tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN January 22, 2020 8:00pm-9:00pm PST
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good evening. day one of the case against president trump is in the books. tonight the case democrats made and what the jury made of it, also a look behind the scenes and how the president is handling it. a record day of tweeting for him. earlier today he appeared to boast about withholding evidence from the trial, saying, quote, honestly we have all the material. they don't have the material. today's hearing started just after 1:00 p.m. and with a few breaks ended at 9:43 eastern time. certainly a long day. there was a lot said, so we want so start with the highlights. cnn's sara murray. >> the senate will now hear you. >> reporter: democrats began to prosecute their case against president trump today by using his own words to try to incriminate him. >> just as he solicited help from ukraine in 2019, in 2016, then candidate trump also solicited help from russia in his election effort. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the
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30,000 emails that are missing. >> there is no question that president trump intended to impress on the ukraine leader to look into his political rival. >> they should investigate the bidens. and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens. >> reporter: the president appeared to be tuning in aboard air force one tweeting, no pressure. >> mr. chief justice, senators -- >> reporter: lead impeachment manager adam schiff opened day two of the trial with marathon remarks, stretching two hours and 20 minutes without a break. >> that concludes our introduction. >> as he argued the evidence overwhelmingly proves trump abused his power and obstructed congress. >> the president is u unapologetic. this lawless, this unbound to the constitution and the oath of office must be removed from that office. >> reporter: democrats have two more days to make their case against the president and convince moderate republican senators the trial should
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include new evidence and witnesses. >> as you can see, there isn't a lot to read here. you should demand to see the full record. the american people deserve to see the full truth when it comes to presidential actions. >> reporter: but today democrats ran through the record they have. officials worrying the freeze on ukraine aid was illegal. efforts to oust former ambassador ukraine marie yovanovitch. rudy giuliani saying he pursued her removal to his his client, not the country. >> rudy giuliani is a cold blooded political operative for president trump's reelection campaign. >> reporter: schiff secured trump's insistence he wasn't involved in a quid pro quo even though he withhold a meeting while clamoring for investigations into 2016 and joe biden. >> that's not something that comes up in normal conversation,
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right? hello, mr. president, how are you, no quid pro quo. that's the kind of thing that comes up in the conversation if you're trying to put your alibi out there. >> reporter: the president's defenders meantime awaited their chance to take the senate floor. >> this whole fact that we're here is ridiculous. at the end of the day, i believe without question the president of the united states will be acquitted. >> reporter: sara murray, cnn, washington. >> so having set the scene, want to get the latest from cnn's jeff zeleny at the capital. what is the sense on the hill tonight of how day one went? >> reporter: anderson, perhaps predictability. the democrats are pleased with how today unfolded. i talked a short time ago with senate minority leader chuck schumer. he said he believes the chance for witnesses grows and gains every day. i asked why he thought that. he said when he was sitting on the floor of the senate looking across the aisle, he said he did believe he sees some republicans who are engaged and paying attention to this. he believes hearing some of this
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argument for the first time. that is exactly what adam schiff was doing. today was all about how things unfolded in chronological order. and it was a lot of the president's own words and the witnesses and the testimony from the late last year that were played in the senate floor. and you could just see the senators watching that. and senators of both parties said they were, in fact, watching some of this for the first time. they weren't necessarily paying all that careful attention when the house was doing this, so that is the view from one side. but the president's lawyers, jay sekulow, he said as he left the capital, the trial is unfolding exactly how it's expected. he said there is still no proof that the president violated any laws and they certainly can't prove impeachment. now it's the democrats' case. the president's side makes their case starting saturday, anderson. >> the solution to the mandatory for senators to stay in the chambers, is that being orb served? >> not very mandatory. these are senate rules. the senators make the rules. i was sitting in the chamber
