>> sandra: how was your fourth day, by the way? >> ed: it was amazing. >> sandra: inc. you for joining us today. "outnumbered" starts now. >> harris: and a very busy day. glad to see you. house democrats and the impeachment trial set for a second day of arguments. sources are telling fox news they will be sparring over what we have learned so far up your democrats are high praise for the case put forth by adam schiff and his fellow house managers. they have heard nothing new, and long hours of repetition are going to backfire. >> if the point was to go on for 13 hours for no apparent purpose, frequently using

rebuttal time just to delay further into any unit senators as they are trying, i would say that it was a raging success on their part. but if the point was to convince people, i think they are off to a terrible start. >> schiff has such power in his speech that you are forced to look at him and listen. just about every republican's eyes were glued to mr. schiff. so it was a powerful rendition of your dispute once meanwhile, joe biden shutting the door on the idea of a witness walk for him or his son, hunter, to testify. watch. >> this is a constitutional issue. we are not going to turn this into a farce, into some kind of political theater. they are trying to turn it into political theater, but i want no part of that. >> harris: "outnumbered." this is it. harris faulkner. kennedy.

executive director, marie harf. in the center seat, former house oversight share and fox news contributor, jason chaffetz. great to see everybody today. we only have 30 minutes, so it is going to be compressed and powerful. kind of like you. [laughs] and all tha the insight that you bring. to give me the handicap on what we are seeing. >> jason: i don't think they are persuading anybody. i think the democrats are doing a good job of patting themselves on the back, but when jerry nadler leads with the idea that the facts are uncontested, you pretty much turn off everybody. what you mean uncontested? that is simply not true. i think the weakest part of their argument is something that they are about to attack at 1:00, which is the obstruction of congress. i just don't see that making too much progress there. we haven't seen anything new. >> harris: so, marie, in the clip that we played, democrats

are talking about how everybody is glued. at 300 million people in this country. across six networks, they watched. that doesn't seem like a whole lot of people tuning in. >> marie: i think it is a lot. people are clearly interested. we have the super bowl coming up. i think that the american people are their audience in part, but they are only going to see snippets of this. the jurors are really the audience. i think the democrats want to get what they believe is their best case on the record, and they are repeating that because they believe that it is so strong. i want advice that i would maybe give to republicans, complaining how they have to sit at their desks for 13 hours and pay attention. it to a lot of americans, they are like yeah, i do that every day at work. you can do your job. that would be my piece of advice to republican senators who are complaining about having to work

hard. >> harris: what about criticizing the process, keeping people's attention, and really convey more than just repeating words. maybe have more elements, have more pictures. is that a fair commentary? >> kennedy: yes, but again, they are making to go cases on the same time. one is to the american people, and one is to the senators who have taken an oath to be impartial. >> harris: how have they done with that? >> kennedy: i think it is super boring, but it is good for a future impeachment because if you bore people to death, they will not want to go to the process again. the political peril. >> harris: that is interesting. >> kennedy: everyone is going to feel the exact same. to your point, their salaries are paid by the american taxpayer. they should be able to sit there for 13 hours a day working on

things like tax reform, immigration. stuff like that. not this. you can't go back to doing any of that. >> harris: so you don't think that they can -- >> they are trying, but they have many people in the media who are pro-impeachment. if you listen to some of the commentary yesterday after adam schiff's presentation, you would think that they had just watched the rockettes kick line. how scrumdiddlyumpcious adam schiff was. it is a political event. and the democrats are doing themselves a disservice, starting with jerry nadler on tuesday when he talked about not allowing witnesses. the republicans were complicit in the president's cover up. we haven't even gone to the point of voting on witnesses and additional information.

