. 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 unknown, your job was to prove

it and you didn't. how will it play? one indicator is the president. he's back home from davos. and he said earlier that he would love to be at the trial and he was pushed by a reporter, and then go. i might. why don't you? i'd love to. i'd like to sit in the front row, he said, and stare down the democrats prosecuting the case against him. what he did not say that she would do what you could see as the measure of a person with nothing to hide, sit in the chair, take the oath, and tell us the truth. that apparently is not in his desires of what he would love to do. let's break down the case made against the president today, what did i do this, what did they still need to do, what difference it makes, great minds. andrew mccabe, michael guerre heart, thank you one and all.

we see pluses and minuses. andrew? >> i think like many of the folks have said earlier this evening, i think schiff was incredibly impressive. >> why? >> he knows the facts, he knows the law, he laid it out in a compelling way that hit not just the details but the patriotic and the kind of -- the themes behind why this should be important to ordinary americans simple to understand if you're not a senator? >> i think so. here's where they fell short. eight hours is a language time to put any presentation on front of any audience. i think what they lacked today was clearly communicating the structure of the presentation. there were times when i found myself as a fairly educated consumer of these things, tracking these dominates for many weeks now, there were times i didn't know where they were in the presentation. some of the presentation seemed to overlap. some of the facts were repeated. i think if they continue in that manner, it's going to feel

muddled and overdone after three days of this. >> i was impressed that they did not fall down the rabbit hole of trying to anticipate and rebut the white house's, you know, whatever weird jedi mind trick they've been pulling. they made an affirmative case. addressed objections in their own way. for example, incorporating the acts of obstruction at the point where additional evidence might have been helpful but they were being stonewalled by the white house. so they were covering both of the articles and also doing it with their own narrative and not necessarily trying to rebut the white house in advance. >> schiff did that especially the way it appeared to me. he would say this is what we know. now, what we suspect is this, and what we would like to see is this, but you can't show it to you or can't give you this

person. they won't allow it. that was interesting. my pet peeve through this process. i know you don't need it. you've all taught me very well in terms of what abuse of power is and what it means and the founders. having a big stick to swing, and it was a bribe. and it was a bribe. do you think that at least optically, seeing how that is the main line, subject to your pushback, of the president's defense? there is no crime. should they have drafted it differently. >> i think they should have included bribery. >> they'll say you're almost as dumb as cuomo. it is in the first article of impeachment. >> i think they could have constructed that around the conditioning of the white house visit with the investigation or the announcement of the investigation. i think it would -- there are two things. it would have been easier if they, you know, had -- i think it would have made it more

complicated, i guess, to explain to the american people because you would have added another component, but that piece, the white house visit piece, it's in the call. it's laid out in the millenniem >> i hear you. you're the law professor at unc, and i know that if you were testing students on this and they said, yeah, you need a crime, they're going to get a lot of deductions. we hear the argument all the time from people. forget about social media. but i don't get what the crime is. don't they all abuse their power? so will he, eh, lied, but don't they all do that? he was pressuring them because he wanted something. don't they all do it because of that. that's as big an obstacle as any to the democrats. how do you see it? >> i don't ultimately see it as an obstacle. but having said that, i

understand why people can get confused and they find appealing focusing on the fact that there should be a crime somewhere. here's where it becomes a problem in this particular situation. the president's lawyers are arguing now there has to be a crime in order for him to be impeached, but they are also saying as president of the united states he may not be subject to prosecution in office. >> they argued exactly that. not just indictment, they argued in federal court no process at all. and the judge asked his hypothetical what if he killed somebody, they said, yes, that as well. >> what they set up is a situation which is impossible to meet. on the one hand, you would have to be able to show there's a crime here. on the other hand, he's going to be able to able to argue, look, he can't be held responsible for that crime while he's in office. therefore, there's no other way to hold him accountable. the only option they're going to

concede south dakois the electi. the right direction, which the framers set up impeachment to address is abuse of power. that's the exact reason why impeachment's in the constitution. there's there to provide a check against the president that is abusing his power, which is illegal. it's defined as exceeding the powers the constitution gives you. therefore, when you abuse power, you're engaging in unconstitutional activity, you're violating the constitution, that's illegal, and there's where the breach of the law is. >> andrew? >> i don't disagree with that, but here's my thoughts on it. had they made the argument that the exchange he requested initiations is tantamount to a bribe. right now what the republicans are saying is, you failed to

