. our impeachment trial coverage continues. i want to turn things to chris cuomo. chris? all right. thank you very much, anderson. i'm chris cuomo. this is a special midnight coverage edition of the trump impeachment trial. well, we have seen the house managers make their case. they are the prosecution in this process. so now about ten hours from now the trump defense team will have its turn. will they go as long? probably not. they can but they may not. their goal is to convince senators of the opposite of what you heard from the managers. the managers said there's so much here, they're going to say there is nothing here. now, the first challenge for them is to contend with the

powerful closing argument from house leader or lead manager, adam schiff. take a listen. >> whether you like the president or you dislike the president is immaterial. it's all about the constitution and his misconduct. if it meets the standard of impeachable conduct as we have proved, it doesn't matter whether you like him. it doesn't matter whether you dislike him. what matters is whether he is a danger to the country because he will do it again. and none of us can have confidence based on his record that he will not do it again because he is telling us every day that he will. >> so even though it wasn't mentioned by the managers, adam schiff and all the others, as he was making his closing, there was a story breaking that has

major relevance not only to this trial, but the central idea of whether or not these senators know what they need to know. what is this story? it is proof of this president's perfty, tape of him reportedly talking to lev parnas, and they are having a direct conversation, parnas and trump, about firing former u.s. ambassador marie yovanovitch. now, remember, why does this matter? the president can fire ambassadors. that can get tricky as an analysis, but he can basically get rid of them. but he told you to your face he does not know parnas. he does not know what parnas was doing. now there is tape that exposes that as untrue. i will play it for you, but first let's bring in our power players, okay? you see i'm here at the table. it's good to have everybody here.

they'll put your names up. jimmy, you defended the president' proposition. the idea of i don't know parnas or what he was doing, jim schultz,ou have tape where he obviously knows lev parnas, he's consulting with parnas about getting rid of the ambassador and he is giving parnas instructions about what to do with the ambassador. how is that not a lie that he doesn't know parnas? >> do we know where that conversation took place, chris? >> maybe. it was sometime in 0.8 political people there, probably a lot of people there. lars lev parnas, maybe his son could have come through the line and in a political event he had a reaction to what parnas said. that does not mean he knows parn parnas. >> they are having a conversation about ukraine. you'll hear it in the tape but contextually, he says he's the problem, parnas does, with the ambassador of ukraine.

it's not hike a hi, nice to meet you, here's the problem. that's not what it is. you'll hear it for context. and the president laughs, i'm going to get impeached? get rid of her. i don't care, just do it. you're going to say that that -- >> a little chuckle like that at a political event with other donors present. >> abc says intimate dinner with special donors. >> that can be 40, 50, 60 people in the room. is it four people around the table or a group of people? until we know all the facts, we can't speculate as to what that dinner looked like. was it a clique, meaning a photoshop of the president? were they sitting around a table? >> do they have a tape? do you have the tape ready? as soon as you have the tape ready, let me know. contextually, it is not what he imagines. here's the tape. watch it for yourself and don't throw anything at jim afterwards.

>> the biggest problem, i think, we need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador. she's left over from the clinton administration basically walking around telling everybody he's going to get impeached, just wait. it's incredibly. >> get rid of her. get her out tomorrow. i don't care. get her out tomorrow. take her out. okay? >> let me seize on something. >> please seize on something. >> what do you mean the ambassador to ukraine? so they're not having some moment where they're talking about the ukraine and something serious about the ukraine. you got to get rid of that ambassador to ukraine. she's saying bad stuff. it could have been anybody in line to get a photo with him. this could have been a couple of minute conversations. it's not like they were having a conversation act ukraine and how they were going to take out the ambassador to ukraine. this is an off the cuff conversation and everyone is halfing in the background. it sounds like a party.