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several hours late this afternoon and into the evening. the reality is the majority of senators were paying attention. some were standing up and paying attention. a lot were walking around. shortly before the dinner hour, things got pretty scarce on both sides. senator lindsey graham was gone for at least an hour or so in the evening. democratic senator dianne feinstein, she left about an hour and a half early as well. so a lot of senators were not exactly on the edge of their seats. but some were. susan collins is one example, of course, she's a republican we're watching very carefully. she was taking detailed notes and paying close attention. others were as well. they're definitely not enforcing the strictness of staying exactly in their seats. >> and there was a classified document that chief justice roberts mentioned at the end of the evening. what was that? >> reporter: that was very interesting. it was from jennifer williams, the national security advisor for the vice-president who testified before the house committees late last year. apparently after that testimony she wanted to add something. we're not exactly sure what it
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was, but she came back and she added a supplemental piece of testimony. so that was entered into the record. it's classified. democrats say they don't believe it has to be classified, but the white house has not declassified it. so that was a bit of a mystery in the moment, but it's something she added onto her testimony. >> and obviously the question whether or not witnesses are going to be called, that's being endlessly discussed. anything republican senator who might be a yes vote in the matter says is being closely scrutinized. that point i understand. lisa murkowski from alaska just made some remarks about the proceedings. >> reporter: she did. she, of course, is one of the republicans we're watching carefully. she said she is sitting on the edge of her seat. she said she feels like she is in the front row of a pew watching everything unfold. she also expressed some displeasure with jerry nadler from that conversation yesterday when he engaged in a back and forth with the president's lawyers that led to the chief justice admonishing both sides. she said she did not like the tone that he set, the accusatory tone there.
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so it's clear as democrats are trying to make their case here, they're trying to also not turn off republicans. so tomorrow this moves into a conversation about the law, the specific articles of impeachment. and again, the president makes his case, his lawyers do, starting saturday. anderson. >> jeff zeleny. thanks very much. pring in o bring in our panel. david, a very different afternoon, obviously than yesterday. they're not two sides going back and forth. this was just democrats with their first day making their defense. how did you think it went? >> i think it went surprisingly well for the democrats. it could have been a really boring repetitive day, rehashing lots of things we've known from the past. instead, adam schiff, he emerges as one of the most impressive people i've seen. i thought back to sam dash in the watergate days. what adam schiff managed to do
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is take mass amount of evidence, things that happened that seemed unrelated, he brought them into a narrative, one thing related to the next thing you wouldn't have thought. when john bolton resigned and what the context was, i heard that narrative, i think he's carrying this team right now. he's the intellectual senator of this. he has a very good team, but he is a real star. and it's his presentation today doesn't begin to soften things up and make it possible to change public opinion, i'm not sure anything will. >> michael, from a republican perspective what did you think? >> it's interesting to me pivoting off of that, who the audience is here. is it the american public, is it senators that we're trying to convince of something or is it senators trying to nail and beat an election? it seems like the democrats kind of go between all three of those audiences. maybe if they picked one and just stuck to it, it would be more effective because at times they're looking -- the real legal argument they're making it seems to be for the american
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people and some of the senators in the room. procedurally, they do something where they keep the senators there all night, things they aren't going to pass which angers the senators. they start talking about a cover up and talking points that maybe is more for the public but angers the senators. so it's sort of confusing to me from the republican side which sort of audience they're actually trying to win over here. in the end it looks political to most people on the republican side. it looks like they're trying to score points. >> kirsten, to mike's point, ultimately the american people would be the audience, i guess the democrats want to rely on most because they don't think they're really going to be getting republicans -- >> exactly. >> they might get republicans to vote for witnesses but that's it. >> they're realistic about the fact that's going to happen, he's going to be acquitted, right? maybe there's going to be some witnesses, but even that's very much up in the air. and so they're operating under the assumption that if they can't get the witnesses and they can't get the additional documents, that they can discredit the acquittal so that when they do finally acquit him
