responsibility. sandy was given no reason other than mr. duffy wanted to be, quote, more involved in daily operations, end quote. during his deposition, sandy confirmed that he was removed from the funding approval process after he raised concerns to duffy about whether the hold was legal under the impoundment control act. needless to say, omb has refused to turn over any documents or communications involving that decision to replace mr. sandy. why did duffy, a political appointee with no relevant experience in this area, take over responsibility for ukraine funding approval? was the white house involved in that decision? was sandy removed because he had expressed concerned about the legality of the hold? by august 7th, people in our government were worried.

when people in the government get worried, sometimes what they do is they draft memos. because when they're concerned about getting caught up in something that doesn't seem right, they don't want to be a part of it. so, on that day, mark sandy and other colleagues at omb drafted and sent a memo about ukraine military aid to acting director vaughn. according to sandy, the memo advocated for the release of the funds. it said that the military aid was consistent with american national security interests, it would help to oppose russian aggression, and it was backed by strong bipartisan support. but president trump did not lift the hold. over the next several weeks, omb continued to issue funding documents that kept kicking the can down the road. supposedly to allow for more of this, quote, interagency

process. well, inserting those footnotes throughout the apportionment documents stating the delay wouldn't affect the funding. but here's the really shocking part. there was no interagency process. they made it up. it had ended months before. they made it up because nobody could say the real reason for the hold. in total, omb issued nine of these documents between july 25th and september 10th. did the white house respond to omb's concerns and recommendation and release the aid? did the white house instruct omb to continue creating a paper trail in an effort to justify the hold? who knew what and when?

omb documents should shed light on omb's actions as the president's scheme unravelled. did the white house direct omb to continue issuing the hold? what was omb told about the president's reasons for releasing the hold? what communications did omb officials have with the white house around the time of the release? as the president's scheme unravelled, did anyone at omb connect the dots about the real reason for the hold? the omb documents would shed light on all of these questions, and the american people deserve answers. i remember what it feels like to not have the equipment you need when you need it. real peoples' lives are at stake. that's why this matters. we need this information so we

can ensure that this never happens again. eventually, this will all come out. we will have answers to these questions. the question now is whether we'll have them in time and who here will be on the right side of history. >> mr. sekulow. >> sir, chief justice, the house managers reserve the balance of our time for an opportunity to respond to the president's argument. >> thank you. mr. sekulow. >> thank you, mr. chief justice, members of the senate. manager crow, you should be happy to know that the aid that was provided to ukraine over the course of the president's administration included lethal

weapons. those were not provided by the previous administration. the suggestion that the ukraine failed to get any equipment is false. the security assistant was not refunding ukraine over the summer of 2019. there was no lack of equipment due to the temporary pause. it was future funding. the ukrainian deputy minister of defense who oversaw u.s. aid shipments said the hold came and went so quickly, they did not notice any change. under secretary of state david hale, explained the paused aid was future assistance, not to keep the army going now. so, the made up narrative that security assistance was conditioned on ukraine taking some action on investigations is further disproved by the straightforward fact that the aid was delivered on september 11 of 2019 without ukraine

taking any action on any investigation. it's interesting to note that the obama administration withheld $585 million of promised aid to egypt in 2013, but the administration's public message was that the money was not officially on hold, aztec anically it was not due until september 30th, the end of the fiscal year so they didn't have to disclose the halt to anyone. sounds like this may be a practice of a number of administrations. in fact, to the president, this president has been concerned about how aid is being put forward. so, there have been pauses on foreign aid in a variety of context. in september of 2019, the administration announced that it was withholding over $100 million in aid to afghanistan over concerned about

government corruption. in august of 2019, president trump announced that the administration and seoul were in talks to substantially increase south korea's share of the expensive u.s. military support for south korea. in june, president trump cut or paused over $550 million in foreign aid to el salvador, honduras, and guatemala because those countries were not fairly sharing the burdens of prevents mass migrations to the united states. this is not the only administration. as i said, president obama withheld hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to egypt. to be clear -- and i want to be clear -- ambassador yovanovitch herself testified that our policy actually got stronger under president trump. largely because, unlike the obama administration, quote, this administration made the decision to provide lethal weapons to ukraine to help

