our impeachment trial coverage continues. i want to turn things over to chris cuomo. chris? ♪ >> all right. thank you very much, anderson. hello, everybody. i am 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 were 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 would 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 the story? it is proof of this president's perfity, tape of him reportedly talking to lev parnas who was working with rudy giuliani, part of the trump inner circle when it comes to ukraine. 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 a little bit tricky in his 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. you see i'm here at the table. it's good to have everybody here. first, jimmy, i'll start with you. you defend the president's

proposition. the idea of i don't know parnas, i don't know what he was doing. jim schultz, you now have a tape where he obviously knows parnas and he is consulting with parnas about getting arid of the ambassador. >> do we know where that conversation took place, chris? >> uh, maybe. 2018. >> political people there, probably a lot of people there. >> he insisted the secretary of state, maybe his son. >> could've come through the sign and said the things he said and in a political event he had a reaction to what parnas said. that does not mean he knows lev parnas. >> wait a minute? lev parnas says to the president -- they are having a conversation about ukraine. >> how long was that conversation? >> you'll hear it in the tape. we will play it for you. but just contextually, he says here's the problem, parnas does, with the ambassador in ukraine. it's not like a, hi, nice to meet you. and you'll that err it for context. and the president laughs and is

like i'm going to get beached. get rid of her. just do it. you're going to say that that -- >> with a little chuckle like that at a political event with other people present and other big donors president. is he putting on a show? >> in special donors -- >> that could be 40, 50, 60 people in the room. i've been to a lot of political fundraisers, chris. is it four people around the table, or is it a group of people? until we know all the facts, we can't speculate what that would look like. is it a photoshop with the president? or were they sitting around the table? >> do we have the tape already? as soon as you have the tape ready, let me know. contextually it is not what he imagines. here is the tape. watch it for yourself. and don't throw anything at jim afterwards. >> the biggest problem i think where we need to start is we've got to get rid of the

ambassador. she is still left over from the clinton administration. [ bleep ]. >> basically walking around telling everybody, wait, he's going to get impeached. >> really? [ laughter ] >> it's incredible. get rid of her. i don't care. get her out tomorrow. take her out. okay? >> so let me 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. he's like you got to get rid of that ambassador to ukraine. she's saying bad stuff about you. it could've been anybody in line to get a photo with them. this could have been a couple-of-minute conversation. he said, what, the ambassador to ukraine? it's not like they were having a conversation about the ukraine and how they were going to take out the ambassador to ukraine. this is an off-the-cuff conversation and everybody's laughing 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. we knew that from way back when, when the president was involved with officials to get rid of yovanovitch. now we've actually heard it with our own ears which should make a difference. >> lev parnas before this tape came out, huge credibility issues, nobody here is going to doubt that. >> no. >> but here's what he said about this before this tape ever came out, maybe lev didn't even know about the tape. >> i told the president that our opinion that she is bad-mouthing him and that she said that he's going to get impeached, something like that. i don't know if that's word for word -- >> you said that at the table where the president was? >> correct. and his reaction was he looked at me like got very angry and basically turned around to john and said fire her, get rid of her. >> john destafano is an

assistant secretary of state. this is an intimate dinner. this is people he knows, ostensibly people he trusts. parnas is saying something, with all due respect to jimmy, is not what you say on a photo line. he turns to destefano who knows would have this within his ambit of action and says get rid of her. >> i agree. i think this is confirming something we already knew. this is not new information. >> how so? >> because we have all the other witnesses that know about the ambassador's fate who've 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 does fire her, that all happens. there is some path he follows to reach that conclusion. parnas appears to be based on this tape and other evidence in the loop with the president, and so we just have more confidence

that the president has heard badmouthing or bad information about this ambassador, and that has led him at some point to fire -- let me add one more thing. and that is keep in mind most of the other evidence we know about this ambassador is she is exemplary. >> it's his choice as to whether or not he wants to get rid of her. and i don't think you can 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 is no way. you heard the laughter and the jovial activity going on in the background. this is something that happened off the cuff. there was more to it than just this. to say that lev parnas somehow in that conversation influenced the president's decision is absolutely ludicrous and that he turned around and looked at john destefano that that's something he wanted to do. that's probably who was staffing the president that night. >> but that is what he wanted

him to do was go out and get her. so do you think it's a coincidence? >> but i don't think it has any bit of fact that -- she was saying bad stuff about you? >> we're going to take a break. but let's go one step at a time. >> we have no idea. >> but 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 will see how the excuse holds up. stay with us. i'm alex trebek here to tell you about the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase,