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and trump stands up and says i was acquitted, they can say, no, you weren't acquitted. there weren't witnesses, weren't allowed more documents in. you can't claim you were acquitted. >> schiff seized on something, he referred to the 2020 election in his remarks and talked about how this has to be done now because otherwise the president will try to steal the election so we have to end this now. and one of the big talking points and arguments for republicans across the country is this is not -- this is taking the vote away from the american public. there is an election in 11 months. instead the democrats want to do that. schiff said, that's right. >> that is what impeachment is. the whole idea of impeachment is that you are not letting it go to an election. i mean, the founders put it in there for a reason. it was understood that there are times -- >> when you ask that question in polling, it is devastatingly bad for democrats especially target areas in the country, target
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states. do you want them to owe vote on it in november? ov overwhelmingly they say let us have it. >> the argument for not rushing through the courts and getting to the senate, they believe the president is trying to upend this coming election and therefore time is of the essence. >> and thus he can't be trusted. i don't think republicans would have a different talking point if this were 2018 versus 2020. i agree with david. i think the democrats did a good job in laying out why ukraine matters to the american people and why this isn't just some country where the president being his typical bombastic self that wasn't protocol, but was it impeachable. we are laying out why the united states was holding aid from a u.s. ally in a hot war with an adversary and laid out the national security implications from doing that. and also laid out a matter of logic. when you heard adam schiff say
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the president and his defenders constantly quote zelensky saying there was no quid cuo perfect phone call. 2 plus 2 equals 4 we heard him say. the same logic for corruption, use that as an excuse. if the president believed ukraine was corrupt, go back to congress, lay it out before congress, and it's your prerogative at that point to withhold that money. but they laid out -- and i think they divided it up amongst the managers very well as to what happened, the timetable, evidence from the fact witnesses, marie yovanovitch and her treatment. and at the end of the day, when you even heard from jason crow talk about his experience serving in the u.s. military and the fact that we've got tens of thousands of u.s. troops in europe right now and the numbers of troops, ukrainian troops that have died from all of this, it turned it into a matter of life and death with the u.s. ally on the line. >> i want to hear from carl and eli in a second. we'll take a quick break.
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they'll start it off on the other side. more on how the president is handling day one of the house's case against him. we'll get a live update from the white house. also conversations with one of the jurors, senator jeff markley's thoughts what it' like to be on the floor. are the senators listening, are they engaged? he'll tell us his perspective as 360 late night coverage continues. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.
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huh, boring, boring, you don't need to see that. oh, here we go. can you believe my client steig had never heard of a home and auto bundle or that renters could bundle? wait, you're a lawyer? only licensed in stockholm. what is happening? jamie: anyway, game show, kumite, cinderella story. you know karate? no, alan, i practice muay thai, completely different skillset.
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going to affect his members. and that his strategy -- i've talked to some republicans about this -- midnight mitch is to wear out his own members so that they don't vote for more witnesses because there are six, seven, eight, nine wobbly republicans. not necessarily going to vote to acquit, but want either to make some kind of statement that they don't like what the president has done, that they think it is deplorable, disgusting, really have been affected by what they're hearing. the question is, though, whether or not they will go for witnesses. manu outlined the numbers well earlier tonight. if mcconnell is able to hold with the exact majority that he has, then there won't be witnesses. but if there is a break of three or four, then you can go to six,
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seven, eight perhaps for witnesses. and he's very worried about holding them, particularly because of the strength of this narrative and how powerful it is. this president of the united states is the only president in our history who has done what the founders wrote this clause for. he has sought the interference of a foreign power in our elections to undermine our free electoral system. these republicans, some of whom have not focused on this till now, they get it. a good number of them. and -- they are. they've been craving since this president's come into office. they're also on the spot. >> but what do you really think? but no, the interesting thing is there is very little new that we learned or saw today. it's just that today for the first time it was packaged as an argument. frankly, as a former prosecutor, i was taken back to seeing what prosecution looks like and adam schiff was actually quite deft.