and lisa murkowski, one of those four senators that they needed -- i was offended. i took it as very offensive. as one who was listening intently and working hard to get to a fair process. so, there is a law that was offensive to people on the right. there was a lot that was offensive to republican senators yesterday. >> harris: jason, don't take this the wrong way because i know that you are a politician, but there can be some showmanship. i am so at this and i am so with that. what is the reality of peeling off for the senators, to say yes to witnesses in this trial? >> jason>> jason: look. they are always appealing to the cameras. that is why we have the debate about putting cameras in the courtroom. >> harris: what is the reality? >> jason: i don't think they're making any progress. they are boring people to death. i don't think that there will be witnesses. and nobody is really talking

about this, but joe biden still can enjoy executive privilege with president obama. once obama leaves office, it does not give up. it does not step away -- >> harris: ask joe biden. what about mick mulvaney? mitt romney, those republicans will say you know what? we do need witnesses. >> marie: i think the democrats believe that the end of this, they will get four republicans who say the american people deserve to hear all of the facts, and just because the house didn't do it, that is like the one opportunity we'll get to hear from john bolton, and if we want the facts, i do think they will get it. >> harris: do you think that is good for both sides, kennedy? >> kennedy: witnesses, yes. they should boil it down to the two or three who are the most critical. there are a lot of republicans and democrats who have some outstanding questions, and if the president has done nothing wrong, i don't think it hurts him. i know rand paul is making the

case that john bolton has an ax to grind, but he also has an extra grant with democrats. >> harris: but he also has a book coming out. and i don't say that facetiously. we don't know what he is going to say. it democrats don't know what he is going to say. go quickly, this one-on-one match, republicans get hunter or joe biden. democrats get john bolton. >> jason: looks. he can plead the fifth. it joe biden can plead executive privilege because obama can grant that executive privilege. i don't think they are going to get them, and i don't think that president trump should have to give up anything in terms of executive privilege on mick mulvaney or john bolton. >> dagen: they don't want witnesses. are they just want the republicans record as voting against it. >> jason: exactly. >> harris: bret baier. i just called him brad. i don't know where that came from. >> dagen: he was on twitter

yesterday. even today, he highlighted something that adam schiff said. the president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. if voters don't get to make that decision. that's what he's telling the american people about the misconduct. only lawmakers are qualified because they are of bunch of hayseeds and rednecks -- >> marie: that's not what he was saying. can i defended? >> dagen: how do people read it? >> marie: what he -- i think -- was saying, not being in his head. these are accusations that president trump is trying to mess with the elections with foreign powers. >> dagen: we don't know what someone might do or not. >> kennedy: if we can't trust voters to vote for this president, we can't trust them to vote for any president. >> marie: that is not what he was saying.

>> dagen: that is the implication of his words. >> harris: senator rand paul says that there is wide support to dismiss the articles of impeachment. so, could that actually happen? and what would be the fallout? ♪

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>> harris: this fox news alert. senator rand paul says dozens of his g.o.p. colleagues are ready to put an end to esident trump's impeachment trial. last week, leader mcconnell saw that there was little appetite among republicans to dismiss the article, but senator paul claims that is not the case. he told "the washington post" us. "there are 45 with about five to eight wanting to hear a little more. i still would like to dismiss it, but there are the votes to

do it just yet. i will push it out some point the more adam schiff speaks. the more we become unified. we are learning that g.o.p. leadership is actively reaching out to the senators who might be inclined to vote. those and include susan collins, lisa murkowski, lamar alexander, and matt romney. jason, do you think that they would dismiss it? >> jason: well, look, if it was our regular court, it probably would have been dismissed along time ago. you have them talking about a lot of issues on aren't even in the articles of impeachment. i think senator paul the read on it is about right. you have 45 solid votes, the last few are still a little bit of a question mark, but they lose ground. they don't succinctly make their case and show something directly about the president did because it is not there, but as long as they continue to go before the body and continue to offend them the way that they have, i don't

think that bodes well. and remember, in this country, you are presumed innocent. they have to prove guilt, and they have not done that. >> harris: kennedy. >> kennedy: hi. how are you? sorry -- it is like a diet, you now. the first 45 pounds, they are not easy, but they come out pretty fast. that's the first 45 senators. they are absolutely impossible. you have those four, but you also have rob portman from ohio, instrumental in getting the rule changed and the resolution that we saw. so i don't think that they are going to budge, and i think it is actually better for republicans to go through the entire process, let the whole dog and pony show play out. an acquittal for the president is an exclamation point. >> harris: they are calling for witnesses, and not everybody

