satisfaction although i think we've proven to the satisfaction of the american people certainly that the president after the breach in the invasion took place was not working on the side of defending the capitol but rather was continuing to pursue his political goals and the information that came out last night by congressman butler apparently backed up by contemporaneous notes that she had taken i think will put to rest any lingering doubts raised by the president's counsel who did now says he wants to interview hundreds of people there's only one person the president's counsel really needs to interview and that's their own client and bring him forward as we suggested last week because a lot of this is matters that are in his head what why did he not act to defend the country after he learned of the attack why was he continuing to press the political

case but this piece of evidence is relevant to that. and finally but i wasn't i was. a little bit mystified by the point about the article of impeachment which i referred to. the dereliction of duty the desertion of duty is built into the incitement charge obviously if the present a united states is out inciting a violent insurrection he's obviously not doing his job at the same time just like if a police officer is mugging you yeah he's guilty of theft and armed robbery whatever it might be but he's also not doing his job as a police officer's officer so it's further evidence of his intent and what his conduct is. first of all it's my understanding it's been reported. that mr mccarthy disclaims the rumors that have been the basis of this morning's antics but really

the rumors that have been the basis of this entire proceeding this entire proceeding is based on rumor report innuendo there's nothing to it and they didn't do their work just like what happened with mr lead 2 or 3 nights ago there's some suppose it conversation it happened and they had to withdraw that data back off of that because it was false it was a false narrative but it is one article of impeachment yeah they threw a lot of stuff in it in violation of rule 23 rule 2033 says you cannot combine counts it's a defect in their entire case it's one of the 4 reasons why you can vote to acquit in this case jurisdiction rule 23 due process and the 1st amendment

they all apply in this case. let me let me let me take my own advice and cool the temperature in the room full of it. it's about the incitement it's not about what happened afterwards that's actually the irrelevant stuff that's the irrelevant stuff it's not the things that were said from the election to january 6th it's not relevant to the legal analysis of the issues that are before this body it doesn't matter what happened after the insurgents into the capitol building because that doesn't have to do with incitement incitement as it is it's a point in time folks it's

a point in time when the words are spoken and the words say implicitly say explicitly say commit acts of violence or lawlessness and we don't have that here so for the house managers to say we now need to have his issues about things that happened after it's not just not true but. bought. if he does there are a lot of depositions that need to be happen nancy pelosi is deposition needs to be taken. face president harris's deposition absolutely needs to be taken and not by assume none of these depositions should be done by assume we didn't do this hearing by xoom

these depositions should be done in person in my office in philadelphia. that's where they should be done. i don't know many civil lawyers are here but that's the way it works folks when you want somebody whose deposition you send a notice of deposition and they appear at the place where their notice says that's civil process i don't know why you're laughing it is civil process that is the way lawyers do it we send notices of deposition. i would remind everybody. we will have order in. i don't date chamber of food. during these proceedings i haven't laughed at any of you. and there's nothing laughable here he mentioned my client coming in and testify

that is not the way it's done if he wanted to talk to donald trump he should have put a subpoena down like ominous slap subpoenas on a good number of people if witnesses are what really is required here for them to try to get their case back in order which has failed miserably for 4 reasons there is no jurisdiction here there has been no due process here they have completely violated and ignored its dad on the constitution of the united states they have trampled on it like people who have no respect for it and if this is about nothing else it has to be about the respect of our country our constitution and all of the people that make it up.

and so they ask when considering or voting on this witness matter and to be clear this may be the time to do it but again everybody needs to know that the backroom politics are not so much into it all i'm not too adept at it neither but there was a stipulation they felt pretty comfortable after day 2 until their case was tested on day 3 now is the time to end this now was the time to hear the closing arguments now is the time to vote your conscience. thank you stress can. we were involved in no discussions about a stipulation. and i have no further comment thank you.

position on that and. would remind i would remind everybody as chief justice roberts noted on january 21st 2020 cited in the trial of house wayne 1005 all parties in this chamber must refrain from using language this is not conducive to civil discourse. i listen to chief justice roberts say that i agreed with him and i thought for our colleagues i would repeat it as i did last night.