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you don't have to agree with it. you may legally disagree with the conclusion, but he was quite deft. i think the best rhetorical point he made today was, look, i would love to show you what was in ambassador taylor's august 29th -- i can't show you that because it's not allowed to be admitted. i would love to show you his contemporaneous notes, i can't show you that. >> bolton is a real wild card. >> all of the things that he could not show the jurors. now, again, as michael said, there's a few different audiences. the public and the vulnerable senators, and he was speaking directly to those -- you said eight or nine. it's probably four or five, a smaller group. susan collins, are you listening? >> is anybody listening? whether it's in the room or outside. our mind is already made up. yes, there are some senators uncomfortable or queasy on things, but the writing is on the wall. >> i think it's very hard to move them. remember, yes, they're listening to this but the president's
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lawyers are going to come out and say what they're going to say which we've already had a preview of which is a lot of the talking points they've been using in the past and jay sekulow had a press scrum earlier. this is trying to impeach a president over a phone call. these use these talking points where that's really not -- no, nobody is trying to impeach him over a phone call. that's nobody's position. but they mischaracterize the democrats' position. they mischaracterize the democrats don't get executive privilege which is not their position. we just think there should be testimony -- he actually could invoke executive privilege at some point if he wanted to, but he hasn't. >> it's almost reminiscent of the 199s. president clinton wasn't impeached for sex, it was lying under oath. >> i know. every single day, james carvell on down. we tried to make the case, there
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were eight criminal referrals. exactly. amazing how that works. >> david, you were there. >> we had a pretty good size audience yesterday, 7 1/2 at night, 11 million during the daytime. i thought they were smart to put schiff at the beginning of primetime tonight. that's when the audience really -- >> yesterday they were presenting their case in a similar way than they -- today was much more detailed, but they weren't just making procedural motions and not sort of explaining them. they were using them as an opportunity to, you know, inform, educate, however you want to call it, people who had not been following this. >> right. i think that's right. but, you know, there is a question now starting to bounce around. david axelrod has been talking about it this evening here at cnn. that is the public is facing a dilemma with senators. there are only two options. it's either acquit, which a lot of people in this country oppose, they'll never get to vote -- i'm sorry, to convict or acquit. he's clearly going to be
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convicted at this point, but if he is -- >> acquitted. >> acquitted. but if he's acquitted, then there is this real danger he'll walk around saying i've been exonerated and feel emboldened. is there some third option thick develop, a vote of censure, something -- >> that's why i mention statements people might make. >> we're going to pick this up shortly. coming up next my conversation with senator markley of oregon. we'll be right back. apps are used everywhere... except work. why is that?
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merits, a thorough presentation. i talked about it just before air time with jeff merkley, a democrat of oregon. senator merkley, it's really been a long two days. i'm wondering what you think the biggest take away at the end of today is. >> well, i was really struck about two things today. one was we've all had bits and pieces of the story, but today it was painted into a large arc, an arc that covered nearly a year in which the strategy of investigating the bidens and ukraine went from the back burner before biden declared for office to the front burner right at the same time that a new government was being elected in ukraine and the new government, president zelensky became the pressure point, the person being asked to deliver on help for the trump administration. and just laying that out in this arc was very useful. and then it also really addressed the issue of to what degree was the u.s. government
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really trying to help zelensky, who campaigned against corruption, take on corruption. and the answer is we weren't. we weren't. we took out our ambassador yovanovitch who was a champion for helping fight corruption. we didn't provide any new programs to zelensky, the new president, who actually wanted to have help taking on corruption. the defense department said they were doing everything possible and released the aid, and then we held back the aid whether supporting the new government and stand up against the russians. the picture is becoming much clearer. >> we're not able to see what's happening in the room when people are speaking in terms of what the other senators are doing. are -- right now democrats are making presentations. are republicans listening? i mean, are they present, are they listening, are they engaged? >> they are present, they are listening. i don't think you can distinguish between the two sides of the room if you were
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looking at it. on both sides you'll periodically see a number of people standing up going to the back of the room, stretching, while continuing to see whispering, note passing, eating some food out of their desk. but it's a lot of hours. i don't think you really wouldn't get a sense one side was listening and one wasn't. i think the republicans definitely are paying attention. >> as mart of the democrats' presentation, we're seeing video clips, witness testimony from the house impeachment hearings. is that a way to get those witnesses on the record in the senate in case witnesses are not allowed? >> yes, it's very helpful to actually see people speaking and listen to them and their voice, see their facial expressions. very different than just reading about it on a piece of paper. and i must say i'm not yet optimistic that we will get the witnesses and documents to make this a full, fair trial. i listened to a couple of my colleagues during one of the break and they were speaking to cameras saying, well, we don't see why we need witnesses. the house says they had a strong
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case. we'll listen to what the house managers say and make a decision. i hope, i really hope my colleagues across the aisle join together to fight for the vision of a full and fair trial with documents, with witnesses. >> do you think -- i mean, it will take, what, four republicans. do you think there are four republicans who would push for any kind of witness? >> i think there's far more than four who are thinking about it, but i also know that they're going to get a tremendous amount of pressure from the president's team and from mcconnell to shut this down and not put witnesses or documents before the body. >> there's going to be two more days for democrats to make their case, then the president's attorneys will make theirs. jay sekulow, one of the attorneys for the president, previewed part of their defense today saying, quote, what's not in the articles of impeachment, allegations or accusations of quid pro quo. that's because they didn't exist. to that what do you say? >> well, a couple of things.