ukraine fend off russian aggression. she testified in a deposition before your various committees that actually it felt in the three years i was there partly because of my efforts but also the interagency team and president trump's decision to provide lethal weapons to ukraine, that our policy actually got stronger. deputy assistant secretary kent's name come up a couple of time, agrees javelins are incredibly effective weapons in stopping armored defense and the russians are scared of them. ambassador volker explained that president trump approved each of the decisions made along the way, and as a result america's policy towards ukraine strengthened. so, we want to talk about facts, go do your own discovery and your own witnesses that you called. this also supposedly started

because of the whistleblower. where is that whistleblower? >> the house managers have 35 minutes remaining. >> mr. chief justice, at war, time matters. minutes and hours can seem like years. so, the idea that, well, it made it there eventually just doesn't work. and yes, the aid was provided. it was provided by congress. this senate and the house of representatives with the president's signature. the congress is the one that sends the aid. and millions of dollars of this

aid would have been lost because of the delay had congress not actually passed another law that extended that deadline to allow the funds to be spent. let me repeat that. the delay had jeopardized the expenditure of the money to such an extent that congress had to pass another law to extend the deadline so that the money and the equipment got to the people on the front lines. need i also reiterate, the supposed interagency process, the concerns that the president and his counsel continue to raise about corruption and making sure that the process went right. there was no interagency process. the whole thing was made up. it was a phantom.

there was a delay, and delays matter. mr. chief justice, i reserve the balance of my time for mr. schiff. >> mr. schiff. >> thank you, mr. chief justice. just a few additional points i would like to make on this amendment and on my colleague's arguments. first of all, mr. sekulow makes the point that the aid ultimately got released. they ultimately got the money, right? yes. they got the money after the president got caught, after the president was forced to relieve the hold on the aid, after he got caught, yes. but even then, even then, they had held on to the aid so long that it took a subsequent act of

congress to make sure it could all go out the door. so, what? is the president supposed to get credit for that, that we had to intervene because he withheld the aid so long? and that's the only reason ukraine got all of the aid that we had approved in the first place. my colleagues have glossed over the fact that what they did was illegal, that the jao, an independent watchdog agency found that that hold was illegal. so, it not only violated the law. it not only took an act of congress to make sure they ultimately got the aid. this is -- this is supposed to be the defense for why you shouldn't see the documents. is that what we're to believe? counsel also says he's not the first president to withhold aid, and that's true. after all, counsel says, well, president obama withheld aid to

egypt. yes, at the urging of members of congress. senators mccain and graham urged that that aid be withheld. and why? because there was a revolution in egypt after it was appropriated. that wasn't something that was hidden from congress. that was a pretty darn good reason to think do we still want to give aid to this government after this revolution? we're not saying that aid has never been withheld. that's absurd. but i would hope and expect this is the first time aid has been withheld by a president of the united states to coerce an ally at war to help him cheat in the next election. i think that's a first. but what we do here may determine whether it's the last. and one other thing about this pause in aid, right, the argument well, no harm no foul. okay. you got caught, they got the

aid, what's the big deal? well, as we heard during the trial, it's not just the aid. i mean, the aid is obviously the most important thing as mr. crow mentioned without it you can't defend yourself, and we'll have testimony about just what kind of military aid the president was withholding. but we also had testimony that it was the fact of the aid itself that was so important to ukraine, the fact that the united states had ukraine's back. and why? because this new president of ukraine, this new untested former comedian, president of ukraine, at war with russia, was going to be going into a negotiation with vladimir putin with an eye to ending that conflict. and whether he went into that

negotiation from a position of strength or position of weakness would depend on whether we had his back. so, with had the ukrainians learned and the russians learned the united states did not have his back, was withholding this aid, what message do you think that sent to vladimir putin? what message do you think it sent vladimir putin when donald trump wouldn't let volodymyr zelensky in the door of the white house but would let the russian foreign minister? what message does that send? it's not just the aid, if all the aid was delivered, it's what message does the freeze send to our friend and even more importantly to our foe. and the message it sent was a disaster, was a disaster. now, you might ask yourself because counsel has said

president trump has given lethal weapons to ukraine. you might ask yourself if the president was so concerned about corruption, why did he do that in 2017, and why did he do that in 2018? why was it only 2019 there was a problem? was there no corruption in ukraine in 2017? was there no corruption in ukraine in 2018? no. ukraine has always battled corruption. it wasn't the presence or lack of corruption from one year to another. it was the presence of joe biden as a potential candidate for president. that was the key change in 2019. that made all the difference which gets back to one of the key moments in this saga. you know, a lot of you are attorneys. you're probably much better