agrees about that. >> kennedy: that is like standing behind a giant bouncer at a club when you are about to get in a fight. and saying let me add him. you don't want to fight the guy with the broken bottle appears to be one i think he does appear to >> jason: i think donald trump wants to fight all the time. >> harris: the reason i didn't see -- my eye was also on senator lindsey graham, who has been talking a lot about impeachment. you know what? now, he is live. >> creating a quilt out of the evidence. so the other side gets to talk, and see if they can pull the thread here, pull a thread here, see if it holds up, but the thing that i wanted to talk to you about was the biden connection. i don't know how many times it was said by the managers, that the biden conflict of interest

allegations has been debunked and has been -- there is no scintilla of evidence in terms of conflicts of interest and potential wrongdoing. i know a lot about the trump family, and their dealings in russia. i don't know anything about this being connection to the ukraine, so what the managers tell me, this has been looked at and debunked. by who? so, that is becoming relevant because they are talked it almost 50 times. that we have had no reason to believe that anything improper occurred in the ukrainian with the biden player last, and he was just out to create a political advantage. the question is will not withstand scrutiny? the point, the fact is that nobody, particularly in your business, has done much looking

at what happened in the ukrainian with hunter biden. you're going to hear more about that, and i will say more about that. so i supported mueller's ability to investigate the campaign and pretty much everything trump because i didn't know what they were up to, and if they didn't have any connections with the russians. two years later, i am good to go. somebody other than me looked out the trump campaign. nobody has looked at what has happened in the ukraine. at 72014, joe biden had given the portfolio by president trump. it is a historically corrupt place. within a month of being given the ukrainian portfolio, the vice presidents on his hire to buy of the most corrupt companies in the ukraine at a

fairly exorbitant salary. they also hired john kerry stops stepson and on and on and on. the point is, the prosecutor, who i think was corrupt, opened up the case in man of 2014, andx weeks later, seven weeks later, was fired. in 2015, the president of burisma was named by our ambassador somebody ukrainian prosecutor should look for corruption. the person who followed the fired prosecutor dropped the case against burisma. i don't know. doesn't pass the smell test to me. why are you paying hunter biden? you can say they are corrupt,

but they're not stupid. does it make sense to hire the son of the guy in charge of the portfolio? and from the time that they rated the president home, he called him four times, got on a plane, and that if you don't fire this guy, you don't get the billion dollars. i love joe biden, but i can tell you is the name was trump, there would be a lot of questions there. so what i want, i want the public to understand that the claims that they are making that there is nothing there with biden, nobody has looked. a somebody should do. i have looked, and i have a lot of questions. where are insurance by hiring hunter biden? they sure as hell were not -- go >> perhaps the president did something very wrong here. what about your mind or any other republicans mind? >> let's hear what the other side says.

did they selectively take testimony of witnesses to tell a story, which i thought was well told, will it stand up? so, they got caught. that's why they released it. of the problem with cases like this is all of us are involved in this issue. so when they froze funds to the ukrainiaukraine, one of the reat we wanted to take a timeout is that we have a newly elected president we don't know anything about. i was told that. now, as you fast-forward, they are making the argument that donald trump's temporary freeze of funds caused that -- that couldn't be further from the truth. they got more aid from the trump administration than the obama administration, and they had capabilities that they had never had before. so september the 10th or 11th, i called the white house and said i am okay with this, guys. i'm going to go with durbin at

the appropriations committee to make sure it goes for 2019. rob portman called the same day. it's pretty clear to me that when rob called and i called, and i was going to join forces with durbin, they were going to lose the vote. that theory, that it was released, that i know about, that you didn't hear. so, the point is let's see what the other side says, and then we will make our decision about what the president actually did or didn't do. you asked me about why i left when the president is on video, if you thought he was doing something wrong, he would probably shut up about it. in october, he so somebody needs to be looking out the bidens. he told me that yesterday. the president believes that what happened in the ukraine with the

bidens was inappropriate. now, whether or not that will withstand scrutiny, i don't know. to the president believes that the ukraine interfered in our elections. i can tell you without any doubt it was the ructions who hacked into the dnc. it was not the ukrainians. i cannot say that there was nobody in the ukraine who had worked with paul manafort that did a number on him. i don't know. all i can tell you is not from the president's point of view, he did nothing wrong in his mi mind. if you're in a prior administration, does that mean that no one can ever look at you, if you're going to be a potential opponent? does that mean that your family can do anything? i don't buy that as a construct. here is what i want. i'm going to make my vote based on the evidence. to that simple. i have said consistently i am not going to grant witness

