promised literally for months and months and months on end? again, the whole notion of i think this part is true from the house presentation, the whole mention of the bidens seemed to only pop up late spring, and, you know, the kind of crazy theory that somehow it was ukraine rather than russia when we all know it was russia and, frankly, russia continues, you know, that's been going for some time. again, right out of the putin playbook. so if they've got revealing evidence -- thank you all. >> thank you, senator, very much. >> okay, folks. let me say a few things. first, the president's lawyers will have their work cut out for them. the house managers did an

amazing job and set a very, very high bar, which it will be difficult for the president's lawyers to overcome. the house presentation has been strong, detailed, comprehensive and at many times compelling. just drew you right into it. and they successfully, in advance, we -- preempted just about all of the arguments that the president's lawyers will make. anticipated what those arguments will be, and they answered them even before the president's lawyers got there, and they have to do that because they don't get a chance to rebut the way mcconnell set out the rules. hakeem jeffries, you were as good as adam schiff. and he did an amazing, awe amazingly -- amazingly good job

now, we didn't hear too much about the article two, article two in the impeachment charges til this afternoon, but i believe it's the sleeper. the argument was incredible. it was strong. and it's become clear that president trump demanded complete immunity, participated in a blanket obstruction and had absolute defiance. president trump, in saying he wants immunity for everything, past, present and future said i'm not a president, i'm a king, and no one can stop me, nobody can oversee me, nobody can put a check on me. that is not america. what president trump has demanded and what justifies the house bringing these articles is totally out of sync with the

constitution, the founding fathers and every other impeachment trial. neither president andrew johnson, president nixon or president clinton had the gall, the temerity to come close to even asking what president trump is asking for, which is total absolute. he says i'm going to defy all subpoenas past, present and future. i'm not even going to -- you don't even -- i don't have even have to wait to see what the subpoena is. i'm not going to answer it. that is so against what the founding fathers set up in this country. it is so against what we've had as our tradition, and it is so against the constitution. the president is -- and then, and the president even knows the weakness of his argument because he says he wants complete

executive privilege, but he hasn't invoked it once, not once in this trial in any of the cases. i'll take a few questions on this subject, on the subject i talked about first but others too. >> push back on the ideas republicans have been talking about related to executive privilege concerns. do you believe the article two presentation dovetails -- >> the article two presentation by the house managers decimates trump and the republicans' argument. if you have any fidelity to the truth, they just decimated it, decimated it. and all of the arguments the republicans cited, hakim jeffries, you know, the president's counsel wasn't allowed to be inside. he listed ten republican congressmen who have conducted oversight in exactly the way that the house managers and the house committees did, the democratic house committees. >> can we get your ponce to agencies -- response to agencies

reporting earlier today -- >> yeah. have they verified the recording yet? [inaudible conversations] >> pardon? >> "the new york times" says they just handed it over to house democrats. >> okay. well, as long as it's verified, this is the kind of despicable conduct that the president engages in, the despicable kind of conduct. a lifelong public servant, a woman who dedicated her life to this country, and because she's standing for truth and won't let him break the law, he is vicious to her. no president should be like that. regardless of anything having to do with impeachment, no president should be like that and treat people that way. but he has done it time and time again. okay? thank you, everybody. >> i think what we have all seen

is just four days of partisanship. this has been a very partisan process through this whole charade. if you look, i've been putting out tweets all day about what democratic senators have said in the past about bill clinton, and these individuals have come down here and said just the opposite of what they said back in, what, 1999, and they've been doing it day after day. so i'm looking forward to the white house tomorrow starting to it the record straight too, because this has just been partisan. they've said the same thing, i don't know how many times i've seen ambassador sondland and fiona hill say the exact same thing. i don't believe anything they've said so far is impeachable, and, but i do look forward to watching the white house present their case. >> this is the fourth day that we've heard the democrats make their arguments. final arguments are going to be tonight, but i will tell you they've run out of things to say about three days ago. that's because the case that

they're presenting is weak and it's flimsy even though they on the floor have said that they have a rock solid case, that the evidence is overwhelming and that there's a mountain of evidence. well, if they've already presented an overwhelming amount of, a mountain of evidence, rock solid evidence, then there should be no need for additional witnesses because they have made their case. tomorrow the white house is going to be able to make its case x for the first time the defense of the president will be made for the public to see. >> main thing you need to pay attention to is now the fourth version of what we've heard from the house. and i've watched the three before behind closed doors, what was leaked out, the public version, the four constitutional