state in the articles an impeachable offense. you failed to meet the threshold of impeachable offense. had they included the word bribery in the articles, the entire conversation would be around does it qualify as bribery or does it not, which is ultimately, i think, better ground for the democrats in the house to fight on. >> was there a moment of the day that jumped out at you guys? >> it was for me. >> plus or minus. one of the moments that disturbed me was when republicans started walking out of the trial. that's a very problematic -- >> we don't have that because i remember why. i know there are cameras. but this is the senate that controls the cameras. and it makes us actually -- me anyway, i miss the days of c-span because at least they would move their cameras around a little bit. there is reporting that up to 21 seats, i think, i saw reported online after the floor manager, bob, told me about it, republican seats that were empty

at once, not over time. what does that mean to you? >> that means -- >> it has to be a violation of the law. >> i was about to say that. it was a violation of the law, which conveniently they don't have on tape. what it reinforces is this sense that not only is the president in a sense a scoff law saying i have the information. we have senators who don't care about the law either. that's a problem and at some point the american people have to hold all these people accountable and hopefully that'll happen relatively soon. >> look, to the earlier point about what makes it more simple and complicated, the idea of having a big stick to swing about what this was, simple matters of politics. i know this is for the senators. i know this is technically for a small swing group of senators, but that's just a dream to get witnesses.

what do witnesses help you -- we're not dealing with unsophisticated people. they want john bolton and mulvaney and they want pompeo. if i were on the democratic side, i would go very heavy on the category of be careful what you wish for again. this is the same thing they said about the russia investigation. the next one, the next one, the next one and it never came to bear fruit. similarly, do you believe mike pompeo is going to give up the goods on president trump? or mulvaney or bolton? even if they ask him about the drug deal, you don't think he explains that way as i didn't like the way he was conducting foreign policy, but it's up to him? >> yeah. they are wild cards in that own way. i think the documents are the more important piece of evidence that they need. we already know from security reporting that gave the unredacted versions of the emails released by the department of justice that these

days documents actually contain conversations that go to points that the house managers want to make. >> just as important as the substance, i stole a lot of your points, but you said to me once before. the fact they won't give them is as powerful a point of persuasion, and the president echoed your point. play the sound we have of him. >> we're doing very well. i got to watch enough. i thought our team did a very good job. but honestly, we have all the material. they don't have the material. >> basically confessed to the second article. >> i won't give you the information or people. that doesn't seem to be getting purchase with people, that he won't -- i think it's the biggest thing going in this situation in terms of the optics for the american people. he won't let you have access to the people he says will explain

it was okay, nor any of the documents that will explain what happened here, which he says would exonerate him. does that make sense? how do you deal with that? >> it doesn't make sense and i think the reason that's not getting purchase is because this is entirely consistent with who the president is and how people understand him. he is seen as the great counterpuncher, the great fighter. so he's coming into the fight of his political life and he perceives that, you know, it is completely fair game to bring to that fight any bare knuckle tactic that can to defend himself. if that means i have all the information that you want and i'm not going to give it to you, fine. he doesn't get bogged down in subpoenas and laws and legal process. he's just going to fight tooth and nail to defend himself in any way he can. >> whatever it takes. i never heard a republican have a good answer yet to this. release the aid, man, nothing

happened. they didn't investigate the bidens, they got aid, leave it alone. nothing happened here. but isn't that exactly the problem, professor? is that the aid was being held in anticipation of this offering from ukraine, and only once there was word of the concern over this pressure campaign. was the aid released, even though there was no satisfaction of the stated need of we're only doing this for corruption and to test that it isn't there, but they got no satisfaction on that. why did they release the aid? >> it's a really good question. as you point out, the president says he was concerned about corruption generally. there's no evidence that supports that at all. there's certainly no indication that he got what he wanted, the favor he requested in this situation. we also know that in a sense he was getting caught. once he's caught, what's he going to do? up until this time, if we look

at the other evidence that's come forward since the impeachment, there's a lot of evidence indicating that people in the administration were getting extremely upset and antsy about the fact the aid was not being released of that was the law congress passed. they passed a policy. the president's job is to enforce that policy. he wasn't enforcing that policy. and at some point people in his administration were begging him, bolton among others, begging him to release this. >> and they were right, not just for political reasons, but legal ones, the gao saying you needed to do it or it was legal. thank you for giving us a taste where this started today. where it goes, we don't know. thank you very much. ahead, we have someone who's been in there, this front row seat. by the way, how did this play that the republicans aren't there? that tells you that this person is a democrat because i can't get a republican senator to come on right now. what does that tell you? a good interview next.