request by the defense. they could have called all of these people if they wanted them. they deny the president his day in court, and i'm not going to legitimize that. are there are a lot of people on my side who want to call joe biden and hunter biden. i want to end this thing sooner, rather than later. i don't want to turn it into a circus. i think schumer said yesterday we are not willing to trade a joe biden for anybody. i think i know why. i want the american people to pick the next president, not me. and so what i think is the best thing to have happen is to have oversight of ukrainian potential misconduct and move on to the election. i am not going to move my vote to extend the trial. speak of the republicans have said that they heard nothing new in the opening arguments -- allowing for new evidence and witnesses. >> they say that i have enough to make their case.

so, hearing from john bolton, the national security advisor of the present, they chose not to seek him. i would argue that if i were president and you wanted to call my national security advisor, i would probably invoke privilege. but the one thing i can tell you is that we don't want to start a process where you can do impeachment in the house in 48 days, shot legal issues off, dump them into the lap of the senate. i am not going to do that. there will be presidents after trump, and i did support a two-year inquiry into the president. he turned over 1 million documents to the mueller folks, and his lawyer testified. i guess what i'm saying is i thought that that would be the end of this, but what they did in the house has been partisan from day one. 40 days, no ability to have a lawyer. most of the evidence is hearsay. no ability to call witnesses, and now you want me to fix that by destroying privilege.

i am not going to do that. and the republicans now have a pretty hard push to call schiff because of the stories about the whistle-blower that somebody on his staff actually coached the whistle-blower. we are not going to do that here. the country needs a break from this. we are going to listen to the case, see what the other side says about what we were saying yesterday. then i am going to vote. that's what i'm going to do with my vote. if you think there's a whistle-blower problem, we can deal with that outside of impeachment. >> harris: all right. we are going to pull back. he says the country needs a break from this. jason chaffetz? >> jason: i think he is absolutely right. the obligation of the senate is to listen to the case that was put together in the house of representatives. if adam schiff is trying to argue both things, we have a rock-solid case. it is open and shut. but we need to hear from a holistic other people. i don't think that is going to win back the day.

i think the obligation is to listen as they presented it to the senate without having to open up a whole bunch of other things i could make this go on for another year appears year. >> harris: . >> harris: maria. >> marie: this is not about joe biden or hunter biden and what they did or not do. it is about donald trump and whether or not he abused his office to look into something. so republicans are really trying to focus on hunter and joe. >> dagen: 21 republican state attorneys explained in a letter about the corrupt purposes through that they are using in article one, which we are going to hear about today, is not a legitimate basis to impeach a president. to doing what is legal to be politically advantageous. it will happen to every president from this day forward. >> harris: lindsey graham. he is going to try to use his vote to bring it to a quick end. kennedy. >> kennedy: i think there are a lot of senators that i would like to see that, and my production is about the president's lawyers are going to do quicker jobs and democrats

have. i think they have felt obligated to use all of the time that they have to make their case in their opening arguments, and i think republicans will probably truncate that. >> harris: lindsey graham says the president believes that what happened was inappropriate with those bidens. real quickly. >> jason: there is a different way to do that, and it is going to take a lot of investigation, but the president is right. if there is a deep concern that joe biden misused his office, and it is a legitimate thing to look into. >> harris: so an abbreviated version of "outnumbered" today. thank goodness there are commercials because they will still be working it out. i want to tell you about something really special. you can catch kennedy on an all-star addition of "bulls and bears." charles payne will also break down all of the major political headlines of the day. you have the usmca spitting out a lot here. "bulls and bears" on fox business. don't miss it.

>> dagen: kennedy sandwich. >> kennedy: as long as i get to be the meat. >> harris: that is going to do it for us. jason chaffetz, thank you. bret baier, martha maccallum live in washington with special coverage of the impeachment trials. ♪ >> bret: this is special coverage of the senate impeachment trial of president donald j. trump. live from washington, i'm bret baier. >> martha: hello, i am martha maccallum. we are waiting for this to continue laying out their arguments for removing the president from office. >> bret: sources tell fox news that they are planning to drill down on the abuse of power. of course, they accuse of the president of withholding aid to ukraine will demanding an investigation into his political rivals, joe biden. senate majority leader chuck schumer insisted impeachment managers made a compelling case yesterday for