>> all right. what do you think? >> i think it's a piece of direct evidence. the president did get rid of marie yovanovitch, but we already knew that because rudy giuliani told us that. i mean, we knew that from way back when that the president was intimately involved with rudy's effort to get rid of yovanovitch. it's not really news that the president did it, but now we've actually heard it with our own ears which should make a difference. >> lev parnas before this at the same tape came out, huge credibility issues. nobody here doubts that. but here's what he said about this before this tape ever came out, maybe lev didn't even know about the tape when he had this interview with anderson. listen to this. >> i told the president that in our opinion that she is bad mouthing him and that she said she's going to get impeached, something like that. i don't know if that's word for word. >> you said that at the table. >> correct correct. he looked at me like got very

angry and turned around and said fire her, get rid of her. >> john destefano. this is people who knows, ostensibly people he trusts. people is saying something with all due respect to jimmy you don't say. he knows he would have this and says get rid of her, this person we're talking about. your take? >> i agree. i think this is confirming something we already knew. this is not new news or new information. >> how so? >> because we have all the other witnesses that know about the ambassador's fate who have already sort of shared their testimony and given us some insight into what's happening. so we know at some point, we can just infer at some point the president fires her. that all happens. there's some path he follows to reach that conclusion. parnas appears to be based on this tape and other evidence to

be in the loop with the president. and so we just have more confidence that the president has heard bad mouthing or bad information about this ambassador and that has led him at some point to fire her. keep in mind most of the other evidence we know about this ambassador is she is exemplary. >> regardless of whether she's exemplary or not, it's his choice as to whether he wants to remove her or not. you can't glean from that conversation that that conversation at that moment in time he decided she was a bad actor and wanted to get rid of her. there's no way. you heard the laughing in the background. you heard the jovial activity going on in the background. this was something that happened off the cuff and if you know the president, he does things off the cuff all the time. there was more to it than just this. to say that partisanship parnle influenced the president's decision is ludicrous. he looked at john destefano and

said that's something he wanted to do, that's probably who was staffing the president that night. >> that is what they did, exactly what they did was go out and get her. >> okay. >> you think it's a coincidence. >> the fact that lev parnas says she was staying bad stuff about you -- >> we're going to take a break. one step at a time. here's the point. you're evading the point, which is does he know parnas? the answer is clearly "yes." >> no. >> let's take a break. when we come back i will give you what the president said about this tape before he heard it. you'll hear his excuse and you'll see how the excuse holds up. stay with us. get it.

get it. get it! get it! crowd chanting: get it! get it! get it! (crowd groaning) (crowd cheering) narrator: give your town a reason to celebrate because every goodwill item you bring home, brings job training and more to your community. goodwill. bring good home. so as they are arguing on the floor of the senate that we need more information because there's more information to this situation than is known to the story, a story breaks with a

piece of tape that appears to have a conversation between the president and lev parnas, a man he says he doesn't know talking about getting the ambassador to ukraine. this is from abc news. the president responded to reports about the tape before the tape was out to fox news. here's what the president said to fox news about the abc report. >> you are quoted as saying of marie yovanovitch, the ukrainian ambassador, get rid of her, take her out, okay, do it. were you relying on lev parnas to get rid of our ambassador? >> no, but i have a lot of people. he's somebody i guess based on pictures that i see, he goes to fundraisers. she wouldn't put my picture up. she was an obama appointee, i believe. >> but were you telling parnas to get rid of her? you have a state department.

>> i probably would have said it was rudy or somebody. >> would you have asked lev parnas? yeah, that is what he did. it's exactly on the tape that you just heard. we have jim schultz, jennifer rogers, and professor michael gear hart here. what is the point of this? there are two issues, professor. can he get rid of the ambassador? yes. i don't like her. i'm not a fan, i heard bad things. check everybody box, yes, yes, yes. what could make it not okay that he got rid of her? >> well, it's interesting to note that when the framers were talking about the impeachment power at the constitutional convention, one of the champs they used for impeachable offense was if the president removes a merit torious officer as part of a scheme to undermine his or her interest. presumably that's what happened here. she is somebody the president has just said that we heard -- i