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two points of perspective on what this is all about, this impeachment. is it about the jurors in the room? getting republicans as the task would be for democrats to see a member of their own party, a president nonetheless, as worthy of taking a side against? that's one way to look at it. the other is this is about you, and you understanding what senators are and are not allowing as acceptable conduct. so let's talk to someone who's in that room and get a sense of what it's like, democrat from new mexico, senator u dall. what is it hike this day of living history to hear the argument? >> this was a pretty amazing day getting into this first day of hearing the really full

rendition, kind of big-picture part of it. what fascinated me was hearing so much new things that have come out and the interconnections. if we're really searching for the truth like we should be doing in a trial, why don't all of us join together to get more witnesses and get the key people here to really understand what's going on? i'm mystified in a way by the republicans and how uniform they are at not wanting to learn more about this. i don't understand it. >> there was some reporting out there that there were empty seats on the republican side. did you see any vacancies? >> there were a few seats. i think the idea that i'm thinking about about how to try to get into the additional evidence, get into witnesses and documents, is it's an idea that chris von holland had us vote on

but we're thinking of bringing it back. why don't we let the chief justice determine what is material and relative? seems to me we ought to let the other party, appointed by a republican president, impartial, neutral, let him rule on the witnesses and the evidence. that seems to me like a really good idea. >> it went down on a party line vote last night like all but one of the amendments. and you know what the answer to your question is. the answer is because of the republicans have the power. why would they want to give the power to anybody else, even the chief justice? >> the power is -- you're giving it over to determine relevance on witnesses, so you don't need to get into partisan battles and you're doing the right thing, you're trying to seek the truth, you're trying to get to the bottom of what happened. that is our role, to be in the senate and to seek the truth here.

we're not supposed to be partisan, voting partisan line. so trying to figure out what are those ideas, what are those things that make it so that we can come together and learn as much as we can. you obviously with the truth you don't learn everything, but you can sure get a lot more than what we're getting right now. >> you want the best version of the truth, but you have the majority leader who told the world before he took the oath that he is not impartial, that he would be in lock step with the white house. this is the first time that we've seen a party try a president of its own and clearly they are struggling over there to the extent it's taking effort for them to be anything but partisan. why do you think they would surrender any of that power? >> well, it's really unfortunate what the majority leader did. but i think after hearing this now for two days, and a lot of new things have come out.

i hope that the republican side is learning a lot and i think what we're going to see is of them start trying to figure out how do we learn a little bit more. they have said over and over again they want to wait and vote on witnesses at the end. if they're truthful and say that's what they really want to do and that's their desire, i think they're going to learn a lot by then and i hope they change their minds on learning more, seeking the truth, getting to the bottom of what's going on here because this is pretty scary for our democracy. >> well, look, it has to function. and these are very interesting days and how this plays out will largely play as a metaphor for the state of the democracy during an election year. what do you think the chances are that sometime next week there will, in fact, be a vote and witnesses will become part of this process? >> i don't know what the chances are, but i'm going to do everything i can visiting with my republican friends, trying to

come up with ideas like this idea of letting the chief justice decide what's relevant and material and let him make a ruling on it. >> and you think there's a chance that republicans would cede that power to somebody they don't control and would definitely lead to witnesses? >> well, it certainly would improve the party-line voting, which i don't think looks good for anybody. a partisan process when you're supposed to be in a trial, everybody knows in a trial you hear witnesses, you look at documents, there's a lot out there we're learning. every hour we're over there there's a bunch of new things we realize we don't have the documents, we don't have the witnesses, we've got to get them. >> so the last question is at this point just in terms of prospectively, even if you were to have the vote on witnesses and you were to get that simple majority, enough cross lines, whatever the math is based on the democrats holding ranks and you got witnesses, do you have any doubt that this president

will be acquitted given this is about votes? >> well, i think the more we get into this and the deeper we get in and the more we learn, i can't believe that republicans aren't going to be very troubled by this, scared by this, and worried about our democracy. that's just where i am today. i don't know what to predict, but i think this is a pretty amazing process and a lot has come out. >> seems like the first place to start is to tell your brothers and sisters on the republican side they have to sit in their seats and listen to what's going on f. they're not there, they can't learn. senator, thank you so much after a long day of taking us through this day, which is living history. thank you for being a part of it with us. >> thank you, it's a pleasure. thank you very much. . >> kind of funny, and the senator is trying to polite, which is one of the hallmarks of the senate. but it's kind of not funny either because if nobody is