attorneys than i am, and i'm sure you had the experience in cases you tried where there was some vignette, some conversation, some document that may not have been the most important on its face, but it told you something about the case that was much larger than that conversation. for me, one of those conversations was not on july 25th between president trump and president zelensky but on july 26th, the very next day. now, you may have watched some of the house proceedings or you may haven't, some people watching may have seen it, maybe they didn't. but there's a scene in a ukrainian restaurant, a restaurant in kyiv, this is not some never trumper. this is a million-dollar donor to the trump inauguration, okay? if there's a bias there, it's

clearly a million dollar bias in favor of this president, not against him. so, there's the scene in kyiv in this restaurant. and sondland has a cell phone and he's sitting with david holm holmes who's a career u.s. diplomat in the ukraine embassy. and gordon sondland calls the white house. gordon sondland holding for the white house, holding for the president. he's connected to the president. that's pretty impressive. this isn't some guy with no relationship to the president. the president may say gordon sondland, i barely know him or something to that effect. but this is a guy that can pick up a cell phone and call the president from a restaurant in kyiv. and the president's voice is so loud that david holmes can hear it. and what does the president say? does he say how's that reform coming? how's the attack on corruption

going? no. he just says is he going to do the investigation. is zelensky going to do the investigation? and sondland says, yes, he'll do anything you want. he loves your ass. this is the extent of the president's interest in ukraine, and they go on to talk about other things. and then they hang up. and david holmes turns to the ambassador and says in language which i will have to modify to remove an expletive, says something along the lines of does the president give a blank about ukraine? and sondland says no, he doesn't give a blank about ukraine. he only cares about the big stuff, like the investigation of

the bidens that giuliani wants. this is a million-dollar donor to the trump inaugural admitting the president doesn't care about ukraine. he doesn't care whether they get military dollars to defend themselves. he doesn't care about what position zelensky goes into in these negotiations with putin. he doesn't care about that. isn't that clear? it's why he didn't care about corruption in 2017 or 2018, and he certainly didn't care about it in 2019. all he cared about was the big stuff that affected him personally like this investigation that he wanted of the bidens. so, when you ask do you want to see these documents, do you want to know if these documents

corroborate ambassador sondland? will the documents show as we fully expect they will that the only thing he cared about was the big stuff that affected him? david holmes' response was well, you know, there's some big stuff going on here like a war with russia. this isn't withholding aid because of a revolution in egypt. this is withholding aid from a country in which 15,000 people have died fighting the russians. and as ambassador taylor said and others, you know, russia's fighting to remake the map of europe by dent of military force. if we think that's just about ukraine's security, we are very deceived. it's about our security. it's about the tens of thousands of troops that we have in

europe. and if we undercut our own ally, if we give russian reason to believe we will not have their back, that we'll use ukraine as a play thing or worse to get them to help us cheat in an election, that will only embolden putin to do more. you said it as often as i have, the only thing he respects is strength. do you think that looks like strength of vladimir putin? i think that looks like something that vladimir putin is only too accustomed to. and that is the kind of corruption that he finds and he perpetuates to his own regime and pushes all around the world. my colleague val demings made reference to a conversation which is another key vignette in this hold sad saga, and that's a conversation ambassador volker has with andrier moyermak.

ambassador volker is telling yermak, you shouldn't do this investigation of your former president poroshenko. you shouldn't engage in political investigations. as representative demings said what's the response from ukraine, oh, you mean like the one you want us to do of the bidens and clintons. threw it right back in his face. ukraine's not oblivious to that hypocrisy. mr. sekulow says what are we here for. you know, part of our strength is not only our support for our allies, not only our military might. it's what we stand for. we used to stand for the rule of law. we used to champion the rule of

law around the world. part of the rule of law is of course that no one is above the law. but to be out in ukraine or anywhere else in the world championing the rule of law saying don't engage in prosecutions and having them throwed right back in our face, oh, you mean like the you want us to do, that's why we're here. that's why we're here. that's why we're here. i yield back. >> mr. chief justice. >> majority leader is recognized. >> i send a motion to the desk to table the amendment and ask that yea's and nays. >> is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will conduct -- will call the roll. mr. alexander. >> aye. >> this is a roll call vote. you are watching the impeachment trial of president trump. the senators are voting right