heard bad things about her. from whom? who's telling bad things about her? at the same time while he's got the right to remove her, he doesn't have the right to remove her for the wrong reason, to pressure a foreign down open up an investigation against a political rival. >> so if it's true that the former prosecutor said to rudy giuliani, which has been reported, i'll help you, but you got to get rid of her, she's keeping us out, policing what we do, very difficult. she's got to go. if that were part of the barn bargain, does that change the analysis? >> it confirms what the house managers have been arguing. it's another piece of evidence for sure. again, we knew this had happened before because we heard about it from a variety of sources, including the witnesses who testified and including from rudy giuliani who's been spouting about it for weeks and weeks now. so we knew it happened, but this

is another piece of evidence because it's the president's own voice on a recording that says that this is exactly what happened. >> i think this is an unnecessary problem for the president to deal with. instead of saying you don't know parnas, say, yeah, i know him, he's working with rudy. they're trying to help me. i think the bidens are dirty and they're trying to get me the dirt because i don't trust nub in t -- anybody in the state department. why did he deny knowledge in a way that was going to be discovered? >> he might know who lev parnas is, you go to political fundraisers, you see people with people you know all the time in this business, right? people go to political fundraisers, there are folks that show up and the president says there are a lot of groupies that show up at events. he's right about that. >> but he's working with rudy. >> the president needs people all the time. to say he sits down with lev parnas and consults with lev

parnas is ludicrous. >> in passing lev parnas he says you have to get rid of that amounts of the president already heard a lot about this ambassador, probably negative things. to say he's now -- that's the sole reason he got rid of him because lev parnas at some political event -- >> hold on. let's get the analysis right. one -- >> if you're going to go down the road of impeachment based on it, that this was in furtherance of some type of scheme, he can get rid of the ambassador just because he doesn't believe she's going to carry out his foreign policy. >> that's fine. that's the lesser part of the analysis. i think if you were able to show, and it's a high bar, this quid pro quo i posed that that's what it was, a prosecutor said i'll help you with the bidens if you ged rid of her, i'm saying something else. you say the idea that he would be consulting with lev parnas because lev parnas is part of

this job to get rid of the ambassador, that's exactly what it is, jimmy. he is consulting with parnas because parnas has been in ukraine working sources for rudy through the ukrainian government, telling them that this is going to happen if they don't give the president what he wants, they're not going to get the aid. and that's what he's talking to him about. it lines up completely. what do you mean assume? >> no. i think you're wrong about that. this is a political event. you're assuming that this is maybe the four of us or a few other people around this table discussing ukraine. that's not something that was going on here. >> but lev was in ukraine working with rudy, and you know it, so does the president. so it wasn't a random groupie saying hello at the a fundraiser. >> he shows up with other people all the time. you think the president gets in the weeds on those issues? >> yes. >> you really think that? >> yes. >> you tell me he doesn't get on the weeds in anything, any policy decision. >> i never said that. >> all the media says the president doesn't. we hear it all the time the

president's not paying attention and makes decisions off the cuff. he doesn't listen to advisers, but only when it's to the benefit of the folks trying to attack the president. >> you had it almost right to the end. when it is in his personal interest, his focused -- >> china, he wasn't focused on china. >> evidently. >> he wasn't focused on the usmca. >> he could be interested in getting deals done and helping himself out by taking a bite out of biden's ass and going to ukraine to investigate him. and this guy is that guy. >> you keep saying something about getting a bite out of biden's ass. >> yes. >> that issue has never been investigated. >> why did they release the aid? >> that has never binary investigated. >> why did they release it? >> aid went out timely. >> no, it was delayed so much that it was found to be illegal by the gao. >> now you don't like the gao.