really -- if they're not paying attention, if they're not really open, what happens at the end of these and the questionings about the two cases from the senators? what is the chance that you ever get access to the people and the papers that give you the truth about what this pressure campaign was about? now, that takes us to whether or not the people in the room matter. that takes us to what you make those people in the room care about. in the next segment we'll take a look what we believe the impact is and why would some of our top political brains next. ♪ i some of our top political brains next. t some of political brains next. h some of political brains next. ♪ everything your trip needs, for everyone you love. expedia.

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. >> reporter: some . some perspective on one republican that broke from the president in the house amid the mountain of evidence. let's get to two important voice voice voices. raj raj sa manu raju, the republicans he talks to know how they feel about this already. what's your sense? >> i think we've got a half dozen or so republicans. we know this group. and then we have a few democrats who present kind of the potential wild cards here. as far as we know at this point, it's not a question of whether

they would vote to victim. it is a question of whether they will join forces with democrats or counteract democrats to force some of these votes that are going to be important next week on witnesses or new evidence. we're just not hearing from anyone based on the information that's available at this time that there's any real risk of the president actually being convicted in this trial. >> right. it's really just about the optics in that way, that if the votes are there, you're not going to get anywhere near two-thirds, therefore, the president will be acquitted, but how much stink is put on him and how much does the party have to bare, ron, in terms of what they ignored. on that level, the more they allow in, the more they're going to have to account for. so what does that tell us? >> right. that's why it's more than optics because, i mean, even if a conviction is extremely unlikely, after all, no democrat

voted to remove block the from office in 1999 on. for that meratter, no democrat voted to remove andrew johnson. but this process can still have an effect on his overall standing with the public and with the standing of the senators with the public. in the cnn polling that came out this week, 58% of americans said that he abused his power in the way that he dealt with ukraine. in the pew polling today, over 60% of americans say they believe he has probably committed a crime while president. the more evidence that comes out, i think the more -- certainly today, reinforces those perceptions. and the contrary is with those perceptions already in place, simply trying to brush this aside saying we don't need to hear from witnesses, we don't need documents, doesn't really look like they're taking it seriously. >> that's the big question then, margaret. what's the plus/minus in terms

of what's worse in the minds and hearts maybe of republicans? getting beat up for not having witnesses, or getting beat up for having witnesses that make your vote to acquit look bad? >> this is a calculation. in the pew poll, it's interesting because part of what it showed is that a third of republican voters, this is a poll that has just finished being taken. so it's very fresh polling. about a third of these republican voters are saying they think president trump has probably done something illegal or highly unethical since taking office. but most of them, still a majority of that group of voters, still say they don't think he should be removed from office and continue to support him. so it shows the complexities here, the same republicans who are concerned about what happens in a general election also understand that within their base president trump still retains the strong support and that in some cases sort of

damned if you do and damned if you don't. if your re-election is that precarious anyway, is forcing a vote on a motion for more testimony going to help you in any way? so we have this real question, which is will we hear from john bolton, will we hear from mick mulvaney and these other figures? or will the threat of that vote be used for democrats to leverage depositions, new evidence? some of these are new information that could enter the case. if that happens, there's the potential for things to become unpredictable. >> ron? >> even if you're just looking at the politics, though, there are other dynamics than just november because obviously not all of them are up in november. not all of them are facing competitor elections. the other dynamics are i think it's pretty clear that if every republican or virtually every republican in both chambers votes to say there's nothing to sanction here, there's nothing wrong with what the president did in ukraine, they are signing up for more of this behavior.

one thing we know is president trump is a student of power or of weakness. if he perceives they are going to stand with him no matter what, you can bet that he's going to push the envelope further in ways that we can't predict. and the other thing, of course, is there's the institutional issue here. there will again be a democratic president and there will again at some point be a republican congress while there's a democratic president. if every republican in both chambers says it's okay to systematically stonewall and reject any request for information from this congress, you know, they know they are setting a precedent that a future democratic president will be able to employ against republicans down the road. there are other considerations than just how this plays out in november for the handful of republicans, five or six, who are facing truly competitive zblai races. >> it would be nice if fear were enough. what have we learned so far? it's about one set of rules when it's your side and another set when it's the other side.

