suggest anything other that would be completely irresponsible, abuse of power to do what they are asking you to do. to stop an election, interfere in an election and remove the president of the united states from a ballot, let the people decide for themselves. that's what the founders wanted, that's what we should all want. with that, i thank you for your attention and i look forward to seeing you on monday. >> the majority leader is recognized. >> i ask unanimous consent, the trial adjourned until monday, that constitute the adjournment of the senate. >> without objection, the senate

is adjourned. >> the president's defense team begins their opening arguments in the impeachment trial using about two hours on this saturday morning. here on c-span2, we are going to open up our own minds. we want to hear from you what you thought of the opening arguments. for those of you who are democrats republicans used to 027488921. independents, others (202)748-8922. we welcome your text as well 2027488003. make sure you tell us your name and where you are texting from. as we've done in the past, the past couple of days there are several cameras across capitol

hill waiting for reaction from senators. we do know the democratic leader chuck schumer will be here in the tv gallery to speak to reporters at some time in the coming minutes and we will get to that shortly. the president defense team for members of the defense team, his principal personal defense attorney, sekulow and cipollone. the white house counsel and deputy white house counsel mike purpura and patrick philbin in their opening arguments today. susan of the washington examiner's washington bureau chief tweeting this, saying cipollone defending president trump may already be winning over senators in their opening statement. you heard the house manager speak 24 hours. we don't anticipate using that much time. the senate will return 1:00 p.m. monday. we wait for comments from senators, let's go to nicholas in sacramento. on the democrats fine.

nicholas, california. go ahead. you hold off and hear from senator mike. >> that had to be the most refreshing thing in this whole process so far. i thought it was interesting in that not only did they take all the main ones and put together a presentation, but then they put the rest of it side-by-side which showed a completely different point of year. i was interesting, they ended up at the tail end and actually, adam schiff has been involved in this from the beginning. in fact, even when we were talking about the mother report, it had some interesting contradictions. i'm not going to say anything other than contradictions. you can extend it from there.

on his involvement with the whistleblower and also on his statement regarding circumstantial versus direct back on the collusion issue. i think they are clearly going to make the case, the main protagonist, adam schiff has to be looked at in terms of trying to evoke it and talking about the fact that trump is an eminent threat and needs to be removed. i think his credibility will go through this whole process. any questions? >> [inaudible question] >> no, i didn't but now that we are into the first part of the counterpoints and making the case from presidents point of you, i wouldn't imagine how there would be anything but a refreshing feel for how it can be litigated number one and the fact that 23 hours of hearing

nothing but snippets and one point of you in this two hours, i think they made more headway than the entirety that they laid on us with mountains of information from my new shut and just not getting to the points. >> [inaudible question] >> i will be open-minded and listen to anything about any think that we have a good feel for how they are going to litigate the president's defense and i think it's going to be done in a much better way so we can discern the basic information. go ahead. >> thank you, i thought today was an incredible two hours and within two hours, i thought the white house counsel and their team entirely shredded the case that's been presented by the house managers. what we heard today was very concise, it was full of truth and facts as presented from the

house managers own witnesses. it was not filled with half-truths and personal stories about being a soldier or chief of police and wonderful appeals to the audience but nothing relevant to the case. what we saw today was factual relevant to what is going on in the senate and it points out that there have been a lot of half-truths promulgated by the house managers and absolutely pushed by the media as well. what we are looking for our facts. >> this was a good day for america. i say that because the average person in our country wants fairness. they are not looking for part of the facts, part of the information, part of the testimony. i think today we had a better chance to seek elimination of the entire process and for me,

the fact the process, it's a very good day for the country. most americans are in desperate search of a fair process. whether you like the president or dislike the president, you're talking about something that's consequential as in c-span. you don't want your emotions to lead you, you want to be led by facts and information. you want the whole story so today, we had an opportunity to hear more of the story and i suspect on monday, we'll see the process laid out even more comprehensively and in the end, i think the average person in our country will feel better about our government when the government provides all the information, not simply the information that forced the conclusion that was drawn before the process even started. that insight is a sad part of

today. what we learned today, that people were literally in search of guilt, not innocence. >> today the presentation that was strong and that was clear and completely undermined the case of the democrats and truly undermined the credibility of adam schiff. the most effective thing that happened was when they first read the president's counsel first read the transcript of the phone call with the president of the united states and the president of ukraine and then played the video. of adam schiff with his fictionalized made up script and from where i was sitting, i couldn't see his face but the blood drained from adam schiff face as they played that video

and his mate upwards. the house case has been one that's been selected use of information, this use of information and what we saw today in just two short hours is what the house left out in 21 hours all of the effort to undermine and impeach and remove this president and undermine the election in 2020. >> i grew up as a fan of paul harvey, listening to him all the time. as you go through the story, now you know the rest of the story, he was pretty stark today. i mentioned them in the last several days, in a lawsuit the first case seems right until they are cross-examined. today was the first day the fact that we were actually able to cross-examined and set up all these different motivations at the house team has set up and said this is what actually happened but this is the motivation behind it. i've always been, they are

trying to say i know this is what president zelensky said but this is what we read for him to actually mean. it's also not going to hold up in court and the number of times that i knew the house was making a statement leading up the context on it, it happened over and over again for three days but cherry picking one part of a sentence and not read the full part of the sentence. today we got a chance to see the whole senate in context and what was actually said. for instance, over and over again statement that president zelensky in the white house meeting but then president zelensky himself early in the process who said or, we can meet in poland on september 1. that would be fine. that's been conveniently left out by the house managers the whole time and that meeting was set up long before there was any investigation, before any whistleblowers or anything. the meeting was already in

process. there's a lot about the case, they made their case based on innuendo and speculation and secret motivations or presumptions. today the facts are starting to come up and let's actually see what the facts are. i look forward to hearing more facts in the days ahead. [inaudible question] >> we will have 16 hours and questions, we will meet at the conference to decide what questions we want to post but the order may be of those questions, it seems like the chief justice will go back and forth one republican question, one democrat question. they will bring out more information from the white house counsel and some may be specifically to go after the house has provided. will be conferring, we'll meet again before we go in session monday. we'll talk about tuesday and probably not going to cut to that until wednesday.