experts, and there is not one new thing other than exaggeration using words like " overwhelming," and the dynamic is going to change tomorrow because you're going to finally hear the counterpoint. when you do this in a vacuum and you keep repeating the same thing, you're not going to win this by time of possession. you've got to start telling us what's different from what we've heard before. and you're going to finally hear that when we get our counterpoints starting tomorrow. >> well, i am like senator barrasso, i am waiting to hear that mountain of overwhelming evidence. and they have a little over three hours, i think yet this evening, where they can present that overwhelming evidence. i just can't wait to hear it. so basically true with everything that we've herald, it's been over and over and over again repetition of the previous

day's point, the hour's previous point. but i want to go back because it was brought up, of course, again today. the fact that the president held onto funding for approximately two months for league aid to queue crane. and the -- legal aid to ukraine. and the house managers keep centering on that, they keep going back to that point. but i would remind them that russia invaded ukraine in 2014. 2014 under the previous administration. that administration had every opportunity to present legal aid to the ukrainian people and allow them to push back on russian invaders. and yet they did not do that. they did not do that for two years, folks. two years. and yet we're acting like this is something new that russia has invaded this vulnerable country. they keep going back to that but not willing to recognize it was their own party, their own president that refused to take a

stand against russia and instead cozied up to them and decided not to take a stance to help our friends in ukraine and allow russia to invade and gain a foothold for two years. president trump has done more for ukraine in his short time in office than president obama did when he had the opportunity to provide that aid to the ukrainian people. thousands of ukrainian lives have been lost because president obama didn't take that stand. president trump has. >> i'll make a short statement. i see that jay is also right behind us as well. i was frustrated with this morning because the previous two days they were going through content, but it was the same content over and over again. this morning's focus from 1:00 on, focus was really speculation. it was almost like conspiracy theories and speculation, we think this may be the secret

motive behind it without any facts or basis behind it. they spent much of the early hours going through that, and when they shifted over to the second article of impeachment, as they shifted, it was basically trying to make the argument against what the white house team said was the reason for this october 3th letter. i'm -- october the 8th letter. i'm disappointed the house has said we wanted to go as fast as we possibly could so with we couldn't go to courts, so the president said no immediately, we're not going to even try because we're going to hurry, hurry, hurry, then sit on it for a month and now send it over the the senate and say, no, you should go to the courts, you should stretch this out, you should get additional witnesses. it's a very odd process. if they have a problem with the white house, they go to the courts, they resolve it and actually have those witnesses come, have documents come, they just ignored it flat and said if you can't go from 0-60

immediately, we're going to skip it and impeach you for that as well. that is not typical. clearly, that's not typical, and the timeline shows that to be fact-based. do look forward to tomorrow, getting a chance to hear the rest of the story and the other perspective,. >> senator barrasso, in terms of it being -- [inaudible] what are the specific holes that you see, what are the specific facts that you think the democrats have not proven? what is missing in the picture for you? >> well, first, only one out of three americans say that what the house did was a fair process. they had to rush this through to remove the president from office, and yet they held the articles for 33 days. this was all done as a political stunt. their process was completely partisan, and it was rushed, and it was sloppy. and that's what we've seen presented. it took them four days to do it, but to me, they did not make the case they claimed they made. as jerry nadler said, oh, you can find him guilty in three

minutes. well, i haven't come to that same conclusion. >> senator, you talked a lot about -- [inaudible] and a lot about precedent being set today about -- [inaudible] democratic president and republican -- [inaudible] documents or the testimony, how would that stand for you? [inaudible] >> they've had plenty of time to do that, but as members of the house have said, no, we didn't want to take the time because the president might get with reelected. he's being impeached because of the possibility that he might get reelected. adam schiff has called into question the 2016 election and the 2020 election, and we know the focus is not just -- and chuck schumer was just here. the focus is not just on the presidential election, it's on the senate election are as well. but the president's attorney is here, so we'll give it to him now. >> so let me say a couple things. number one, basically you heard

their case. but you know what it really comes down to, and i just listened to manager jeffries at the end there, it's really trying to remove the president from the ballot in 2020. we are, what, ten and a half months out from an election? and they don't trust the american people to make a decision. and there was such a state of urgency in moving this impeachment proceeding over that nancy pelosi sat on it for 33 days. you don't get it every way, and that's what they're trying to do. so, look, we're going to -- tomorrow morning we start our case, and we're going to put on, i believe, without question a compelling case. as i said, we have two goals. we're going to refute the allegations that they've made, and we're going to put on an affirmative case as well. all right, a few questions. >> [inaudible] his role in asking for the subpoenas not to be complied with as well as any discussions -- [inaudible] about ukraine -- >> no, look, i'm not going to