calling more witnesses. >> it was so clear that we are to hear from mick mulvaney and blair and duffy and bolton. at the center of these events, it was so clear that we must review relevant documents. >> martha: mark meadows, who is working with president trump's legal team says that he doesn't think the democrats will get enough votes or new witnesses. >> i think witnesses are unlikely. once the defense team for the president actually presents their case, i think it becomes a house of cards and starts to fall down around our house impeachment managers because what they will start to see is... they're connecting actually don't connect. >> martha: so see you tomorrow, they have a third day to lay out their case before the president's defense team will take over. >> bret: congressional correspondent chad program back

on the hill. chad, 16 hours, 42 minutes left. they are not going to take it all. >> exactly. two more days to have it out. jerry nadler walked past me to start the trial at 1:00 here. are they convincing republican senators sitting as jurors? that is the big question right now. here is the senate democratic leader, chuck schumer. >> people storm, they look the other way. they don't sit still. they don't want to hear it. but the arguments were so compelling, and schiff was so powerful. every republican was looking right at him and listening. >> chuck schumer says few republican senators are willing to publicly defend the president's behavior. democratic hawaii is senators said that she heard one republican describe mr. trump as a man of his word. she scribbled into her notebook while matt, what a whopper appeared >> they don't want to

hear what the president did. it if they were to ask themselves just a simple question of is it okay for the president to have shaken down the president of another country, very vulnerable country, they don't want to face five. so they are squirming. why? because the truth hurts. >> democrats are rolling out the idea of trading witnesses like baseball cards, but the president's counsel, jay sekulow, is playing his cards on witnesses close to the vest. >> we are not making any determinations on what witnesses we might call because we don't yet know their case. we are still hearing it. we don't even know if there will be witnesses, so we are just going to have to play that as it goes. >> now, a decision on witnesses will not be made until after the president's counsel makes their case. lindsey graham says that he has these questions about witnesses and joe biden. he just so the following a few minutes ago. where they are buying insurance by hiring hunter biden?

they sure as hell were not hiring expertise. the country needs to get through this quickly. >> martha: thank you, chad. >> bret: chris wallace, anchor of the 20th, dana perino. there is some sense that republicans are starting to coalesce, that this thing is still up in the air, but maybe they have the votes to hold them off. you've heard some senators like lindsey graham say that it was cogent, sharp. they heard new things, but overall, it seems like they are holding back -- >> well, we don't know. there are about a half of a dozen still out there. collins has said that she is inclined, not a definite commitment, but that she is

inclined to vote to hear witnesses. two votes. one is to hear witnesses, and you might ge get a bunch to says to that, but then they have to vote on a specific witness. well, do you want to call john bolton? that raises questions of national security and privilege. i want to hear witnesses, but then the specific witness that comes up, they vote no. i have to say all morning i have been thinking of the great bill murray movie where at 6:00 a.m. every day, the radio alarm clock goes off, and you hear sonny and cher singing "i got you, babe." and it is "groundhog day." we are only in day number three, and it is beginning to feel like "groundhog day." we have got two more days. today and tomorrow for the democrats to make their case. and they have made -- you can say -- if you think it's impeachable or not. they have made a powerful case.

they have a lot of witnesses. they have a lot of graphics. they have a lot of evidence. i can't imagine what i have for 16 more hours, and i wonder, to some degree, when the white house gets its turn, they are going to be disadvantaged by this because yes, they will have new things to say. we haven't heard them nearly as much as we have the house democrats, but this will be on top of the 24 hours we have already gone through with the house democrats, and i wonder how patient senators are going to be for another 24 hours, although they probably won't use all of that for the defense of the white house. so it is "groundhog day." and get ready because today and tomorrow, you're going to hear sonny and cher say "i got you, babe. [laughs] >> martha: there is a suggestion that the white house does not want to begin their case on saturday. they feel like that might get buried, and that they might sort of keep their good stuff moving