we're all seeing the clips of how the democrats said different things under clinton. i have they have a better set of facts to the extent we know them than the republicans had with clinton in terms of things that are impeachable by their nature. but i don't know how big a deal precedent is to these guys versus keeping your power and not having a president hunt you down in a primary. >> yeah, i mean, we've all, like -- we're all students of political polarization. so what you do have is a scenario right now where unless there's game-changing transformation that occurs, this is at this point a matter of a court of public opinion. and what this process allows right now as for the day that just finished and the next two days are for democrats to have the stage to themselves, which means that the only person who really has the ability to defend president trump and tell that part of the process is over is

president trump, which is why we may very well hear from him tomorrow. there were a few opportunities. he's leaving for florida to address the republican party's winter convention. and so we may see him at his departure or his return. and you can bet that in that closed-door venue with those republicans that they will be expecting to hear from him and we will hear from him in turn. this is a highly politicized messaging event at this point. >> i'm sure his counsel is going to try to get him to keep it quiet, although so much for that. i think i saw a tabulation that he tweeted more and retweeted more today than in any other day of his presidency. he's going to say what he wants and, in fact, he said to the whole world today who was listening, we have the materials, they don't. that's the problem. thank you very much. how effective is it in making the case? now, if this were a criminal

trial, not a political one, a lot of things would be different. let's look at it this way. let's look at it through the eyes of the law and where we are in terms of making a compelling case of the are the democrats anywhere near where they would have to be to meet that threshold if it were a real trial? next. things you can do with schwab: you can earn more when you invest your cash. you can get a satisfaction guarantee. you can also wonder why our competitors don't offer that. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management.

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here's what we now know after the first day of the case by the democrats. their strategy is to hammer home what they know, okay? but it's a two-step dance. they're going to keep doing it and they try to change people up but it can get representative. jennifer rogers and elliott williams will discuss the dance and how effective it is. i call the dance, jennifer, this. that here's what we know it looks bad, looks bad u looks bad. here's what we don't know, and that could make it worse. i can't show you, they won't give it to me, how is it working? >> working well that it's putting together a compelling case for the public. i don't know the senators will be swayed by this. if they're listening, paying attention and have an open mind, they don't have their phones, so they should be paying attention. they have to think is this really fair, is this what i want to do, will it sway them, i

don't know. but i think they're doing a good job. the best case they can to try to get them to change their minds. >> quick follow. if you were making the case as a former prosecutor, would you like to have the word bribery to swing a little bit bigger than they can? yes, test in the first article, i know. you lectured me on this, i know. but it's not the big-ticket item and the abuse of power s. would you want that tool at your disposal? >> i wanted it when they came out with the articles that explicitly charges bribery. they should have said, yes, it's bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. >> if you start getting into the fight of having a crime, that takes away from the point that impeachment doesn't need to involve a crime. this was specifically what the framers laid out. look, the federal criminal code which lays out offenses from bribery to extortion to even selling crack wasn't written until decades after the

constitution. so the idea that you need a crime in the first place is false. >> that's too big braden, though? >> it's a little big braden. people can get their heads around a term like bribery. i just think we're getting bogged down in the argument from the republicans right now that you need to have had a crime. and so even going down that road i think gets you into trouble. >> what's the best road? >> you touched on this in your opening comments. schiff, the strongest point today was laying out the things that he couldn't show, which was i would love to show you the august 29th -- the call memorandum. i'd love to show you contemporaneous -- i can't show you that. if the audience is those senators, then he won, he got it. if the audience is the public, it's a little esoteric and big braden and that's not a winner. >> lincoln instructed us, if you have the people with you, you have all the power.

that's a heavy suggestion at this point. look, the plus/minus for the republicans is what's worse? >> not having witnesses and people judging me for not really wanting to judge this? or having witnesses, still voting to acquit the president and having people judge me for having ignored things i willingly allowed them to see. the democrats side, jennifer, is interesting. they want witnesses more than anything, right? but what happens if they get those witnesses and they get pompeo, they get bolton, mulvaney, are they going to go bad on the president? even if bolton said, yeah, i thought it was a drug deal, comma, because i thought he should have done it differently? now it's gone just like that. >> bolton is of course the big wild card here. pompeo is not going to turn on the president, neither is mulvaney. they'll have to say certain things if they're called, but they're ultimately going to spin it. bolton we don't know, but he's no friend to the democrats. i think you're right.