now this time on minority leader chuck schumer's amendment. this would subpoena documents and records from the omb, office of management and budget. that's the white house agency that put the hold to ukraine. those documents would be significant. this comes in a day we saw clash after clash just hours before opening arguments. i want to go to phil mattingly as we are watching this vote out front live on capitol hill. this is the third amendment. this is a roll call vote. as you anticipate, this will go along party lines. >> erin, that's exactly right. we've seen this throughout the course of the last six hours. the house impeachment managers make the case for supporting documents. one case it was documents related to ukraine. another the state department, this particularly the office of management and budget, all three of votes. they've gone down 53-47, all

republicans voting to table or kill the amendment, all democrats voting to keep it in play. this vote will also follow along those lines. one thing to point out here is democrats making very clear making a point they want at the front end of this trial the option of subpoenaing documents and the expectation with some of the votes that are coming, subpoenaing witnesses as well. but another key thing to keep in mind here, every republican has stuck together behind senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. there were issues earlier in the day mcconnell addressed with his underlying resolution, the organizing resolution, the rules of the road. but since that moment in time, every republican has stuck together including the moderate republicans like mitt romney who made clear perhaps later in the trial they will want to hear from witnesses and subpoena documents. they believe that later on in the trial they will have that option. they will have an up or down vote on subpoenaing documents and witnesses. that is what they are waiting for. it will come after the initial

arguments and presentations. it'll come after senate questions. at the front end of the trial, every republican is sticking together. i will tell you this is what mcconnell wanted. he wanted to keep the party unified for as long as possible fully knowing some republican senators will break off. the big question has been can he keep it from being four. his theory of the case is the longer he can keep all republicans together, the more likely it is he will be able to not have witnesses later. that's what he's doing at least on this first day, erin. >> and as you point out, just the fact it's on party lines tonight does not mean it will be later, right? this doesn't mean no forever on documents from the omb. that could come up again in about a week after you're through with senate questions and opening statements. but this today, we're looking at about six and a half hours. there have been breaks. we anticipate several more amendments from minority leader schumer. where does it go? >> at this point we don't have a

firm end time. my understanding is senator schumer has other amendments. keep in mind what he has put on the floor up to this point has been to subpoena specific documents. we know the democrats want specificens witnesses as well like john bolton, mick mulvaney, couple other administration officials. the expectation is at some point those votes will come up. the expectation is also at some point those votes will go down once again but democrats making a point they're trying to get on the record they are trying to subpoena documents. they are losing those votes. they're making it clear this is their push, trying to amp up for the votes that matter, at the end there will be another up and down votes. that's where the democrats need four republicans to join them to bring in witnesses and documents. that's what they want to try to increase pressure on at this point in time even though they know they will lose every vote that's coming for the remainder of the night. >> stay with me if you can.

obviously we anticipate this vote will wrap up in a few moments and we'll see if they go to the next amendment or if there's perhaps a brief break in between. minority leader schumer introducing the next amendment. former special counsel of the defense department, joe lockhart who went through this before with president clinton, and tim naf telly. what do you make of where we are right now, tim? you have these votes. they are going along party lines. 53 to table the documents, 47 against, completely on party lines, and they are done right now. so, obviously you have it here 53 to kill this amendment. it is killed. >> robert carol called lyndon johnson master of the senate. many people who looked at mitch mcconnell the way he handled the merit garland manner, preventing

the nominee from being considered, thought he figured how to control the senate. today we see a much weaker mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell assumed yesterday he had all the votes he needed for his resolution. he presented a very different resolution -- i mean, partly the same, but he -- >> they had the 24 hours but there's a big difference between those being 1:00 in the morning or 9:00 at night. >> that means that he could not keep his caucus together because he had to make two hand-written changes. that's huge. for mitch mcconnell, that's not how he does business. so, this is a very interesting and important day. we see that this is much more fluid than people thought. >> let's listen in for one moment as the vote concludes. >> the democratic leader is recognized. >> mr. chief justice, i send an amendment to the desk to issue a subpoena to john michael "mic" mulvaney, and i ask that it be