forward until monday after the sunday break. another thing, dana, thought i sort of noticed the tea leaves loved this morning, when senator schumer stepped up to the podium for his press conference, he said i want to point out that president trump, in davos, in an interview with fox business, actually, so that he would consider social security cuts. i want to make sure everybody heard that. if he is reelected, that is what he is going to do after 2020. another thing that i heard from senator graham is that he has proven, perhaps even after all of this is overcome if it is a lingering issue for this campaign, that he has every reason to be concerned about what was going on there. so are we starting to feel momentum move forward a little bit without as background? >> martha, you are a master of reading my mind. that was very much on the forefront of what i was going to mention today. just so everyone knows, senator schumer had a press conference this morning, and it was supposed to be about

impeachment, but he said it is very important for me to make sure you know that president trump brought up social security. and i would love to have this debate sometime about how responsible it is for a leader of this country to finally figure out a way to make modest modifications, if that is what it is going to take to preserve social security going forward, that is something that's his country has debated but has not taken too seriously. i think it is a smart thing for this country to start talking about, especially with our economy so good. schumer wants to make this a very political point. i think they know that impeachment is going to end without the president being removed from office, so what they wanted to do in any opportunity is to hit president trump. it don't you think that the democrats, one of whom i talked to yesterday, they think that they have presented a good case. adam schiff did a great job, but they know the final outcome, and they want to get back to the people's business. all of them would try to you much rather attack the president

about social security, but instead, they are going to keep us on this train on impeachment. >> bret: just to be clear, this deals with the question that he was asked by cnbc it's about what you are going t to do with entitlements on the table. and he said it is something that he would look at. not like i am going to cut social security, as presented by chuck schumer, who also said he said it out of swiss ski lodge, which also happen to be davos. the obama administration went there as well. >> can i mention something about that, bret? president bush was running for reelection, and john kerry made some comments that were kind of similar and all of us. of course, it is all political. we can hit him for that too. >> bret: there you go. a ski lodge. juan, this is chuck schumer and joe biden on the issue of witnesses including hunter biden. listen.

>> would you be open to -- say, a witness trade? >> no, that is off the table. first of all, the republicans have the right to bring in any witness they want. and that trade is not on the table. >> the reason why i would not make the deal, the bottom line is this is a constitutional issue, and we are not going to turn it into a farce, into some kind of political theater. they are trying to turn it into political theater, but i want no part of being any part of that. >> bret: that was really cut and dry, juan. this is not fake. others are on the record, saying we should say sure. hunter biden as a witness in exchange for john bolton. >> yeah, because i think a lot of the democrats are of the mind to say hey, strengthen the case. what does hunter biden bring here? would it be patently obvious to the audience -- and remember the audience is not just the senate, but outcome of the american

people, bret. and the argument would be that they would look silly with hunter biden there, as opposed to speaking to people like john bolton, who had direct knowledge of the events. >> a few individuals on the ca call. there was no pressure. no pushing. the announcements of investigations. there could not have been any pressure. held at the time of the call. the most important fact is that they took no action. they never started an investigation. they never announced of that they were even thinking about an investigation, and they got the meeting. they got the money. they got the phone call from the president, so they can talk all they want, but is not going to change the fundamental facts, and i'm sure that the white house defense team will point that out in a clear fashion at the appropriate time. >> thanks, jim.

as we saw yesterday, this is the weakest case for impeachment in the history of this country. we continue to see how flimsy this case is, which is why there was bipartisan opposition in the house. no votes when it comes to impeachment. i anticipate that we will continue to hear lies and half-truths from adam schiff today. he also doesn't include important testimony that every single witness testified that he or she had no direct evidence of impeachable defenses, high crime, misdemeanor, treason, or bribery. so adam schiff and his team can keep continue to speak. certainly in my district, they are turning this out. they want to get back to work. and they want to -- the american people have a right to decide at the ballot box. >> i would just say one comment about what the chairman of house judiciary, chairman nadler said, it was outrageous. it was offensive to us. he accused --