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all right. so as they are arguing on the floor of the senate that we need more information because there's more information to the situation than is known to this date, 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 rid of the

ambassador to ukraine, which is a plot the president said he had nothing to do with. now, 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 were quote td as saying 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 your ambassador? >> no. he's somebody that i guess, i don't know, he goes to fundraisers. from what i understand she wouldn't put my picture up. she was an obama appointee, i believe. she wouldn't put -- >> were you telling parna s to get rid of her? you have a state department. >> i probably would've said it was rudy there or somebody. >> you got all of the questioning. would you have asked lev parnas?

like, why would you -- >> yeah, that is what he did. we have jim schultz, jennifer rogers and professor michael gerhardt here. can he get rid of the ambassador? yes. i don't like her, i'm not a fan. i heard bad things. what could make it not okay that he got rid of her? >> it's interesting to note that when the framers were talking about the impeachment power at the constitutional convention, one of the examples they used for impeachable offense was in the president removes a meritorious officer and it would've been done as part of a scheme to undermine or hurt american interests. that's what we get from the constitutional convention. and presumably that's what's happened here. she is somebody the president just said that we heard, well, i've heard bad things about her. well, who is telling him 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. >> what could be a wrong reason? >> to further a scheme, let's suppose, to try and pressure a foreign country to open up an investigation or at least say it will open 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 killing us, she's very difficult on us, she's got to go. if that were part of -- i'll help you with biden, you got to get rid of her, does that change the analysis? >> i think it confirms what the house managers have been arguing. it's another piece of evidence in that analysis for sure. i mean, again, we knew that this had happened before because we've heard about it from a variety of sources including the witness who's testified and including from rudy giuliani who's been spouting off about it on tv and on twitter 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 to her. >> i think that 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 are trying to help me. i think the biden dollas are di. nobody does anything, everybody hates me. why did he deny knowledge so completely in a way that was going to be discovered? >> so he might not know who lev parnas is. you go to political fundraisers. people go to political fundraisers. the president said, well, there's a lot of groupies that show up at events. he's right about that. people come to political events. and he might be with rudy. the president meets people all the time. to say that he hits down with lev parnas and consults with lev parnas is just ludicrous. >> that's what he just did on the tape. >> you can't make that assumption. in passing lev parnas says probably because he's with someone the president knows, he

says you have to get rid of this ambassador. the president's probably already heard negative things about this ambassador. to say that's the sole reason he got rid of him -- >> hold on. let's get the analysis right. one -- >> but if you're going down the road of impeachment, that this was in furtherance of some type of scheme, he can get rid of the ambassador just because he doesn't believe that she's going to carry out his foreign policy. >> that's fine. i think that that is the lesser part of the analysis. i think that if you were able to show, and it's a high bar, that this quid pro quo that i posed to jen that that's what it was, this former prosecutor said i'll help you with the bidens if you get rid of her, now he's got a problem. that hasn't been established. we didn't even hear the house manager's argument. i'm saying something else. you say, oh, this 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. that's exactly 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 the ukraine. that's not something that was going on. >> but levwas in ukraine working with rudy, and you know it and so does the president. so it wasn't a random groupie saying hello at a fundraiser. >> you think the president gets into weeds on those issues? >> yes. >> you really think -- >> yes. >> you tell me he doesn't get in the weeds on anything. >> i never said that. i'm saying the opposite. >> we hear it all the time that the president's not paying attention. he just makes decisions off the cuff. he doesn't listen to his advisers but only when it's to the benefits of the folks that

are trying to attack the president now he pays attention. >> you had it right almost till the end when it's in his personal interest. he wasn't focused on china. he wasn't focused on the usmca. >> you care about getting these deals done -- you're dealing with me now. stare at the nose. what i am saying is he can be interested in getting deals done and also helping himself out by taking a bite out of biden. and this guy is that guy. >> biden's ass. you know what? that has never been -- that issue has never been investigated. >> why did they release the aid? >> that should've never been investigated. >> why did they release it? >> the aid went out timely. >> it was delayed so much that it was found to be illegal by the gao. oh, now you don't like the gao? come on, jimmy. >> the gao works for the congress. there is this push and pull

