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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer News Conference CSPAN February 5, 2020 9:58pm-10:16pm EST

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future are up to the voters of the country to decide who they want to lead the government for the next four and in our case six years. i'm going to take one more. >> [inaudible] and you had the opposite -- >> i think they are pretty clearly partyline both ways that is what you can take out of it. pretty much partyline." thanks a lot, everybody.

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>> good afternoon, everybody. this is clearly not a happy day for the nation or the senate. the senate turned its back from the truth on a fair trial and doing what the founding fathers would have wanted us to do. we sought the truth and did everything we could to get the truth and we knew we were fighting for the truth and do it to this day. i'm very proud. every member voted his or her conscience.

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every member cares about the fundamentals what i try to talk about in my speech. the truth, the facts. it was the day, week, two weeks for the nation was tested. a lot of republicans failed that day to live up to what the country is all about through getting the truth. early in the process, we defined what a fair trial was. witnesses, documents. we didn't know what they would say and we didn't have a long list of witnesses, simply looked at the ones fixed to the accou

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account. now that the american colleagues have rejected a fair trial is a giant next to the acquittal and says he is acquitted without facts. ..

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they chose to view the attack and finger-pointing. leader mcconnell couldn't bring himself to say what the president did was wrong. that is astounding. maybe he believes what dershowitz believes, that this president can do anything he wants. so, as i said, we always knew it was an uphill fight and no one had a reason the president would be convicted, but we made the fight for truth and facts and it

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created a bipartisan impeachment that can never be erased from history, never. it was deceptive as most of his arguments. how many of the witnesses were allowed on tha the chart, zero. how many documents were allowed in the impeachment trial, zero. he criticized the house and claimed credit for the witness witnesses. >> what would your reaction be? >> first i do want to salute mitt romney. the pressure was enormous. every republican knows this president has been vengeful,

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vicious and they don't want to oppose him. the fact that this is bipartisan holds up a beacon to what was right and what was wrong and the fact that the democrats were united in conviction and even more important on the witnesses and documents to seek allegiance. >> senator mcconnell was making the argument that it looks better for the republican incumbents. >> the main thing about peter mcconnell is he said the house is being political and all he does is talk politics. the bottom line is if you believe the truth prevails and the american people wanted the

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facts, we are happy to live with that verdict and see where it takes us, plain and simple. >> this was seeking the truth. history if you believe that the right prevails, and we knew we were right and they knew they were wrong as evidence being unwilling to listen to the other side, then you know it's going to workout and i believe that it will work out as the numbers go up and down. that is not what motivated us here. something as serious as this we try to figure out what is the right thing to do, what is the truth and how do you go forward and the chips will fall where they made tha may but almost als american history is any indication and you are right, it will fall on your side.

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>> i learned of the vote before they called the roles. >> were you surprised? >> joe manchin struggled with it and showed far more courage than every republican other than mitt romney. and i didn't know where he would come out. he should wrestle with his conscience, religious man with god and come to the conclusion to do the right thing and i told him we would be friends, no matter what. >> i bought it to you but i want to get to the people [inaudible] >> that will be up to them. i don't want to go into that. i thought they did a very fine job.

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i don't have any second guessing of them and the irony is they did a better job under mitch mcconnell's leadership. mitch mcconnell covered it all up. the house didn't. >> we have too many impeachments were too few. the standard shouldn't be how many or what politically is right or wrong. the standard should be the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors. i think it is conclusive and if the president does it in three months, they should impeach him again and if the next president does, they should impeach him or her. the bottom line is very simple. they should decide of the foundinif thefounding fathers tt they should decide they wouldn't have put impeachment in the constitution.

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there were no term limits. it's the most ridiculous argument that it should decide when the founding fathers put impeachment in the constitution. >> we should be supporting ukraine. there's been bipartisan support for ukraine in the past what happens is when the president comes up with a crazy conspiracy that came out of someone's mind and originally out of the russian intelligence all the republicans say that must be true. when you so many people know he is wrong and so many people know that he is as truthful, it is

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damaging to the republic. you shouldn't be afraid to tell the president he is wrong, when you know she is donald trump has them all very fearful. >> i think the greater criticism was a partisan nature of the speech was the fact that it was untruthful in so many places where the worst thing about this is the president made this a campaign rally, reality tv show even sounded like a carnival, so demeaning for the presidency. that is what i am aghast at.

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>> i said the truth will rule out and those that voted for truth, were voted for the witnesses and documents as the american people or for will be rewarded for it. >> no, not you. you. >> what you care to expand on that? [inaudible] >> it makes my case. you stand up when you think the president is wrong and by the way the vast majority said the president is wrong. they may have come to a different conclusion but they say it's wrong and that is why the percentage that are republican is less today than when donald trump took office.

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do you think this plays into the election? >> mitch mcconnell is interested in the politics of this and we are interested in finding out the right things that are true. >> i went to murkowski and said no one can come to an agreement. before i sent a letter that asked for witnesses and documents i said let's negotiate a bipartisan agreement and he wasn't interested. he was unwilling to negotiate and that is what created the rift we were willing to sit down and talk.

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>> despite these occurrences there are things they can get them together do you agree with that? >> i always want to try that it is laughable. we have 27 amendments on the floor six of which were forced by rand paul. paul. the mcconnell dathese are mcconr day and week after week refused to put things on the floor of the debate. it's laughable that he said impeachment is getting in the way of getting things done. the only thing he is getting done is putting all of these right-wing judges on the floor that can pass the vote, so it is laughable they say we don't get these things done but they are always welcome do you have any

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advice for your caucus about taking the high road and moving on? >> we walk with your head held high and i think the republican caucus is a shame, and many of them, for what they did. >> many were afraid. what do you think that they have to do now? >> they are always afraid of donald trump. he broke no dissension and they look back at the last here wednesday to senators that had the courage to oppose him, senator flake a conservative, and senator corcoran mainstream republican held senate out of the party. thank you, everybody.

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>> [inaudible conversations] let me make a quick statement and you can ask questions. we are pleased the victor today was the american people and also the constitution of the office of the president so we are pleased with the result and we are glad this is behind us and behind the country, and it is time to turn attention to the other things and i think that is what is going to happen.

Borrow Program

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer News Conference
CSPAN February 5, 2020 9:58pm-10:16pm EST

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held a news conference following the Senate acquittal of President Trump on two articles of impeachment. The Democratic leader told reporters he was proud of his members, but criticized his Republican colleagues and the impeachment trial process. "Now that our Republican colleagues have rejected a fair trial-truth-there's a giant asterisk next to the president's acquittal. The asterisk says he was acquitted without facts, he was acquitted without a fair trial. And it means that his acquittal is virtually valueless," he said. Sen. Schumer praised Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (UT) and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) for voting to convict the president. "It created a bipartisan impeachment that can never be erased from history."

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