the senate impeachment trial of former president donald trump begins tuesday with senators deciding if the former president should be convicted on inciting of insurrection. watch our live coverage of the senate impeachment trial starting tuesday at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two, c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. if you miss any part of the proceedings, watch anytime on demand at c-span.org/impeachment. we will take one small break to talk with scott wong of the hill, because as we talked about come a lot of things happening this week on two tracks, impeachment and covid relief. let's start with impeachment. what are we expecting this week on the senate side? guest: good morning, pedro. the house impeachment managers worked through the weekend. on saturday, they met by zoom, according to sources i spoke too close to the managers.

on sunday, super bowl sunday, they began working in person in the capitol throughout the entire day. the lead impeachment manager, jamie raskin of maryland, apparently allowed them to break around halftime of the super bowl to be with their families, to allow capitol police, who were providing support, to watch the second half of the football game, but as we know, the game was pretty much over by then. but these managers say that this is going to be a very different impeachment trial from the first one just a year ago. they say that they have overwhelming evidence, largely supported by the video that was taken at the white hous ell ipse, when trump gave his save america speech.

they have overwhelming video over than's they are going to show -- video evidence that they are going to show from the capitol itself, from the insurrectionists, often livestreamed by the insurrectionists themselves. they have hours of video. they say that has made their job in convincing these senators and the american people much, much easier than the last impeachment trial, where it was an extremely technical trial. the legal arguments were technical. it was a much more convoluted argument that the investigators were making, adam schiff at that time. so jamie raskin and his other impeachment managers believe they have a much easier time in proving this case. as we know and have discussed before, pedro, you know, only five republican senators have said that this trial is

constitutional. democrats will need 17 at least republicans to join if they want to convict at this point. that seems extremely unlikely. this looks like we know the outcome of this case. i think what raskin and what some of these other impeachment managers are trying to do is to appeal to the american public, to try to get the american public on their side. already, we have seen that 56%, i think, according to the latest abc poll, of americans already believe that the president should be convicted and should be barred from future office. so raskin is looking at that public opinion number more than the 17 republicans that he will need to get a conviction. host: then, with that tightened

timeframe that you spoke about, witnesses probably not part of this process. guest: it does not look like it. you know, i think democrats, and joe biden himself, want this to wrap up fairly quickly, perhaps by the end of this week, because their top priority, and if you listened to democrats on capitol hill last week, there was almost zero discussion of impeachment. much of the focus last week was on the divisions in the republican party liz cheney and marjorie taylor greene, but there was almost zero discussion on impeachment. almost all was on this coronavirus package you discussed because congress and the white house understand the dire situation that exists in this country today with the death toll now, you know, hovering around 450,000 americans. the unemployment rate still

incredibly high. people unable to find work and the medical community really stretched to their limits, really to a breaking point, and people looking for solutions in terms of how they can get tested, how they can get the vaccine. so that has really been the priority, so we will sort of see a split screen happening this week, although in impeachment trial, especially one involving the ex-president of the united states, is certainly unprecedented. there will still be a lot of focus on the coronavirus as that package comes together in a more detailed way. host: walk us through the mechanics, particularly on the house side. guest: of coronavirus? host: yes. guest: in terms of coronavirus, what the democrats and nancy pelosi have said in recent days is that she hopes to really get

the details of this 1.9 trillion dollar package that has been proposed by joe biden, get the details of that figured out within the next two weeks. some people say that's pretty ambitious, to get something passed through the house of representatives, which it looks like it is going there first. what she has told democrats in writing, in a dear colleague letter, is that they will at least pass the coronavirus package by the end of february and send that onto the senate. that is sort of their hard date. i think by telling her people in a meeting with joe biden and her committee chairs last week that they wanted to get this to him within the next two weeks, it is pretty ambitious, but she intended for her committee chairs to move as quickly as possible. time, she says, is of the

essence, and certainly it is a bad situation, so they want to get moving on this quickly and get it over to the senate, which will be working out its own issues with this package. host: scott wong, as we have been talking before we spoke with you, this idea of changing the parameters of who receives the $1400 direct payments a reality at this point, would you say? guest: yes. joe biden addressed that issue very briefly in a phone call without the democrats -- call with house democrats last week. he opened the door on the idea of lowering the income eligibility threshold for people to receive this $1400 check. let me be clear -- he is holding firm on the $1400. a lot of americans will or have already received $600 from the last package. he wants to expand that to $2000, so he wants to add $1400

in this next package. he says he is holding firm to 14 are nodal -- to $1400. but he is open to lowering the income eligibility for which americans would get that check. as you pointed out earlier, janet yellen is open to lowering that threshold for people who make $60,000. i think it was up at $75,000 in this last round from last year. she wants to lower that threshold to about $60,000. that would mean less people would be eligible for that full check. joe mentioned, the moderate -- joe manchin, the moderate democratic senator from west virginia, has looked at a $50,000 level. that means less people would be eligible for the full check. they are toying around with the price tag of this $1.9 trillion package. one way they could go with

that is to listen the amount of people who could be eligible for those checks. host: scott wong reports for the hill, joining in to give us the status report for impeachment and the mechanics of working through this proposal by the president on covid relief. announcer: you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers of public service. next, on former president trump's role and influence in the republican party, following his election defeat. a recent survey of people who voted for him suggest they feel under threat. analysts review what the resu