that way so the question we have before us in order to consider and debate under the rules of engagement and a motion to subpoena witnesses or documents. he's nays is been made is there sufficient 2nd there appears to be there is the clerk will call the world. a smaller one. all right let's explain what's going on here right now now they're having a vote the question they've been debating is to do with whether they call witnesses and show you've gathered there is obviously

a very big difference of opinion going on between the lawyers for donald trump and the peach mint managers about calling witnesses and if witnesses a called the process that needs to be done. to do that i think we've got alan fischer live with us till alan i'm afraid people may be getting lost in some of the terminology here so maybe we should this is a good time to explain when the lawyers when the lawyer i should say for donald trump michael vanderveen was talking about the need for discovery and depositions what he's talking about discovery is part of the american legal process whereby you're supposed to get the opportunity to question witnesses before you go to trial and that is that they are going to it's going on right. a couple of things to point michel vanderveen just said 1st of all he said that this is why they bring up the

question of what this is no this is when you bring up this is in the process that he also said he'd only 8 days to prepare for the case that's not the host manager's fault that's donald trump's fault donald trump had a set of lawyers they walked away from the case he then had to find someone else a very short notice they knew the date of this trial the whole process is that jimmy rascon wants to speak to a representative from washington state who is quoted as saying she had a conversation with kevin mccarthy immediately after he spoke to the president on the day of the 6th of january that conversation allegedly went along the lines of kevin mccarthy asking the president to send help to call off his people from capitol hill donald trump said the aren't my people mccarthy said yes they are replied reportedly maybe they are more upset about what happened in the election than you are kevin kevin mccarthy then responded with some expletives when he came

off that call he apparently told a number of members of the republican party who were a republican congressmen and women and that is what jimmy ruskin wants to get to he wants to depose the woman who gave that evidence she described herself as a petri for coming forward and also he wants to speak to anyone else that she might suggest who actually was there know when they talk about deposition this means under oath you're legally obliged to tell the truth so you can't just walk full or owned it and say oh well you know we don't trump says also that you have to answer the question. what i said when we were talking earlier sammy is if we started talking about the possibility of witnesses then the defense we're going to get in the words that were given to me they're going to get dirty and you hear that he's going to subpoena nancy pelosi he's going to subpoena kummel horace he said i will drop hundreds of depositions so his intention is essentially to gum up the works here to stop what's going on because he believes that this process should be

finished here heads argument is that the article of impeachment says donald trump was guilty of inciting violence he says that he's already dismissed that he has proven that in his speech yesterday in his speech on the 6th of january and then the evidence he gave on friday he proved that don't trump did not incite the crowd however what is clear is that from the charges that have been laid and be more than 211 people charged a number of them say the reason they came to capitol hill the reason they did what they did was because they felt they had been told to do it by the president by donald trump that essentially is the crux of the argument but when they're talking about discovery it's whether or not they will start calling witnesses now if they were to start this process and depose witnesses and get statements from them this means essentially that the proceedings today would be put on hold to low this to happen it's not unusual during the clinton impeachment trial way back in the 1990

s. they took a break of a boat a day a week to depose some witnesses in that case as well it's interesting that one of the house impeachment managers then for the republicans was lindsey graham who's now of course a senator from south carolina and a big supporter of don't trump someone who's already said that he is going to vote to acquit donald trump and someone who even though he is meant to be an impartial juror has been helping the defense team don't trump steam with the arguments that they've been putting together over the last couple of days so it's all of. whether or not they call witnesses known as the said big debate with the democrats overnight about whether there was any merit in doing it clearly the i think the democrats accept that they are not going to impeach donald trump they're not going to win the vote no matter what happens they're not going to get enough republican senators to flip over what they are doing is laying down in the narrative for future historians to see this is what happened allen this is what donald trump let me know when we here hoping that that will stop him running for office all right