read. >> circle will report. >> the senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment number 1287. at the appropriate place and the resolving clause, insert the following: section not withstanding any other provision of this resolution pursuant to rules 5 and 6 of the rules of procedure and practice in the senate when sitting on impeachment trials, the chief justice of the united states through the secretary of the senate shall issue a subpoena for the taking of testimony of john michael "mic" mulvaney, and the sergeant at arms is authorized to utilize the services of the deputy sergeant at arms or any other employee of the senate serving the subpoena authorized to be issued by this

section. >> mr. chief justice. >> the majority leader is recognized. >> i now ask for a 30-minute recess before the parties are recognized to debate the schumer amendment. following the debate time, i will once again move to table the amendment because votes on witnesses and evidence as i've repeatedly said are addressed in the underlying resolution. so, i ask that the senate stand in recess until 8:00 p.m. >> without objection, so ordered. >> and they are now in recess until 8:00 when they will consider that amendment, the testimony of mic mulvaney. and of course we anticipate there will be more amendments after that. this is the fourth amendment proposed by senator schumer. how do we view this, as a caucus which is in line, republicans voting in line as they did there on office of management and budget documents, every one of

them, or republican caucus that would not get behind senator mcconnell's resolution on how to conduct this trial and demanded changes like documents the house had automatically being submitted to the senate? >> right, unless you're an inside watcher of this you might think that the changes were not dramatic. but what they signal is mitch mcconnell misreading his caucus. he thought he had them. he would have never circulated that last night. they would have never leaked it to the press if he didn't have the votes. what happened was there was outrage. my guess is overnight senator portman, collins, alexander, the ones that have spoken out on it went to mcconnell and said we can't do this, we cannot support this underlying resolution. so, what it means, i think, is where he thought he was in a strong position, it's weaker than he thought. this doesn't mean we'll have witnesses or documents. but it means the push back is real within his caucus. he sees now five or six members

that he has to worry about and he was forced to climb down on this. and i think as tim said, this is something that mitch mcconnell hasn't done in my memory. he forced merit garland or blocked him. he forced through brett kavanaugh. he was not able to do that here. so, i think it signals a much more fluid next week or so than we thought as early as last night. >> and this comes -- so, you have this big question of what this means for the trial, right? are they in line as we see in these votes or is there a real concern about mcconnell's reading of the caucus? it comes as you're getting a statement from susan collins. you're seeing one of the republicans who might vote for witnesses. her statement saying i'm going to vote to table anything at this point in the trial, but, quote, i anticipate i would conclude that having additional information would be helpful, it is likely i would support a

motion to subpoena witnesses at that point in the trial as i did in 1999 referring to after the opening statements. what do you read into her choosing to put that statement out today? >> first of all she's trying to get around the notion that every single time there's a role call where they ask you to tell them specifically that they do not want to hear from the documents or witnesses, they're forced to go on the record to say i am not in favor of information. she needs to counteract that. of course she should want more information. i think adam schiff as has val demings to say how could you not want information available to you? what will you be asking questions about? nothing will be in front of you. you won't have a reference point to say what did perhaps mulvaney mean when he said this or gordon sondland looking at blank documents. they are setting the republican members of the senate to fail down the road when they say i don't have information on this. well, guess what, the first time you'll be able to ask questions

or look at the documents is after they've got 24 hours from each side of opening statements and then 16 hours of questions. and then they get to look at it. but there's an opportunity to then ask for questions for follow up. so, what would be the point of having verdict first, trial next, to paraphrase lawrence tribe earlier today. if you want to deliberate and have information, wouldn't you want it right now electronegati even if it might not go your way to have the argument or even to have a leg to stand on. >> so, what do you think is the winner here today, ryan? obviously when this amendment is discussed as it will be next, right after this dinner break, you're then going to have the mick mulvaney discussion and then they're going to extensively table that amendment. so, you'll have republicans saying they don't want to hear from mick mulvaney even though perhaps thas do. who is is the winner? >> i think the winner is the american public gets to hear

from witnesses. that seems to be the reflection on the pressure being placed on republicans to do the right thing or do the thing that their constituents want. cnn had a poll that says 69% of americans want there to be witnesses and plurality of republicans want there to be witnesses. so, i think that's the variable that's putting pressure for there to be a change. we're seeing cracks emerge we wouldn't have anticipated just 24 hours ago. >> as we have this break here, we anticipate it'll go until right around 8:00 eastern and then they're going to come back and deliberate on whether mick mulvaney would be subpoenaed at this point in the process. what are you learning? >> i think i agree there are cracks here and reason to believe there might be movement. erin i speak to feels fairly confident they're going to see republicans hold the line, not go for witnesses. the main person the white house is concerned about is lamar