between the executive branch and the legislative branch all the time. gao typically is going to side on the side of congress just -- >> that's not true. they go against congress all the time. all i'm saying is the facts are there. quick word from each of you guys and we'll go to break. 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 like i said before because we have the president in his own words now doing something that we knew that he had done. but now it's more meaningful because people can hear him doing it. and hopefully that breaks through some of the noise. if they haven't listened to all of the arguments and all of the pieces of the puzzle being put together, maybe they at least listened to this piece because they can hear it straight from the president. >> i'm exercising jim because he has a good look from what we'll hear from the defense. >> i agree that this reaffirms what we already know, which is important. another revelation is that it's consistent with a story that's being told. and one thing i would just say about the response or criticism of it is is that at some point

you just can't shoot every messenger. every messenger that's reported on this can all be bad. most of these people were appointed by the president, were republicans. so at some point you have to lose some confidence from somebody whose defense is i'm going to shoot every messenger that brings me 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. we are going to argue about the defense. i appreciate it. we always manage to do what needs to be done more which is we go at it all the time but we do it with civility. we're going to take a break. we're going to bring someone who's been working on this story from the start. vickie 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 vickie ward's take on this new take, next. - do you have a box of video tapes, film reels, or photos,

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now look. one thing we know for sure is that this president likes to attack messengers, whether they're a lawyer or someone who is 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 is saying things that are against the president's interests. he is 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 that he was doing for the president and rudy in 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 we know about the story and what does it mean legally? we have them both covered perfectly for you. vicky ward, michael zeldin. first the facts in the story in the background. 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't like the ambassador. say the ambassador part. how does the others square with your understanding of the story? >> i think that this tape really serves to kind of 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've been talking to rudy about it that night is impossible? >> no.

in fact, what 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 this company. what's really interesting about that tape is that it didn'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 joe bondi, who is lev parnas' lawyer, there was a general discussion among a very small group of people that the tape is an hour and a half long, and the subject of the ukraine in general came up. now, lev parnas has said that he had problems with the ambassador, she was an obama appointee. i think it's worth remembering that in the indictment that lev parnas is under from the southern district of new york, they do talk about lev parnas'

business ties and, you know, 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. >> so 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 this. first, what does this tape mean on that score? >> that he is not telling the truth. it's pretty straightforward that you can not participate in a 15-person high-dollar donor dinner where you're talking policy and disclaim knowledge of that person. that, to me, is just an untruthful statement. >> especially when what you're talking about isn't some let me tell you what i think of ukraine or, you know, here's why we need to get the price of oil down, one of those things that donors sometimes pay to be able to talk about with someone in power like the president.

this was a specific ambition about the ambassador. and when the president refers to, well, 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 it -- or somewhere in the tmeline of the scheme that is laid out in article i 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 context and they needed new context and she was an obstacle on 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 i. >> 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 that 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 that were going on, the president has two options here in terms fr how this could be understood. one is he didn't like her. he heard she said bad things about him. she's out. that inslates from any other scrutiny, versus if we want to get the bidens, the former prosecutor in ukraine tells me he wants her gone that, she's an impediment to their progress and

what he wants to do with the new president, she's got to go for him to help us. what was the understanding from your perspective? >> well, from my reporting, chris, i would tell you that 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, you know, we've reported all along that this was about dirt-digging on the bidens but it was also a business scheme for lev parnas. he's actually been very candid about that. i mean, i will say that while it has been very interesting in the last few weeks 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 can be good for

the president and good for those who want to prove abuse of power. parnas is going to have to answer about the things he is indicted for. i know you have more. >> i do. >> i know more is coming on this story. i will get in line as one of the people soliciting your afactions on this story. thank you for helping us understand something a little bit better. i appreciate it. 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 thought 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.

i mean, 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 the ukraine with the 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. maybe they didn't think they needed it. 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 prime time. so 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 made a very 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. >> as you know, this is the first time we've seen a party in control prosecuting one of its own in terms of the president being the same party that's in control right now in the senate. do you think that 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. we have a president who's very vindictave. i would not be surprised at all. they may be going through some angst and especially as adam schiff was so powerful in calling on us to do the right thing based on the facts as opposed to all of these distracting kinds of arguments that we know that the trump team will come up with including discredited conspiracy theories

and all kinds of other things. 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. sa, 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 core on what we know to be the right thing to do. >> on some level i think for the people who are watching, some of this is hety stuff. 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 is 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 in ukraine as he perceives it, and the president is heard to say get rid of her, get her out of there, forget it. >> i think the biggest problem i think where we need to start is we've got to get rid of the ambassador. she's still left over from the clinton administration. [ bleep ]. >> basically walking around telling everybody wait he's going to get impeached. >> it's incredible. get rid of her. get her out the door. i don't care. take her out. okay? do it. >> he is obviously lying about not knowing who lev parnas is and what he's about. 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, we know that there is 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. and you know all the other presidents, they produced thousands of documents. and meanwhile this president has totally stonewalled and not a single page has he produced because he thinks he can do anything he wants as president under article ii of the constitution. he said that. he can shoot somebody on fifth avenue, you can't touch me. that is his perspective. he wants to be king. he can just do anything he wants and the sad part is he expects all the republicans to go along with him. and there is a lot of pressure i'm sure on all of them to do just that.