let me let me just i think there's an important question to consider here is that when we talk about the demands now on the counter claims for what should happen as part of the deposition process do the lawyers of donald trump really want to use your words gum it up. or is this really leverage to say let's because they really want to finish it and if you don't let us finish it today then i'm going to ask for the depositions to be done in the hundreds and to be done in my office in philadelphia. you know i think the philadelphia thing isn't going to happen. it's a bit of both it's look you call one witness we'll call 100 you call 2 witnesses we'll call 200 and that seems to be the threat that they're making this is the defense that donald trump wanted the way the gentleman keeps he goes from 0 to show 2 very quickly and at times i think he thinks he's still in a courtroom or rather than in the senate of the united states and there are rules

in proceedings that apply to hearings in the senate that don't apply in courtrooms and you've got to remember michael vanderveen is not a constitutional lawyer he's not a civil rights expert he's a personal injury lawyer from philadelphia who was brought into this relatively early but apparently donald trump was delighted with his performance but i see that senator leahy who is the senate president of the senate he's about to give us the result cantwell carton car for casey collins. cortez masto jock or durbin feinstein gelug rand hassen heinrich hickenlooper around or cain kelly king club or char leahy lou hart mansion marquis menendez merkley murkowski murphy murray our staff for dia peter reid

romney rosen sanders sass shots schumer shaheen cinema smith stabber now chester and harlan warner warnock warren white house white. senators voting in a negative. brasso blackburn blunt bozeman braun birth capital cassidy corn and cotton kramer. cruz danes ernst fisher graham grassley haggerty hawley hovan hyde smith in home johnson kennedy langford levy lummis marshall mcconnell moran hall portman ridge rounds rubio scott of florida scott of south carolina shelby sullivan

then tillis to me tavor bill with her. young as president. all right so i think what what's happened was happening now is they're counting the votes and whether to call witnesses and i think we're going to bring allan in to confirm this i think that the impeachment managers it looks like this it looks like they have got enough votes to actually call her a bottle i think is that the lady they want to call testify. just running through the list some years they were seeing the votes that voted yes for witnesses they named mitt romney named susan collins and they named lisa murkowski all 3 are republican senators they also. had john meacham is name in there he is a democrat from west virginia but considered to be a swing vote in the senate often sometimes votes with republicans so it's clear to me just from those 3 names and i didn't catch all of them but from those 3 names there's more than enough there's more than 50 so it looks as if will be moving

towards depositions which won't please don't trump won't please this team but it's something that jimmy ruskin says is important to get to the bottom of what happened so there may be just one deposition there may be more to that so this i think that means that we will not be moving to closing arguments by him to business today alan explain that for us now what will decide whether it will simply be about who's called to testify or whether trance lawyers will have their way and and core hundreds of people. if she says kevin mccarthy said that to me and this congresswoman and this congressman and he was there as well then the host managers might say right we're going to get a subpoena and speak to them as well they might even subpoena kevin mccarthy himself who is the leader of the republicans in the house he was someone who on the 13th of january was very critical of the role that donald trump played but then

a few days later flew terminal largo to speak to donald trump to build bridges and also crucially to ask him for his donor list because the republicans need access to donald trump's list of donors who raised money for him for political campaigns and so that was deemed important so there are still a number of republicans who. pledge loyalty to donald trump even though he's no the former president some would argue the discreet former president after what happened on the 6th of january but these still pledge their loyalty to him and he still has a huge voice in the party one of the points i was making on friday is that republican senators are looking for an excuse to be able to support donald trump to justify it to voters who are not in the republican party but also they realize that they've got to face the base they've got to go and speak to their own party they've got to run for reelection and if they don't convince the base that the are suitably

loyal to donald trump they could well find themselves primary which means before you even get to a general election someone in your party says what i want to be the senator from x. y. z. and i'm going to run and i'm a huge supporter of donald trump that is then a vote of the local party in the decide who is going to be the candidate in the general election and the senators are worried about that primary process or and just to clarify this is this is very useful just to clarify what you said there so will it all come down to what herrera butler says whether the or do trumps lawyers not have any way to force their requests to depose as he said nancy pelosi and hundreds of other people and he doesn't want it done by assume he said. i'm not a constitutional lawyer i'm nowhere again neither is michael dunn to me find a mere i'm not a constitutional lawyer i'm not fully conversant with the rules in the senate but