alexander. we have repeatedly seen the white house project certainty about something when it's not really clear. but they believe this is going to move ahead without witnesses being called. if witnesses are called and say there was a discussion about subpoenaing john bolton and having him come forward, he is somebody who they've spent a lot of time focusing on how they would keep him from complying. mick mulvaney, they're not concerned about. he has already talked about needing permission from the president, and that's how he handled the house. john bolton has sense said he would comply with a senate subpoena. the concern with the white house is is you have to go through a process of making sure that information that bolton was privy to was classified and then go to court. so, we already saw some discussions around court cases in the house inquiry. you would likely see something similar here if it got to that point. >> ryan, what do you make of how that goes though at this point? is something like privilege or immunity something that would be upheld in any serious way given that so much of what is being discussed is already public?

>> right. so, the idea that bolton can come testify and then claim executive privilege doesn't work so well since we've already had his deputies present evidence in the house. so, the idea that the president needs to maintain confidentiality, very communications have been disclosed to the public. we need to hear from the horse's mouth. john bolton, did you say it was a drug deal? did you raise concerns with the legal team inside the national security council. that's a huge part of it. to say no he can refuse to answer questions, they're in a pretty weak position. and there's a strong argument that the executive privilege idea doesn't survive in an impeachment hearing. maybe it survives with regular congressional oversight but congress is acting at the zenith of its power, the evidence is confidential. >> i think that's absolutely right. the idea as well is interesting. both parties, trump's defense team and of course the house managers are making an argument about separation of powers being

at the -- we're maybe at the tail end unless it goes their way in terms of privilege or immunity issues. and both making their argument. if they are both right, it would force witnesses to be there. the only way to assert your oversight power, the only way to say yes this person has done the wrong thing or has done the right thing is for a witness to be called. so, they agree on this very fine point about the notion of listen there's no privilege that would protect you in general from criminal activity. there's no privilege that says as long as you are the president no matter what conversation you've ever had is always protected. and it depends also on whether you're talking about bolton talking to another member of a cabinet. if not the president, is that still covering the privilege? this is novel. we do have a chief justice sitting right there who may be somebody to want to weigh in on this, but his hands are tied in a way because if he does this now, any case coming down the pipeline, he will have shown his hand. so, you have a catch 22 to see how he's going to navigate.

>> also how was the performance today, joe. how would you say -- we saw pat cipollone. a lot of people had no idea what pat cipollone looked like until today. jay sekulow we saw again on behalf of the president. adam schiff obviously taking the lead role and we just saw him on this amendment about omb, sort of recounting the phone call in kyiv between gordon sondland and the president. jason from colorado just made his first appearance. how would you say the performance is as we come into the next amendments? >> it's worth going back to 1999 and comparing it because it's almost the opposite in my mind. i think in 1999 the house impeachment managers did a pretty good job, but they came off as very political. and i think, you know, the white house counsel and all of the lawyers there won the day as far as the debate because they came off as factual. it was like this is what the law

is, this is what happened. the opposite happened today. i think the democrat, particularly the managers that we hadn't seen so much from, jason crow, val demings, zoe lofgren were very, very clear. and the only way -- i think the chip was a little bit political, but there's points that need to be rebutted. and i think that is much different. you know, i told people today that if i had been in the white house today i would be underneath my desk in the fetal position. that's how poorly i think particularly jay sekulow did. they -- it feels like they took the memo from the house republicans and said oh yeah, we just scream and yell and say conspiracy and hoax and ridiculous and breathtaking and we'll be fine. they've misread the senate. the senate is very different than the house. people expected something different today and they didn't get it from the white house lawyers. now, again, i may be wrong. we may find a different conclusion. but i think the president was let down today by his legal team. >> and maggie, what's your

feeling from talking to them. obviously what they're going to say may be perhaps different than what they feel, but what are you reading between the lines? >> they've stuck to the playbook they telegraphed they were going to do going into this. we haven't heard what the president's reaction is. he's in davos right now and he always weighs in on how his team performs on television. i'm sure he'll have lots of things to say whether it's private or he tweets something about it. the thing is as i was listening to joe talk, i think that in previous iterations of history, you would have people who would be unwilling to go out and say that something had happened, something happened that didn't happen as you saw repeatedly from the president's lawyers today and you would feel bad about it afterwards. but when you're the president's lawyers and you are basically of the belief this is a fore gone conclusion, we're going to find out whether they misread the senate or not. but they believe that this has been stacked in a way that favors them.

