mr. president. >> the majority leader. i suggest the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call the role. [roll call] >> we are joined by stephen dennis, bloomberg senate reporter covering the senate side of things and that ritual of the impeachment managers are not that unfamiliar. it happened a little over a year ago in the impeachment of then

president trump, but all new territory here for everyone, historic territory so what precedents do you think the senate democrats will use in their proceedings this is going to be a different trial than we saw even though this was a very similar site to see the somber procession across the capital, i mean, the one difference being that they didn't have the large chunks of evidence because this trial, this impeachment is basically based on what everybody saw and heard on january 6th, something that this really happened to every lawmaker as they were chased out of the building essentially and what trump did and did not do on that day first with the speech and then as they were sort of

cowering in the secure rooms a number of them were trying to reach the president and trying to get him to get people to leave the building and it took hours to do that. so there's a lot of bipartisan anger in the senate and in the house. ten people voted for impeachment, but you know, the circumstances here has given me a lot of republicans in the easy out. a lot of republicans are saying that it would be either divisive, unwise or even unconstitutional to have a trial and to convict the ex-president so i think for democrats if they were trying to extend the trial they wanted a lot of witnesses brought in, they wanted

subpoenas, they wanted to continue digging. this time around, they've got the senate majority, they have the white house, they have the house, they have all the agenda they want to pass, they have the virus relief package, confirmations, and so i think they are going to be looking for a much faster trial and based on the publicly available documents and recordings et cetera, so we still don't know exactly what the process is going to be and what the rules will be. >> will we see for example as they get underway tomorrow and swearing in the senators as the jurors for this trial, rand paul said earlier this evening about possibly trying to raise a motion against even proceeding. will we see that tomorrow or the early phases of the trial in two weeks? >> i think we could see some of that tomorrow.

it's not entirely clear how it is going to proceed and whether it will be a resolution they will have agreed to by then sort of setting the parameters for the trial and whether there will be in agreement on the opening the proceedings. they have to have an agreement to extend to february 8th, which is what mcconnell and schumer agreed on that basic timeframe and in the meantime they can do cabinet confirmations and may be some kind of a virus relief interim package. >> already on the republican side there are questions about why patrick lahey was to preside and not the chief justice john roberts. >> right, so if trump was still the president, john roberts under the constitution is supposed to be in the chair for

a trial of the president to oppose the constitution. trump is no longer the president, he was the president and so instead, they will have patrick lahey, the president pro tem of the senate preside over the trial. he's the seniormost democrat. ironically elected in 1974 in the wake of watergate, former prosecutor. i think some republicans, lindsay graham said they are fine and think that he will be fair. there was question on whether harris would preside, but that isn't going to happen. i'm sure she's happy to not be tied down after hour hour in this trial. >> what is your sense that the former leader mcconnell's own conviction? >> i think that he is in a tight spot because clearly he was horrified by what happened, he

was angry that trump was trying to overturn the results and he had a very fiery speech before the riots and after. so it's pretty clear that mcconnell puts a lot of blame on what happened on the president and so he may want to vote to convict and get on the other hand he is the leader of his party and clearly a lot of republicans don't want to go against trump. there would be a backlash among republican voters and potentially causing some trouble within his own confidence especially if you're not going to get to the 17 senate republicans that would be needed to convict and have a break from

trump and bar from running again but you know, on the other hand, so he's in a tight spot here and you do see a lot of other senate republicans including john cornyn who has hopes of succeeding mcconnell at some point as a top republican leader saying that it would set a bad precedent and others saying that it would be unconstitutional. there's never been a trial of an ex-president before and it would open up a pandora's box. and right now there's only a handful of republican senators that have been really sharply critical of the president and said what happened was impeachable and we don't really have anybody saying that they would definitely vote to convict. i think that it is a tough question here on how he's going to vote. >> clearly the attack is going

to hang over either from the start, as greg kaplan pointed out jennifer hemingway, now the acting sergeant-at-arms is the woman that led them into the chamber and called the senate to order to hear the impeachment article. she's acting sergeant-at-arms because the sergeant-at-arms of the senate and house and capitol police chief all resigned in the wake of that attack on the capitol on january 6th. as we get underway, what else are you looking for not only from inside of the senate but from public reaction? >> i think one thing that's different is the previous impeachment was a country most americans couldn't find on a map. this is something that happened right here in the heart of democracy. capitol police officer is dead. another one committed suicide and this happened to these

lawmakers. they were the target of a mob. they were chased out of that room where they are going to be hearing this trial, so i think there's going to be some interesting soul-searching from some of these senators. i think one of the things probably having gotten enough attention is not so much the speech trump gave her the two months he spent pressuring governors to overturn the results, but it's the hours that they spent in that room with people like susan collins, republican senator of maine saying that they were on the phone to try to get white house officials to get a trump to tell them to leave and he didn't do that. it took him hours to get to that point where he said to go home and that's something that i think is going to be really problematic for trump's defense

and probably why you are seeing a lot of republicans not really defending trump's behavior. they are instead saying they are making process arguments about whether it's a good idea, whether it would divide the country, whether it's constitutional, and very few people are saying you know what, he really won that election and he was within his rights to send the crowd to the capital with the pressure to overturn it. >> host: we appreciate the reporting and we will look forward to more. thanks for being with us. >> anytime.

next on c-span a conversation about the impact of former president trump on the republican party and a potential 2024 gop presidential candidates. michael barone is a senior political analyst for the washington examiner and was interviewed by hudson institute fellow walter russell mead for just under an hour. >> hello, everybody. it's both a pleasure and a privilege to be here this morning with probably the greatest living student of american political parties and most interesting analyst of american politics. some of you i'm sure