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every piece of evidence from every direction points towards a quid pro quo, and that is that both a meeting with the president, our president trump, was held up and aid was held up in exchange for creating pressure for the new president of ukraine to announce investigations into the bidens and into the 2016 election to see if ukraine played any role in that. that just comes out in every possible way. in at least three cases you have people who are very close to the president. we have mulvaney who spoke in open to the press saying there was a quid pro quo. and we have sondland who was speaking to the president then immediately spoke with other people about how the president created or spoke to this. and then we have certainly others who were in that inner circle who were a pace or two removed, but also had kind of this understanding, this high
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understanding of the arrangement. >> senator merkley, thank you. >> thank you, anderson. >> ahead president trump returns from abroad after talking about what he's withholding from the impeachment trial. we'll have a live report from the white house next. e my dvt bt i wasn't sure... was another around the corner? or could things go a different way? i wanted to help protect myself. my doctor recommended eliquis. eliquis is proven to treat and help prevent another dvt or pe blood clot. almost 98 percent of patients on eliquis didn't experience another, and eliquis has significantly less major bleeding than the standard treatment. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. don't stop eliquis unless your doctor tells you to. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. if you had a spinal injection while on eliquis call your doctor right away if you have tingling, numbness, or muscle weakness. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding,
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sekulow spoke with reporters and had this to say whether their side would use the full 24 hours over three days allotted to them in defense of the president. >> at this point here's what i believe is going to happen. they're going to -- it looks like they're going to spend tomorrow and friday, and then i suspect we'll start on saturday, and then we'll go probably another day or two, but who knows. we have to make that determination with our team. >> let's turn now for more to kaitlan collins who is at the white house. so, the president's comments this morning, bragging about having the documents the democrats want, one would think his lawyers would not be all that happy about that. >> well, and they were asked about it earlier, anderson, to clarify what was the president talking about when he said that. and they did not answer that question. instead, they ignored it, moved on, took another question. and some white house officials have been arguing, no, the president was talking about the strength of their argument. if you look at the context surrounding that quote, he had been talking about releasing the transcript of his call with the
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ukrainian leader that started this. even if that wasn't what the president meant, it was a curious comment for him to make. you've seen multiple democrats take the president's remarks and amplify it and say he is boasting about withholding information from congress. of course, the reason that would be so questionable is this is a time when they were trying to convince these moderate republicans to vote to admit more evidence into the record so then when they are moving forward, they have access to those documents. so the question, if that's going to affect anyone's argument, though, is still something that remains to be seen. >> he said we have all the material. hard to see how -- >> they don't have the material. >> they don't have the material. i don't know how that's an argument -- that sounds like they don't have the material, which is the documents. anyway, do we know -- it seems impossible to believe the president has not been watching a lot of this. he's certainly been very active on social media. i think it's set a one-day record for him. >> reporter: yeah, he tweeted more today than he has ever in his presidency. that includes retweets as well. the president was on that very lengthy flight back from
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switzerland to washington where he arrived back here at the white house just a few hours ago. and, of course, he has made no secret that he was watching while he was meeting with those world leaders in between those meetings. we are told he has been keeping an eye on this today. he's also been evaluating his team, how they were doing yesterday during those debates back and forth. and he's also been on the phone with a lot of republicans talking to them about what's going on. and i'm told he's itching for his team to get out there and to make his argument. though, of course, democrats use all of their time, they're not going to be able to do that until saturday at the early yef. >> his go-go in flight bill must be huge. at least his works. jay sekulow, part of the president's legal team spoke about the possibility of calling witnesses. what did he say about that? >> reporter: yeah, he did. he sadie essentially they don't think they're going to get to that, but they are preparing for that contingency. manu has laid out on the hill there are a lot of questions about how many republicans are going to get to that if they do, because they don't think it would be the 51. they think there would be