jimmy jimmy jimmy. >> the gao works for the congress. there's a push approximate pull between the executive and legislative branch all the time. gao typically is going to side on the side of congress. >> they go against congress all the time. the facts are there, i don't know why you have to deny them. what do you think of the situation? how much exposure to the president, how much does it affect the analysis? >> i think it is important because we have the president in his own words now doing something that we knew he had done, but now it's more meaning. because people can hear him doing it. hopefully that breaks through the noise. if they haven't listened to all the arguments and pieces of the puzzle being put together, maybe they at least listen to this piece because they can hear it straight from the president. >> i'm exercising, jim, because he is a good look at what we'll hear from the defense. >> this is further evidence that reaffirms what we already know, which is important, another revelation that's consistent

with a story that's being told the narrative that the house managers put on. one thing i would say about the response or criticism is at some point you just can't shoot every messenger. every messenger that's reported on this one way or another can all be bad. most of these people worked with the president, were republicans. and so at some point you have to lose confidence from somebody whose defense is i'm going to shoot every messenger that brings bad news. >> i don't think you're going to see that from the defense. >> hold on. you're going to come back next hour and we'll argue about the defense. i appreciate it, jimmy. thank you for doing this. we always manage do to go at it but with civility as the chief justice instructed. we're going to bring someone who's been working on this story from the start. vicky ward knows about parnas, knows about where he fits in and how and why and how he found his way to this place and what he means to the president and his lawyers. we'll have vicky ward's take on

this new tape next. if you look close... jamie, are there any interesting photos from your trip? ouch, okay. 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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now, look, one thing we know for sure is that this president likes to attack messengers whether they are a lawyer or someone who was faithful to him. once they say something that's against his interest, they get it. lev parnas, who supposedly loved the president, loved rudy giuliani, now he's saying things against the president's interest, he's getting both barrels. a groupie, a con man, that's how the president continues to characterize lev parnas despite the pictures of them together, the money that was given and promised, the relationship with rudy giuliani with lev parnas

has proof he was doing for the president and rudy ukraine as well as with his associate, igor fruman to, quote, take out the ambassador. what is the potential incriminating nature of this tape? what does it mean about what western about the story and what does it mean legally. vicky ward, michael zeldin. first, the facts and the story and the background. >> right. >> the president, i don't know this guy. i would have never talked to him about something like this. i would have talked to rudy and i don i don't like the ambassador. how does it square with your understanding of the story? >> i think this tape really serves to corroborate what lev parnas has been saying. and what is so interesting is that that dinner, according to lev parnas and according to all our reporting was a very small dinner, 15 people, interestingly rudy giuliani was not there.

>> so the idea that the president would have been talking to rudy about it that night is impossible. >> no, in fact, i've reported in the past for cnn that really rudy and lev parnas only come together and start working on ukraine six months later after lev parnas has found a way to get rudy paid by his company. what's interesting about that tape is also it doesn't come to abc news from lev parnas according to his lawyer. the person who made the tape and who's not commented about it was actually igor fruman. according to joseph bondy, lev parnas's lawyer, there was a general discussion among a small group of people. the tape is an hour and a half long, and the subject of ukraine in general came up. now, lev parnas has said that he had problems with the ambassador. she was an obama appointee. it's worth remembering in the

indictment that lev parnas is under from the southern district of new york, they do talk about lev parnas' business ties and there's a notion that maybe the ambassador was an obstacle to parnas and fruman's business ambitions in the ukraine. and i think it's important to remember that in the context of this dinner. >> now legally, michael, we have a couple of different boxes here. one is the president said i don't know parnas, i don't know what he was up, to i would have never talked to him about anything like that. what does this tape mean on that score? >> that he's not telling the truth. it's straightforward that you cannot participate in a 15-person, high-dollar donor dinner where you're talking policy and disclaim knowledge of that person. that to me is an untruthful statement. >> especially when what you're talking about isn't some let me tell you what i think of ukraine or here's why we need to get

price of oil down or one of those things donors pay to get to talk about. this was a specific ambition about the ambassador. when the president refers to that's something i would have talked to rudy giuliani about, even though he wasn't at the dinner, what does it tell you? >> that it is the beginnings of or somewhere in the time line of the scheme that is laid out in article 1 of the articles of impeachment which say that there was an effort to get dirt on the bidens, that at the time that yovanovitch was there and zelensky took over, they lost their contacts and they needed new contacts and that she was an obstacle to them making progress on their biden dirt scheme. this seems to me evidence of that collective scheme toward the end that is what is part of article 1. >> how is it an abuse of power to get rid of an ambassador that he has power to get rid of?