get into -- he's not a witness, he's a lawyer. that's number one. number two, and this is important, as we've said from the outset, there are serious constitutional issues. to ask what the president's lawyers' advice was to the president i think even they would be hesitant, although they probably would not be. when you tart talking about attorney/client privilege -- look, they've put their case forward, it's our time next. next. >> what do you think about jerry nadler calling the president -- [inaudible] >> i thought that whole -- he was admonished once already, so, i mean, i don't get it. it's the -- it's rhetoric. i'm going to assume it's jerry nadler rhetoric. the fact is the constitution of the united states governs these proceedings. everybody wants to put that on the side. they've completed their first, their phase of this case, they've put their case forward. we will now do ours. next. >> [inaudible] >> well, how do you not? how do you not bring up the steele dossier? they talk about all the foreign

interference as if this is -- first of all, i'm going to bring up a couple of things tomorrow. tomorrow's really our sneak preview because we're only going for a couple of hours, obviously, the way the schedule's set up. but i'm going to tell you something, look for things. look for things when you talk about foreign interference, hear what the fisa court had to say about that in the last couple of weeks. >> [inaudible] >> they've been, they've incorporated -- yeah, yeah. no, there is no obstruction of justice. they said, by the way, that was an interesting thing, this is worse than this one, than that one. bill clinton was an allegation of an obstruction of justice. there's no obstruction of justice here. abuse of power, obstruction of congress? you don't get penalized for exercising constitutional rights. next? >> are you going to argue there's nothing wrong with pressuring ukraine or that he didn't do it? >> look, i'm not going to tell you what i'm going to argue, but i would encourage to see what

president zelensky said about that. next? >> [inaudible] >> i talked about that earlier. look, there is -- an ambassador serves at the pleasure of the president, and you know who said that? the ambassador herself. >> senator graham said someone should do an outside investigation of -- [inaudible] does the president support that? >> i haven't had any discussions on that. the senate, if they wanted to go there, look, for whatever reason the house managers decided to not just open the door, but kick the door down on the burisma/biden matter. for the life of me, i'm trying to figure out what their strategy is, but they've done it. there you go. >> wouldn't you have been talking about that anyway -- [inaudible] >> well, i'm not going to tell you what i would have been talking about or not talking about, but they have certainly opened the door. i mean, look at our brief. it's not that we don't mention if it, i wouldn't say we dwell on it. they spent hours on it. >> [inaudible] >> rudy giuliani, look, i'm going to say it very clearlyity

giuliani was representing a president of the united states, president trump, who was under attack by special counsels. and to look over every possible defense is what a lawyer does. >> [inaudible] >> one more. we're done. >> [inaudible] >> so, look, the senate after this accommodation, we were willing to do it, so we're going to go, i think it was 10-1 tomorrow, i think, is the allocation. >> focus on one thing tomorrow and -- >> i'm not going to tell you exactly, it's going to -- with three hours it's probably going to be a bit of an overview. >> are you expecting to use all 24 hours in. >> i'm not going to make the determination on that until as our case progresses. >> [inaudible] >> it may or may not be. listen, i did an oral argument in a supreme court case where my argument before the rebuttal was eight minutes. worked out pretty well. i think it was 9-0. so sometimes less is more. but i will also say this, if we decide that, as our team decides that we need to take the full time, we'll take it.

if we don't, we don't. we'll make that decision as the matters progress. remember also after this is over, there's two days -- well, 16 hours of questioning, so that could technically go for a couple of days. all right, thanks, everybody. >> the senate impeachment trial of president trump continues today at 10 a.m. eastern as president trump's defense team presents their case before the senate. watch live coverage of the senate impeachment trial on c-span2, on demand can at c-span.org/impeachment and listen on the free c pan radio -- c-span radio app. >> the impeachment of president trump, watch unfiltered coverage of the senate trial on c-span2 live as it happens and same-day reairs. follow the process on demand at c-span.org/impeachment. and listen on the go using the

free c-span radio app. >> our live, unfiltered coverage of the senate impeachment trial continues today at 10 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. please look for booktv later saturday evening after our coverage of the senate. ♪ ♪ >> c-span, your unfiltered view of government. created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. >> the senate returns from its from dinner break to hear the conclusion of the house managers' opening statements. they had 24 hours over 3 days to present those remarks. on saturday president trump's defense attorneys will give their opening statements with the same time frame. we'll now show the house managers and how they concluded their comments beginning with congressman jason crow followed by adam schiff.