it's clear that the whole i think if you can you subpoena witnesses means you can subpoena any witnesses so the good side are going to call witnesses the host managers will have a list the defense know will have their own list including vice president comma harris and that means that they can go and call whoever they want they screwed up this process for some time because. of the rules and push for an emotion. argument the motion is really 2. 55 to 45 the leader mr president i suggest the absence of the form of the world. is one. all right so allan you may not be a constitutional lawyer but you're doing a fantastic job in calling things for us and simplifying as it is going on if you

have a crystal ball there some way it can be a very wealthy man if you keep looking into it. now that they have just to clarify we we had the result announced there by patrick leahy who is presiding over the trial senate and it's very clear that they've passed now this motion to call witnesses. so what happens next do they literally do we hear from her about within minutes. no there there they have to make arrangements because as much as they want to they will say we would like you to come and speak to us possibly by xoom it could happen as soon as this afternoon it could happen in the next couple of hours it will depend on her availability if she's spoken to any of the house impeachment managers or their team to set up a time it could happen very quickly but of course as we've heard from donald trump's team they want to start subpoenaing their own witnesses including nancy pelosi they want to ask her about what she did to secure the capital as the speaker

of the house what she did to secure the capital on the 6th of january presumably then they will also want to speak to mitch mcconnell who at that point was the leader in the senate he is the main republican in the senate no the want to speak to mule bowser about why she refused in their words support of the national guard just a point muriel bowser as the mayor of washington d.c. has no control over the national guard the national guard when it comes to the federal capital under the direction of the president the white house the department of defense and so she has no power the but clearly they want to speak to come alatas the reason they're calling her is because in the video that they played in there was 11 minutes and 18 seconds of video of democrats saying fight fight fight if you watched yesterday you may remember that she was one of the people who featured been so they want to speak to her as well. quite why they would do that

because if the question is did the donald trump incite the crowd to say well he didn't say crow but you use this sort of language it's. you know it's a bit like 2 kids being caught doing something you say you did that but my brother did this. flashback so you can understand why there may be some reluctance from the democrats to to. dive deep but as donald trump's lawyer said he has got every right to do this because he's a load on a defense of the president so this is not i suspect going to be a very quick process the idea of the there will be an accommodation you remember that bill clinton was subpoenaed jewing his impeachment trial he wasn't dragged up on to capitol hill to give evidence you'll remember it was recorded on video we all waited as the video was released so

a similar sort of thing will probably happen with the likes of nancy pelosi and. and kamel horace one of the things that i keep seeing in social media is the number of people who are very angry at michael vandermeer for the way he speaks in the senate people saying that he needs to remember we're he is even though he may have some distain for the senators in the house impeachment managers there's still a formula to the way you address people in the chamber because of how important it is and you've got to remember as well that it is part of the people's hopes that thank you very much for that and we're going to come back to you no doubt let's go over to andy gallacher is once in the situation for us from west palm beach in florida now to. alan's question there and the when he said you know why would they want to why would transfer offense team one to depose or speak to the other side democrats who've had to use similar language and he referenced alan

reference that video which was played out of democrat politicians making similar statements that you could accuse to be an incitement to violence well let's not forget there is another call that this is all playing out in the court of public opinion right and especially the republican camp and trump supporters. yeah i mean i think what we do know is that the former president wanted all this to be over as quickly as possible and the expectation was that it would be over on saturday now it looks like things are going to get really really drawn out and you know one of the things that i've experienced telling people that i was going to cover the 2nd impeachment trial is most people shoulders and say well why it's a foregone conclusion but i think from the democratic side this is a matter of getting things into the history books making their case pretty clear

last night's news about the calls to tommy type of mccarthy except to really seem to have changed the game here it's clear that what the democrats want is to get these people under oath to tell them exactly what happened and really it's all about the timing here it's what the former president knew when he knew it did he know his former vice president was in serious danger and yet continue to attack him on twitter i think for the democrats this was a serious development in a serious case in the 2nd impeachment of donald trump but trump i think will be deeply unhappy at this i'm sure he's very happy with his defense lawyer there who as alan was saying is talking like he's in a normal court not the people's house kind of quite disrespectful at times but his threat of calling hundreds of witnesses will really gum up the works a literally thrown a spanner in the works or this and he has every right to call up as many witnesses as he wants what does that mean for the american public as you were asking well i think people are impatient they want this to be over many people want to move on i