they really don't know what they're going to get, but they have to push, push, push. obstruction has been so egregious and so appalling that they have to push for this. i mean, that really is what they have to do to try to show the american people that even if they don't get these witnesses, this is what's going on here, this isn't fair, you have to do something about this in november. >> the unfortunate thing is that i'm surprised how many democrats, even dick durbin, a pretty liberal leader of the democrats almost showing receptiveness having hunter biden come in as a witness. he's not a relevant witness. number two, you would never trade witnesses. you would simply call people who were relevant. >> i'm saying you're at the mercy of the republicans. >> even in a political matter, his testimony isn't relevant to whether the president violated his oath of office or violated the constitution. >> i agree. >> it's relevant to whether joe biden should be president, whether he's compromised whether

there's poor judgment. that's for the voters to decide. but making this apples and oranges saying that if you get john bolton, you get this ancillary witness that has nothing to do with anything. remember john hinckley who shot president reagan? it's as if he called jodi foster because he was inspired by her. >> i'd go a step farther in the analysis, which is if that were the trade, if i were the democrats i'd do whatever deal i have to do to get the people what they want. but i don't think they're going to be as satisfying as the democrats think. you would get witnesses and those witnesses would be proof to a lot more people than they think this case wasn't that great because they did the slam at home for you and it would be helpful to president trump to have anyone connected to the bidens on that stand. what do you think of that? >> yeah. they should not allow hunter biden to be called.

they want to turn this into a circus, the republicans. >> the president. >> and his supporters in the senate and the house presumably. so i think the democrats need to keep it serious. keep it on focus. keep it what it's really about and not go down this ridiculous path of letting this circus explode. >> a week from tonight you will be my best. we will know and i'll be joined by you good people. i will look 15 years older. but every day will really matter. jennifer, elliott, thank you very much, both. so the jury, or the judges, in either case you're talking about the senators here. what are they doing? long day. are think taking notes? other people have been spotted doing things. some people have been spotted with an empty seat where their butt is supposed to be. these are scenes from the trial that will forever go down in history. how are some of these senators

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i'm joe johns at the white house, and this is cnn.

all right. so the cameras in the gallery where the impeachment trial is happening, they are controlled by the senate. they focused on opening arguments, but there are a lot more happening behind the scenes. like what? some senators are getting more lax about their decorum rules. how? well, they have been advised to refrain from speaking to their neighbors, after all, it is their duty to listen here to the arguments put before them, but if you have been seeing openly whispering or passing notes to one another and one made its way to as many as 20 senators up and down the rows. others have gotten around the quote no use of the phones or the electronic devices rules making their way to the floor with apple watches on their

wrists or escaping to the adjoining cloak room like gop senator rand paul who seemed to be scrolling through the phone in the final arguments. and he was also seen with a crossword on his lap hours earlier, but perhaps most pressing is the sidestepping of the guidance to quote be in at ten daps nce at all times in th proceedings. at one point at least 15 seats were empty. i have seen reports of more than that, but at least 15. a dozen democrats also stepped away. all right. senator lindsey graham republican obviously spent more time absent from the chamber than sitting in his seat. that is a violation that he could get in trouble if the rules mattered to anyone. long hours challenging, and we know it. uncomfortable chairs. uncomfortable material, and maybe the chamber's strict rules of the beverages and food, and coffee is banned from the senate

chamber and what isn't? water, milk and candy. do adults drink milk? is that okay? that is kind of weird, too, and most are getting the sugar fix at the candy desk of the senator pat toomey which is known as the bipartisan desk and sugar unites all and open to democrats and republicans and independents and whoever, because it is a metaphor that the senators should be doing their damn job and don't make it about party, but make it about principle. all right. we have a second hour of continuing coverage on the trump impeachment trial, and the first day of major arguments against the president. if you are just tuning in, we will bring you up to speed on all you need to know right now.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ don't get mad. get e*trade, dawg. all right. it is a wrap for day two of donald trump's impeachment trial and technically day one of hearing the arguments of the democrats in earnest without toggling back and forth between the republicans. a lot of it will sound familiar, and that is part of the challenge. so the democrats took to the senate floor, eight hours and really eight hours plus with the breaks, and presenting the case for the president's removal. sarah murray has all of the