>> so this is the debate we've had for some time, chris, about whether or not a person who has the power to do something properly can do so with corrupt motive. we talked about this in the context of firing mueller. can you fire mueller? yes, because he's not doing a good job. can you fire mueller to cover up the investigation that he's undertaking of you? maybe not because it's with corrupt intent. the same thing would apply to the ambassador. can he fire and hire ambassadors? yes. can he do it with corrupt intent to protect himself from inquiry from congress, probably abuse of power. >> in terms of what you understand, vicky of the facts and conversations going on, the president has two options in terms of how this could be understood. one is he didn't like her. he heard she said bad things, she didn't hang his picture, she's out. that protects him. that insulates him versus if we

want to get the bidens, the former prosecutor tells me he wants her gone, what he wants to do with the new president, she's got to go for him to help us. that's something different. what was the understanding from your perspective? >> from my reporting, chris, both things could be true. that he could discuss ukraine with lev parnas in april of 2018 at a small dinner and that lev parnas, rudy giuliani could come together in late 2018, their interests could align over joe biden and dirt-digging, and we reported all along that this was about dirt-digging on the bidens but also a business scheme. he's been candid about that. i will say that what has been very interesting is that everything lev parnas has asserted has seemed to be backed up. the tape is the latest --

>> he has the documents. his problem is, obviously, i don't think they're going to call him, which could be good for the president and good for those who want to prove abuse of power. parnas, to have credibility, is going to have to answer why he's done the things he's indicted for. only then will people believe him. this tape helps. vicky, i know you have more. >> i do. >> i know more is coming on this story. i'll get in line. michael zeldin, thank you for help us understand something a little bit better. appreciate it. >> thanks, chris. >> vicky ward, michael zeldin, thank you. the battle for witnesses and documents, this is a big part of this for the democrats. every democrat we had on tonight says as strong as they think the managers were, they don't believe the votes are there to convict or remove. it's about getting the full story out. we have one of the jurors. what she thinks of tonight and what she thinks lies ahead, next.

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. what irony that as they are arguing on the senate floor

about whether or not we truly have enough information to understand what happened with this president in ukraine, a new tape comes out with the president talking in serious terms about the ambassador to ukraine with a man he says he doesn't know. yet you haven't heard a word about it from the house managers today. maybe they didn't have time, but what you did hear was a final push from the managers that this president is taking power from the very senators who have to decide his fate. one of those senators is a democrat from hawaii, senator mazie hirono. here's her take. senator, thank you very much for joining us on primetime. >> certainly. >> where do you believe things stand now in terms of the case that was made by adam schiff and the rest of the house managers? >> the house managers presented a really powerful case for both articles of impeachment, the abuse of power and the obstruction of congress which was pretty much all day today. they hid a powerful case.