think of course trump supporters think that he is not guilty all along and the important thing to remember here is that in november's presidential election one of the 17000000 votes so this is his party essentially you have people like marjorie taylor green the the woman from georgia who is a a q and on supporter say this is not the republican party this is don. trump's republican party that seems clear at the moment but what the democrats here are pushing for is to get republican senators under oath to really get down on what the timing is what was said by the president what he knew and perhaps more importantly what he did did he call out the national guard was he aware of the danger that mike pence was in you know there are lots of questions here so the democrats are pursuing those lines but undoubtedly that is not something the former president wants to see happening all right thanks so much and the gallic of there from florida let's bring in now think all steen she's

a professor of law and philosophy at the university of pennsylvania joins us now from philadelphia good to have you with us so 1st of all explain toss what are the implications now of this vote having succeeded on the motion to allow witnesses does this mean that the whole process has to adjourn right now well it will have to well they figure out exactly which witnesses to call i assume that each side will then submit a list of witnesses they'll be some agreement between the democrats and republicans about how many witnesses each can call up how much time each has for calling witnesses and exactly how witnesses will proceed i'm not giving let me jump in the wind when you say they'll be agreement it doesn't look at this point like there is a lot of agreement how long might it take to reach some kind of common ground on

all of those issues you mentioned. well that's the funny thing about impeachment unlike in a court of law were all of these rules are set in advance the rules have to be decided by the senators themselves which is an odd sort of set up because the sender's are also the jurors and in some cases there are also witnesses potentially there are several senators who could actually be on the witness list in this case so you have witnesses jurors and judges in effect all in one there's no pre-set playbook for this and as you know in the 1st impeachment no witnesses were called at all because the republicans had the majority in the senate and could outvote the democrats desire to have witnesses but here the vote on witnesses was done very quickly but it's a very general sort of vote is just a decision to have them and now the specifics will have to get nailed down and that

will have to be done by discussions between the parties as to exactly how that will proceed we heard from tom's lawyer there a very clear message that if we are going to call witnesses he wants the the witnesses the subpoenas to be done in his office in philadelphia he doesn't want to accept zuma i mean how much of that can he force the senate to observe. he can't force any of that and in fact it's rather humorous remark that it should be done in philadelphia where i'm sitting right now is not something that's going to take place at all the witnesses will be called before the senate and i think this was something of a threat look if you're going to call a witness then i'm going to ask for a lot of witnesses i actually don't believe that the defense team will want to call lots of witnesses because i think once they start calling witnesses that has the

real potential to change the outcome in this case and we saw it very interesting lee senator graham changed his vote midstream while the rule was being called on the decision to call witnesses i don't know what stood behind that but i think it shows that the process is more open now than it was before the republicans no longer have this fully locked up and once people start coming in to talk about what they knew and what happened on that day and what communications they might have had with the president thinks may start to change so ultimately from a legal a constitutional law perspective who gets to decide if the parties are in disagreeing about some of who gets to decide if nancy pelosi is going to have to come and give a deposition whether it has to give it in person or can do. i mean who has the final say on this. well it depends how it shakes out the

majority vote in general can carry the day in the senate but my guess is that the partisan look of voting witnessed by witness is not what jamie raskin and the other house managers would like to see happen and not what the democratic senators would like to see happen so it seems more likely to me that they will reach an agreement to have a certain number of witnesses on each side and then each side will call their own witnesses it is possible though it doesn't seem to me very likely that nancy pelosi would be one of the witnesses but we saw that there was there were explosive revelations around kevin mccarthy communications with president trump on that day that apparently kevin mccarthy was begging or ain't really urging