now, the tape that you're referring to, it just corroborates what parnas was saying that donald trump was in the thick of all this. he knew everything that was going on. in fact, he was the circus master. here's a 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'd have to spit up. how can you lend credence to somebody 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 isn't an acquittal, what is your biggest concern? >> there is so much evidence that the president did what he did, he obstructed kocongress a abused his power.

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 find to try and 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, i think we are going to be responsible for what this lawless president does. because he truly believes that he is above the law. >> senator hirono, thank you so much for joining us on such an important night. >> thank you. aloha. what an interesting tech for all watching in realtime. what are the republicans more concerned about, the potential of this president to abuse power and do things in an election year that we know he wants tooed? or to abuse them? what motivates them more? we'll see. now, adam schiff within this context was imploring republicans tonight to show courage.

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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 had argued that moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle and how the congressmen struggle 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 and the wrath of their 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, our colleagues and the wrath of our society? >> how will this play in that room? let's discuss with hillary rosen and ron brownstein. ron, help us understand why republicans feel pinched by this president the way they do. >> well, they share the same constituency with him. he represents the core of their base. there are 53 republican senators. 51 of them are from states that voted for donald trump. they are down to only two republicans left, cory gardner in colorado and susan collins in maine in states who voted for hillary clinton. 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 marshaled by the house impeachment managers this week. you see it on an attack on martha mcsally. or mike pompeo today throwing a rage when a reporter asked him about ukraine. so many of the republican legislators at this point are not comfortable with dealing with interests or challenges from beyond their coalition. and within that coalition trump reigns supreme. >> now, hillary, we are both able to remember when then-president bill clinton was impeached. and a lot of democrats were mad at him for putting him 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 gettable persuadables. and i think that window has narrowed. that's ron's area of expertise. he can affirm that. and 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 kelly, who's a democrat who's more moderate. but he's not out there talking about impeachment. i think democrats are going to have a bad week this week in washington. the republicans are going to throw the mud against the wall. they're going to be, you know, 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 they 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 prescription drug costs will be -- i wrote the week of the house impeachment vote that hr-3 which passed at the same time was going to be a bigger issue in the fall of 2020. and that was the bill to lower prescription drug costs. i would just add that the contrast to the clinton is really striking in a couple of respects. every democrat voted not to remove bill clinton from office.

but all but one of them also voted to bring to the floor a resolution of centure. even though he said it did not justify his removal. despite all of the evidence that has been brought to bear, how many of them have even criticized any aspect of what the president -- and they've gone in the opposite direction. from people like ted cruz or josh hawley, through this entire process that they reject they kind of fundamentally reject the legitimacy of a democratic-controlled body trying to scrutinize or much less sanction a president representing red america. it is an ominous moment, a kind of separatist vision that they simply do not accept the legitimacy of a democratic house to challenge him. and going to the viewpoint of allowing the president to stonewall congress in a manner they know will set a precedent

that will weaken the institution going forward. >> maybe it is better for the democrats politically if not for the process to not have witnesses, to fight the good fight, to show that we obviously need it. the tape that came out tonight with a guy who says he doesn't know. 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 just feel really, really wrong. hilary rosen, ron brownstein, thank you to you both. we are just hours away from the trump team countering the democrats. what can we expect? the strategy, next. and hit the town with these girls. in a clinical study, 4 out of 5 users felt better joint comfort. take the ultra challenge. try move free today.

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sergeant in arms will make the proclamation. >> the eyes of the nation, eyes of history, the eyes of the 230u7bdi ing founding fathers are upon us. >> the country is watching. >> the president went to extraordinary lengths to cheat in the next election. >> the only conclusion will be that the president has done absolutely nothing wrong. >> if right doesn't matter, we're lost. if the truth doesn't matter, we're lost. >> executive privilege and other nonsense. mr. nadler, it is not nonsense. >> the president's willingness to do whatever it