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several more than that because no one wants to be the 51st vote to bring this in. though jay sekulow said they are preparing for all these contingencies. anderson, you can't plan for john bolton. they do not know what it is he would say if he did come forward. >> fascinating. kaitlan collins, thanks very much. joined once again by our political and legal team. mike, do you -- what do you think jay sekulow -- what do you think the president's team is going to do, will they use all three days? they were concerned about getting this, pushing this to the state of the union. there was an argument to be made they would want to keep it short. >> i'm not a lawyer, but it seems that the defense's job is to get the jury to acquit him. and if they think the jury is going to acquit him, it's a done deal, why would you say anything else? i think that would be true in a lot of court rooms. just like you pointed out a lot of things sound like talking points, if those talking points are going to work to acquit him, they need to keep saying the talking points. the jury is the republicans in the senate. that's who is going to vote on
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this. they're going to make a decision i'm guessing based upon that with a little sprinkle of whether the president wants them to do it next week and get that put out politically on television. >> david, just making the -- making the arguments in a variety of different ways, alan dershowitz on constitutional grounds, it does give any senator who wants to use to vote the way they want to vote, it gives them ammunition. >> absolutely, absolutely. because the republicans have gone at this in such a different way than the democrats. the democrats have been arguing the facts and the evidence. the republicans aren't contesting them on facts. you were sloppy, unprepared, thin case, et cetera, et cetera. i don't know how they can fill 24 hours on the republican side unless they take into account the facts and work their way through it. i'm not sure they're prepared to do that. i think there is a good chance they'll cut it short and see if they can jamb it through on the witness thing and go home. you know, there are a lot of republicans who think this is a
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farce, this should never be happening. take that argument and go. they're going to pay a price. they're going to pay a price. >> if you were on the republicans case, would you actually argue the case? >> no, that's number one, they want to get it over by the state of the union. i don't know that they do, but that seems to be the prevailing consensus number one. and number two, it's clear that they don't want to make the legal case or engage on the facts. number one, because they made the case that they think that what the president did was perfectly lawful. and number two, this is what defense attorneys do sometimes, which is confuse and obfuscate, essentially trick the jury into not following the facts and the law, which here clearly -- look, the president today committed -- copped to an act of obstruction. admitted to it. regardless of whether the fact he was joking or he was making a half truth or whatever, that would be admitted as evidence if this were a normal proceeding. and so it is to their advantage to not take that on directly and just, like i said yesterday on the show, wave their hands and scream. >> and if yesterday is any
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indication they did not use all their time yesterday either. if this were behind closed doors, maybe it could work better for other republicans to go along with. but given the fact this is playing out in a national landscape and given that some of the evidence, a lot of the evidence presented from the democrats is so damning, to hear a shortened rebuttal from the republicans, especially given that the president is not giving them any wiggle room at all. >> given what we know about how all this works, a lot of it is going to depend on what the president wants. if the president has watched this after three days of democrats and is -- wants a spirited defense, they will, i would imagine, they would give him a spirited defense. >> he wants to shut it down. >> i think that's what they're doing. it's a lot of bombast really. it's not substantive. so i don't think there is anyway they can really rebut the substance, which is why they go back to what i keep calling the talking points, which are the same things. it's always turning away to something else rather than
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actually saying that didn't happen. what you have alleged didn't happen or i have some piece of information that's somehow going to exonerate the president, they don't do that. >> we have to take a break. thanks, everybody. up next more perspective on the history being made now from the clinton impeachment and richard nixon's near impeachment, john dean. sleep this amazing? that's a zzzquil pure zzzs sleep. our liquid has a unique botanical blend, while an optimal melatonin level helps you nod off naturally with no next-day grogginess. zzzquil pure zzzs. naturally superior sleep. and try vicks pure zzzs kidz,
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my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. . the opening arguments we've
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been watching are historic. this is the third time in the nation's history alongside johnson and bill clinton in the '90s. a top aide who had a front row seat and john dean, former counsel to president nixon who resigned before his likely impeachment. john dean testified as a whistle-blower in watergate. just in terms of how this is different from politicresident clinton, the managers were interviewed. >> and yet we still wouldn't want more witnesses because everyone was deposed, interviewed by the fbi front of the grand jury. mr. starr was so thorough, he interviewed window washers, dentists, mail carriers and we had to accept three witnesses, ms. lewinsky.