>> well, val demings, let me talk about val demings for a minute. remember that most of these senators are lawyers. and she explained what we, the american people, need to know. and it is very hard when you go document by document to think that this is a -- that this is some kind of fishing expedition to make these grand statements about it's a witch hunt, it's a fishing expedition. she brought it down to the document level. and each of these demands was reasonable. there's an advantage that the democrat -- that the house managers have gotten today. they had a chance to preview their prosecutorial briefs today. >> right. this is not the opening statements. it may have felt that way to some people watching, bullet that is not what it was. >> and i think this is important for the senators, even more than the american people. one of the things i think that's true in 1999 is that the senators despite the fact the

house had these hearings didn't know the details of the case against president clinton. they were learning things. i think the senators are learning things today. i think many of them blocked out what happened in the house. they don't really know the details. and today, jason crow, val demings, and the other managers were going point by point in a lawyerly, factual, professional way, and the senators, many of whom are lawyers, had to be affected by this. >> and of course they didn't have their phones or anything else. all of you please stay with me. we're going to take a brief break. we'll be right back. you've had quite the career. yeah, i've had some pretty prestigious jobs over the years. news producer. executive transport manager. and a beverage distribution supervisor. now i'm a director at a security software firm. wow, you've been at it a long time. the thing is, i like working. what if my retirement plan is i don't want to retire?

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welcome back. we are in a brief break of the impeachment trial of president trump. right now amendment four has been put forward by senator schumer which would provide for a subpoena for mick mulvaney to testify. that's the fourth amendment so far, and these are all

amendments to the resolution that senator mcconnell put forward which sets the rules of the road for the trial in which >> as i said, this is a very brief break. we just a few minutes before the senators go back into the chambers to debate and argue this fourth amendment. i want to go to chris murphy, who is a member of the morning relations committee and has been in that room throughout the day. how do you feel about it so far, senator? how do you feel things are going, how do you think the impeachment managers are making their case and how do you senators are responding in a room where they are forced to sit without their electronic devices for hours on end? >> it's been compelling testimony, every republican voting against the production of documents and witnesses. it still was frankly a gut punch to me to see all of my colleague, many of which i have

great respect for denying the american public a fair trial. these rules are rigged. in the end there may only be one vote on which we get to see any witnesses or any documents. that's why tonight it's our on chance to have individual votes on some of the most important documents and some of the most important testimony that can fill in some of the gaps that apparently exist in some republicans' minds. >> you were going to have 24 hours per side and in 12-hour chunks, which would go till 1:00 in the morningnow it's going to be eight hours, much more digestible. and you have documents that the house already produced that are now required to be made available to senators. he obviously had put this resolution forward, had to write those things in by hand. so do you think that was a big victory or is your takeaway still that this is not fair

because of the votes that you are going through tonight? >> oh, i don't think that was a victory. we were all stunned when this rules package came out last night and they had shrunk down the amount of time that the house managers had to two days so that all of this evidence was going to be submitted in the middle of the night. to us that was absolutely stunning. even though they hand wrote in changes, we still have this cadence in which mcconnell wants is for the vote witnesses and doubs to come after the presentation by the house managers, to come after the senators' time for question has passed. it's all backwards and seems to be a deliberate attempt to bury all this relevant information. i don't know that we'll make any progress tonight or get any republican votes but i think making this case all throughout the night about the need for a fair trial, i hope it serves a

purpose in the end. >> senator susan collins i believe you believe she may vote with you. she made statement she was going to table every one of these amendments today but she continued toy say i would anticipate that i would conclude having additional information would be helpful. it is likely i would support a motion to subpoena witnesses at that point in the trial as i did in 1999, that point being after opening arguments. >> why on earth should we wait until after we have the opportunities to ask questions to hear the most important testimony? if john bolton has a really important story to tell, why wouldn't you want him to tell that story before we have an opportunity to ask questions on the record. it's not just susan collins.