president trump to call off the mom and she could be called to testify senator schumer bill could be called to testify but now the senate support sending out subpoenas or ringback requesting its own members to testify is something that i don't know if we've ever seen before and that would be really unprecedented ground especially in an impeachment trial we've never had it that the senators were themselves witnesses to the events unfolding. in on the event on the day that donald trump is being impeached for so this could be extremely interesting and another question is will democrats or republicans choose to subpoena or to request the testimony of any of the criminal defendants who are before the justice department right now. any of the

insurrectionists who have said that they were taking their instructions from donald trump that could also be an avenue that one side or the other might want to go down to talk about what really inspired the insurrectionists how difficult a position is this for the press the former president's defense team for the republicans if they get to actually calling kevin mccarthy i mean he'll be in a very difficult spot right. yes he would indeed be in a difficult spot especially because the defense team is claiming that the things that have been reported the conversations that have been reported never happened now that's actually an invitation to have witnesses come in and say either they did happen or they didn't happen and remember that. you know if kevin mccarthy does testify who have to testify under oath let me tell you is it inevitable at this point that kevin mccarthy is going to have to testify it seems to make sense why

would you ask the house of representative member here of butler to come and testify on something she heard when you can have the person she heard come himself and say if he really said that and was told that by the president former president well exactly so i think it's very likely that kevin mccarthy will be pressed to testify by one side or the other and the question is what do if republicans call him if the defense team calls him excusing what do they expect him to say when he actually did not i. that conversation never took place which has been reported widely and of course there were witnesses to that conversation so both sides would be under oath and it might be a sort of he said she said as to whether or not that conversation actually took

place but i think hearing directly from kevin mccarthy and from any other witnesses to that conversation would be extremely helpful as well as other witnesses who talked to the president that day he doesn't have the legal right to refuse to give his testimony right if he's called the hell he does and he can it depends whether or not the senate would actually said. pinna him that would be a different matter but if he's merely requested to testify he can decline and then the question is whether or not the senate will actually issue subpoenas once the senate issue subpoenas the question is will they proceed to try to get those subpoenas enforced in a federal court if the witnesses refuse to comply for example it is possible and jamie raskin sort of hinted at this that they would actually subpoena donald trump

to come in and testify he would refuse i'm sure that having already declined the invitation to testify he would refuse the subpoena and then they would have to go to federal court to try to get that subpoena enforced and the question is what would a federal court do with that he could no longer claim presidential privilege and say i have the right not to appear because he's no longer president and in some ways that makes this an easier case to to try he also can't tell other witnesses not to testify as occurred with donegan in the 1st impeachment hearing. this is fascinating and i thank you very much claire for now i'm sure going to come back to you and talk there's lots more to talk about here thank you for now let's go back to alan fischer and talk about what we're seeing right now allan it looks like a very quiet chamber there in the senate. have they adjourned where things stand now. no they haven't adjourned still going through some procedural motions then

there's a couple things to point and i don't know if i did this earlier i was just ruminating on it when donald trump's lawyer says he's going to do this this in this he doesn't have the right to do that both sides agree what to do the big surprise in the vote was lindsey graham lindsey graham who on the 6th of january he's been a bit remember 1st of all lindsey graham was very anti donald trump when he was running he called them all sorts of names said you know if we if we make donald trump a candidate for president we'll get beat and we deserve it he then became a big trump supporter on the 6th of january he said that's it i'm done. you can't stand by this and word for a week later he was. actually enough one week later he became a he was back in the trump camp he traveled on to florida he played golf for them it seemed as if bridges were mended he is the guy who has said several times it's quite clear how he's going to vote he has been involved even though he's an

impartial juror in discussions with the trump defense team and then when they called the vote for witnesses he changed his vote and said he wants to see witnesses so. i'm not alone in texting people and e-mailing people saying what's that all the boat what's going on because it's such a surprise if you to give me a list of senators who would vote i would have said yes spencer who did mitt romney susan collins lisa murkowski i would maybe a throw and then possibly bill kennedy from louisiana i wouldn't have given you the name lindsey graham that's a that's a big surprise. so i think what may happen is that we will adjourn for the day they will go and decide how they do the witness thing they will then try and get a few people in and you know if donald trump's lawyers expand the witness list they . can do that as well and they can subpoena donald trump and he's got to appear and