it was a fact-based case, and i'd like to see the trump team rebut on a factual basis as opposed to calling people names and talking about the process. >> this is the first time we've seen a party in control prosecute one of its own in terms of the president being in the same party that's in control right now in the senate. do you think they will be able to avoid the proof and find their way to not voting for witnesses? >> i think that that's what's going to happen because we have a president who's very vindictive and he'll go after anybody who doesn't agree with him. he has every expectation that mitch mcconnell will hold his caucus in line, and so i would not be surprised at all. they may be going through some angst, especially as adam schiff was so powerful in calling on us to do the right thing based on the facts as opposed to all these distracting kinds of

arguments that we kno that the trump team will come up with, including discredited conspiracy theories and all kinds of other things. and he's really called on us to do the right thing. and i think it's really hard because they're under a lot of pressure to stick with the president. >> if it were a democrat and he was saying to you, hirono, or he or she said you go bad on me, this is the last time you're going to be sitting in this chamber, you're done, i promise you that, would you still vote for witnesses? >> yes. you know, i mean, it may be easy enough for us to say, but i think all of us have to ask ourselves if it were a different name, a different party, would we be responding in the same way and that's why we have to look to our moral code and what we know to be the right thing to do. >> right. look, on some level i think for the people who are watching, some of this is heavy stuff. they're big concepts, constitutional concepts, a lot of information over a lot of

time, but some of it is very basic. the president told you, told us, told everybody i don't know this guy, lev parnas who was doing all this work with rudy giuliani for him. i don't know him. i don't know what he does. i don't know what he's about. now there's a tape out of him in direct communication with lev parnas and others at an event where parnas is telling him about the problem with the ambassador of ukraine as he perceives it, and the president is heard to say get rid of her, get her out of there, forget it. >> the biggest problem, i think, we need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador. she's leftover from the clinton ambassador. >> [ bleep ]. >> basically walking around telling everybody, wait, he's going to get impeached, just wait. >> really? >> that's incredible. >> get rid of her. get her out, i don't care. get her out of there. take her out. okay? >> excellent. >> do it. >> he's obviously lying about

not knowing who lev parnas is. if he's lying about that, how can the senators avoid learning more about the situation if the president's lying about the central issue? >> i think they have their marching orders. they know what they're supposed to be doing. and so regardless of what information is out there -- because we know that there's a lot of evidence out there that mitch mcconnell doesn't want the senators to either see or hear. that is very obvious. and he doesn't want us to have witnesses or documents. you know, all the other presidents, they produced thousands of documents. meanwhile, this president has total stoennewalled and not a single page because he thinks he can do anything he wants under article 2 of the constitution. he said he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue. he wants to be king. so here he is. he just can do anything he wants

and the sad part he expects all the republicans to go along with him. and there's a lot of pressure, i'm sure, on all of them to do just that. now, the tape that you are referring to, it just corroborates what parnas was saying that donald trump was in the thick of all of this. he knew everything that was going on. in fact, he was the circus master in all of this. here's the president who lies every single day. he's lied 16,000 times. when his lead lawyer, cipollone, said at the midnight hour on tuesday that the president is a man of his word, if i was drinking something, i had to spit up. come on. how can you when the when we know the president lies every single day. >> what is your biggest concern if there are no more witnesses, if this results in a final vote that that is an acquittal, the president is not removed, what is your concern? >> there's such overwhelming evidence that the president did what he did, abused his power,

obstructed congress, that if we don't convict him, then of you a president who believes that he can do anything under article 2 and he will be doing more. my concern is who is he going to pick on next? what vulnerable country is he going to pick on? what pool of money is he going to try to bribe somebody with it because we know as adam schiff said, we know this president is going to keep doing it, and i tell you, anybody who doesn't look at the facts and vote their conscience, we're going to be responsible for what this lawless president does because he truly believes he's above the law. >> senator hirono, thank you so much for joining us on such an important night. >> thank you. aloha. >> with a an interesting test for all watching in real time. what is the republicans concerned about the potential "f" for this president to do things in an election year that we know he is wont to do, or to abuse them? what motivates them more? we'll see. now adam schiff within this

context was imploring republicans tonight to show courage. but is there enough courage to take up the politics of impeachment? next. >> so it has now ended for the

adam schiff made a very interesting argument, really a sell at the end of his argument tonight. he was talking about robert f. kennedy and talking about how bobby kennedy argued that moral courage is a rarer commodity than deprabravery in battle and the congressman struggled to understand that. and his point was that at a time like this, you have to have the strength to stand up even to trump.