you need four republican senators and right now there aren't four republican senators -- >> mitt romney, lamar alexander, susan maybe cory gardner, you don't think you have it? >> i'm certainly not confident there are four votes today. there may be by next week and maybe today's testimony and the arguments we're making will help us get four but i don't know that we have those four yet. >> what is the mood like in the room? obviously as you know, the press is sort inform one corner. they have said things, oh, somebody fell asleep, somebody's passing notes to somebody else. i don't say this to make light it have at all. i say it to set up the question to you. with no electronic devices hours on hours, are people listening? are senators learning anything? are people truly paying attention the way they would if they had an open mind? >> i can't speak for the mindset of my colleagues. what i can say is everybody in that chambers is paying close

attention, nobody seems distracted. for a lot of senators, this is the first time that they are being directly confronted in the chamber with some of this testimony from the house. and i think it's really hard for republicans to see people like gordon sondland and bill taylor testifying in that senate chamber and continue to deny that something very wrong didn't happen. but from what i've seen, everybody has been taking this really seriously. >> well, i appreciate your time, senator. thanks very much for being with me. i know you just have a few more minutes and you're going back into that room. to my panel here, i have two crucial questions coming out of the conversation with senator murphy. he thinks everyone is paying close attention. there have been some commentary about people dosing off. i did not say that to be light but to set up a serious question. maybe his senators weren't paying as close attention as we were watching this every day in the house. do you think it's possible that

people in that room really were learning things about the timeline, about the phone call in kiev? is it possible they sort of went wow? >> there are certain aspects through the presentation of evidence that i learned, this notion of tell me specifically per agency what documents you're seeking to get. we've heard mick mulvaney, john blair and other people they want to hear from but sell me specifically what you're hoping to glean and what the testimony during the impeachment inquiry led to believe that documents existed. making that all come together in one easy package is that was missing and that's what's so important in trying to make the documents, that's why the litigators in this field are so great at what they're doing. you have to actually make that compartmentalization make sense. you have her agency, though is seems exhaustive to us an amendment that goes through

painstaki painstakingly each aspect of it. you wondered why we wanted information -- >> not just generally documents from the omb, it's this versus this verse this leads to -- >> right. >> it's compelling and maybe eye opening. >> so what do you make, tim, of the fact that senator murphy also said he's not confident that he has those votes. susan collins can say a what she says, lamar alexander can say what she says. his breaks would indicate he's not confidence he has the republicans votes for witnesswitnesses. >> if i were a moderate republican senator, i wouldn't tell senator murphy what i'm about to do because their argument is whether you accept it or not, they want to hear -- they want to hear from the managers and they want to hear from the president's defenders and then they're going to make up their mind whether more materials is necessary. if they were going to tell senator murphy now they were going to votes for witnesses,

then that argument is bogus. but i think some of them believe it. so i think senator murphy should wait and, you know, next week -- >> i get politically he's making a smart move, you've got to have the feeling of urgency. >> well, he does. i also think he probably understands that those senators are not going to tell him. he's not number one on their call list to tell when they've made up their mind they're going to go against mitch mcconnell. they're going to wait until there's all this information and there's real pressure and sale, mitch, or whatever they call him, miftch, i'm just going to have to call them. >> and you've seen senator murphy applying maximum pressure. rules are generally along party line, they generally get no attention, don't matter. it's reasonably easy for susan

collins or mitt romney to say, it's okay, we got our concessions. it's rarely you see the train move in one direction and stop and move back. even the pressure of last night and the news coverage forced collins and portman and others into mcconnell's office, that's a bad trend. but i agree also with everything that maggie haberman said before, which is they feel they can wrap this and hold these guys and the big thing is they will have learned stuff but the request eis does it matter. if they know the case is terrible and they may still say i'm with the president. >> yet, maggie, they are preparing for witnesses. >> they're preparing for the possibility of witnesses. the witness they're really concerned about is somebody like a john bolton who has appeared like a wild card. they would be mistaken if they weren't preparing for the possibility this could happen. one thing they've been very clear eyed about despite more public sense of i wouldn't say

bluster but confidencethey'. they're clear this could go in a number of directions they didn't count on and they're preparing it. >> they're going to head back to the chamber to consider the fourth amendment. thanks for joining us. our breaking news coverage continues with anderson. good evening. what day it has been. the big question, what are the senators talking about as they come back from their dinner break. this calling for the testimony of mick mulvaney. three others have gone down on strict party line votes. there could be sign of some weakness on the republican side, or at least willingness to compromise. mitch mcconnell backed down from language in the rule