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this time around, there's a really limited first-person, firsthand evidence, and it's really striking. we've never had an impeachment trial in history with no witnesses. right now it looks like that's where we're going. and the house managers a are doing a terrific job putting on a case with what they have. >> what was the argument? >> back then? it was that we can't have a trial without witnesses. the record is there, but they had already been interviewed. absolutely. front of the grand jury under oath. as a friend of vernon, i was worried it was a perjury trap. but it wasn't. they didn't purger themselves. monica lewinsky was a star witness. it blew up in their face. i don't think you have the same issue here because we don't have
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the testimony from firsthand witnesses, which we did. my goodness, it was about an affair. we had at them both the people who had the affair, so it's kind of exhaustive and everyone's mail carrier and dentist. >> they were unified up until a certain point. >> they were with him throughout the hearings, certainly with the senate was holding the hearings, the house republicans were solid. the republicans in the senate were solid. n baker was fighting for nixon behind closed doors and publicly being very amenable to all this information, what have you. in the house, they were very solidly for nixon. the moderates were the first to peel off. actually, larry hogan, whose son is now governor of maryland, his
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father was the first to peel off and say i think this man should be impeached. >> they were under the same sorts of pressures that republicans today -- >> very similar. what really happens in the end is nixon had pulled so many of them aside, particularly in the senate, and looked them in the eye and said, listen, i knew nothing about watergate, about the cover-up until john deep, my counsel came in and told me on march 21st was the first i learned. it was an outrageous lie and the tapes later proved how enormous the lie was. >> so the fact that he had lied to them to their face. >> to their face, and that's really when he lost the senate. >> it's interesting, paul. these senators are not unfamiliar with the fact that the president has lied whether he publicly admitted it or not. >> it's the benefited nails phenomenon. maybe he just told so many lies, even his come patriots in the republican party are immune to it. this is not simply about lying.
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this is an execution, i think, proved, but i'm a democrat, that the president subordinated national security for a bribe. it's extraordinary. adam schiff today was magnificent in taking us back and showing us just how important this is and how even without the direct witnesses how damning the evidence is. >> and how the large scheme was. we really saw it today. >> we've been focusing so much on witnesses is john bolton going to be called in, which is obviously important, but the documents are, you know, very important as well which have not been turned over. the president bragged about that today saying we have all the material, meaning he has all the material, the white house, because they haven't turned over any. it's different, again, from the clinton impeachment. >> 90,000 pages we produced. 90,000. mr. trump and his white house produced zero.
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i worked in the white house, so did john. the president has the right to talk to aides confidentially. this goes back to george washingt washington. when he established it, when he did, washington said, this doesn't count in impeachment because if you can use executive privilege to block everything, there is nuco such thing as an impeachment inquiry. washington was right. and i think washington a better president than donald trump. >> we'll be right back. there's brushing and there's oral-b power brushing. oral-b just cleans better. it's the one inspired by dentists... with the round brush head. oral-b's gentle rounded brush head removes more plaque along the gumline... for cleaner teeth and healthier gums. oral-b. brush like a pro.
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. the news continues. let's turn things over to chris for "cuomo primetime." chris is this . hello, everybody. i'm chris cuomo. house managers have two more days to make their case for removal of president trump from office. the big question after day one of the arguments is, what's the impact? what is new? what's seems to sway? what is the indication of that? the facts are there to the extent that they are knowable at this point. the democrats are in a little bit of a tricky position. they're arguing that from what we know so far it looks bad. from what and whom we can have, we believe it gets worse. so that creates a question mark that the republicans and, by extension, the president's legal team, will almost certainly use to prove poor effort in the house, you didn't get it done, and, two, we don't know the
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