>> few, he said, are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, is censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of society. and then i understood by that measure just how rare moral courage is. how many of us are willing to brave the disapproval of our fellows, censure of our colleagues, and the wrath of our society? >> how will this play in that room? let's discuss are hilary rosen and ron brownstein. ron, help us understand why republicans feel pinched by this president the way they do. >> well, they are -- they share the same constituency with him. he represents the core of their base. 53 republican senators, 51 of them are from states that voted for donald trump. they're down only two republicans left. cory gardner in colorado and susan collins in maine in the

states that voted for hillary clinton. so, they have kind of largely -- the republican coalition is becoming in many ways a closed circle. you see it in the way they have brushed off this enormous amount of evidence that has been marshalled by the house impeachment managers this week. you see it in martha mcsally's attack on hour colleague, manu, saying get away you liberal hack. or mike pompeo throwing a rage when asked about ukraine. so many republicans are not comfortable with dealing with interests or challenges from beyond their coalition. and within that coalition, trump reigns supreme. >> now, hilly, we are both able to remember when then president bill clinton was impeached, and a lot of democrats were mad at him for putting them in that position whether they liked the case or not. but he did not have a hold like this on them.

how did you see the difference? >> i think two things. first is that i honestly think that, you know, will rogers was right, that the democratic party is, you know, made up of factions and it's never really changed. and so we are our own worst enemy in that way. republicans are much better at sticking together. and secondly, i think the difference is that there was actually a real middle during the clinton impeachment years. and that has shifted. we are a much more divided country where, you know, both sides have gotten closer to 50%. so, the middle used to be maybe 25% of kind of getable persuadeables, and i think that window has narrowed. that's ron's area of expertise. he can affirm that. so i think we're at this place where people have decided that their best chance at political success is to keep their base energized as opposed to try and take the risk of stepping

outside their comfort zone to a place where they may get other support. arizona will be a good test. martha mcsally is actually behind in that senate race to mark kellie who's a democrat who's more rod mmoderate. but he's not out there talking about impeachment. the republicans are going to throw the mud against the wall. they're going to be aggressive and mean and have a very loud megaphone amplifying what they say on the senate floor with donald trump. and democrats are going to have to be smart like we were in 2018 and bring politics back to local. >> how do you do that, ron? how do you deal with making this such a big deal and then finding a way to not campaign on it? >> i don't think it's going to be a central issue in the fall. health care and prescription drug costs -- i wrote the week of the house impeachment vote that hr 3 is going to be the bigger issue in the fall of 2020 and that's the bill to lower

drug costs. i would aadd the contrast to clinton is different in a couple of respects. all but one of the democrats also voted to bring to the floor a resolution of censure. tom daschle bitterly criticized bill clinton's behavior even as he said it did not justify his removal from office. contrast it with what we've seen from republicans. how many of them have even criticized any aspect of what the president has done. they've gone in the opposite direction. from teem like ted cruz or josh hawley, you're getting closer to saying explicitly what i think has been implicit through this entire process. they reject the legitimacy of a democratic controlled body trying to scrutinize or much less sanction a president representing red america. it's an ominous moment, a separatist vision that they do not accept the legitimacy of a

democratic house to oppose him. and going to the point of stonewalling congress in an amount that would weaken the institution of the other party. >> quickly here maybe it is better for the democrats politically if not for the process to not have witnesses, to fight the good fight, to show we need it. the tape that came out tonight with the president talking about ukraine policy with the guy that says he doesn't know helps that. there's so much we don't know. but then they don't get the witnesses. this ends. you can get back to the business of the house and the senate and they campaign on the other things. maybe that's the best situation even though right now it would feel really wrong. hilary rosen, ron brownstein, thank you very much to you both. we're hours away from the trump team countering the democrats. what can we expect? the strategy next. my grandfather had an amazing life,

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