they can subpoena mike pence because of course one of the big questions that has been asked over the last few days is why did donald trump not send help to capitol hill when he realized what was happening on capitol hill when he realized that his own vice president was at risk from a group of people who were roaming the halls seeing we are going to hang mike pence and mike pence was the chant during the proceedings yesterday donald trump's lawyer said the president was very worried about mike pence people close to my parents in reporting here in the united states have said that's a lie and we know that donald trump was so concerned about mike pence he didn't speak to him on the day and it was 5 days afterwards before the 2 of them had a conversation the relationship between the 2 men has been irrevocably broken because mike pence was very upset by what happened not just because he was at risk but his family were in capitol hill as well and so there is the possibility that if donald trump's lawyer expands the list then the house impeachment managers say ok

then we'll take donald trump will take mike pence we'll have kevin mccarthy and we'll take mitch mcconnell as well and we want you to preserve all the documents all the e-mails anything that's gone between you and text messages as well because clearly they've decided that they might not be able to win this vote but they're not going to go don't without showing that they are very angry about what donald trump did not just going to accept it 5 day hearing and say thank you very much will leave no or allen you mentioned a really good point i want to take that and the gallacher he's live for us in west palm beach in florida the fact that some. prominent republicans have voted like lindsey graham as an on pointed out have voted to call witnesses to support the the house impeachment managers request to call witnesses and the reaction there how significant will damaging is that.

well i think given that list there were no surprises but one as alan was saying and that is senator lindsey graham someone who is a very very close ally to president trump someone who apparently is going to meet up with the president the former president i should say to talk about the future of the republican party that is a significant development those other names on that list i think we did expect they are ones that want more answers but this is taken a dramatic turn and i can only imagine what the former president is doing right now sitting at his mar-a lago estate watching all this unfold because this is something that none of us expected we expected that this would all be over on saturday that the former president would be acquitted but as alan was saying you know if you're going to call these witnesses up these republican witnesses it's not that hard to get the documentation that they want the phone calls the time those phone calls were made recollections of what was said in those conversations and these are important questions to ask because as i was also saying mike pence the extremely

loyal deputy of the former president donald trump who stuck by his side through thick and thin through all of those controversies was in real danger and not just the former vice president but also his family we've all seen those pictures now of pens being rushed out of the people's house with the security guard carrying the nuclear codes behind him those were dramatic scenes and they were powerful scenes during this 2nd impeachment trial as some of that video we've not seen before was released so this is all taken a very big dramatic twist and i can't imagine the former president on trump is happy about it at all. all right thanks so much andy gallacher there in west palm beach florida. there you have it that is what we're looking at and what we're talking about right now the chamber is gone a little bit quiet right now on capitol hill in the senate. but there has been

a dramatic turn there is and the pointed out we've had a vote on whether to call witnesses and that motion did pass with the support of some prominent republican senators will bring you more on this story. in the next show stay with us. when freedom of the press is under threat demonstrators and journalists are dealing with internet outages police intimidation and charges of sedation and the state line becomes the default media namely devoted looking for images that that lead to let it get to these guys and just how did he create a nuisance makes it hard for people to know what's real and what's not step outside

the mainstream shift the focus covering the way the news this covered the listening posts on a. from the world's most populated region. and untold stories from across asia and the pacific. to discover the current events. with diverse cultures. and conflict and politics. one to one east on al-jazeera. understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the mountains so no matter how you take it we'll bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you it's america's worst kept secret cracked open the time of a pandemic exposed in the time of trump through the turmoil of 2020 the big picture traces

a century of racial injustice to reveal how philanthropy politics and economics preserve structural inequality keep the white a supreme and black in its place the race for america part too. on the jazeera. hello i'm sam is a then it's 1600 g.m.t. that 11 am in washington d.c. where former us president donald trump's unprecedented 2nd senate impeachment trial has resumed trump is accused of inciting insurrection in the past are they house impeachment managers and trump's lawyers made their case for.