>> bret: some of the lawmakers who obviously feel the details -- the house intel committees. you know it is serious when jim jordan has a jacket on. [laughs] >> that doesn't happen every day. your thoughts on this day as we get ready to hear the house managers again on this article one? >> first, i want get back to the issue of hunter biden. democrats continue say you say that they only want the witnesses that they believe will make their case, rather than having affair process that the white house believes would give the president some equal footing. the reason hunter biden is a topic is because he was mentioned in that phone call. and now the impeachment trial and the senate, and let's not forget that during the house angry, the democrat witnesses who were called, many of them say department officials -- that there were a very serious concerns about hunter biden's position on the board of

burisma, which they say was notoriously corrupt. and there was conflict of interest while his father was the vice president. lindsey graham gave a press conference just before we came on air here, an official inquiry asking the state department for information because it is not just about hunter biden's position and getting a whole lot of money without the expertise, but it is about whether he was using his last name to get access to the state department and the united states government for favors. >> martha: i think we are seeing an interesting transition with rudy giuliani coming out this morning in talking about how he is going to take his argument to the public about what happened in ukraine, and picking up those rains on the senate side to continue this conversation. continue to do cleanup on that issue. so we are going to take a quick break here, and we will be back with our coverage after this. stay with us. as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut.

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♪ >> martha: so let's bring in trey gowdy, former chair of the house oversight committee and fox news contributor's. always good to see you. we talked a little bit this morning about how this ukraine conversation seems to be shifting over to senator lindsey graham. and i wonder how you see that. what does that signal to you? >> well, i watched his press conference this morning. i think his point is what is the threshold for an investigation? we learned with russia that it can be a conversation in a bar. that's all it takes to launch an investigation. what is the threshold? no one is concluding that they engaged in any impropriety, but what is the threshold? i hope that the ancillary

question is, if joe biden were not a candidate, would this be an impeachable offense? if you were just an ordinary american that said what he said about withholding the loan assistance, who had a son with no qualifications being on a board in a country with pervasive corruption, would this be an impeachable offense? or is it only because he's in the status of potential candidate, that this somehow is elevated to something for which you should be removed from office? >> bret: it is bret. good morning. good afternoon, i should say. the question that keeps coming up is why this is urgent. adam schiff talked about that on the floor of the senate yesterday, saying about the president is trying to interfere or cheat in the 2020 election. senator bob casey from pennsylvania talked a little bit about it on here earlier. take a listen. >> we are here today to consider

a much more grave matter, and that is an attempt to use the powers of the president's presidency to cheat. the president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box. for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. in this case, what we are reviewing is the president's conduct, so you can wait until election day to sort that out because i think it is very important that out of the founders enshrined in the constitution, they have to have a check on the executives, because if you don't have that check, which is only permitted through impeachment, there is no other way to do that. no hearing, no court, no nothing. otherwise, you could have an executive cheating their way to the next election. >> bret: i want you to weigh in here, but the big question is the way that adam schiff set up,

do voters never going to get to trust the vote, and only lawmakers can decide what the line is, that the president can get kicked out of office? >> yeah, bret, adam is ordinarily not that stupid, but when you tell the jury, the senate, one day that they are corrupt, then you tell the american people that they cannot be trusted to pick the commander in chief, that is just a wildly stupid trial strategy. remember when donald trump as a candidate began to question the reliability of the vote. remember when he started making allusions to potential voter fraud, and he was criticized by everyone i heard in the media for even suggesting that you could not rely on a vote total. adam schiff has done the exact same thing. american people, we don't trust you to factor this in a november, so we need 100 senators to decide that. it is all wildly stupid trial strategy, only surpassed by

jerry nadler is insulting of the jury two days ago. >> martha: let's go over to andy mccarthy, also joining us. andy, you wrote a piece about how you think that adam schiff sort of kicked open the door to inviting like sort of both sides on the biden witness condition. explain to us what you meant by that. >> well, of course he did, martha. in any trial, the prosecutor knows that judges keeping evidence out of the trial is always contingent on either the prosecutor or the other side not doing something or saying something in front of the jury that would make the issue relevant. in this case, we didn't have to wait long. in the very first hearing, the very first evidentiary hearing in the house intelligence committee, adam schiff opened the proceedings by giving up parity version that he said conveyed the essence of the

phone call between president trump and president zelensky. he said that trump effectively said to zelensky i want you to make up dirt on my political opponents. lots of it. now, why did adam schiff do that? because he knows that there is an important qualitative difference between asking someone, whether it is a foreign power or not, to manufacture a case out of whole cloth. a verses asking an investigation to be done that cries out to be done because there is an objective reason to suspect corruption. so, by doing that, schiff clearly put an issue here, whether president trump was asking zelensky to make something up, to manufacture something, or whether there really was something authentically to be concerned about in connection with the biden dealings in ukraine. that is common sense, and in any

court in the united states, if a party to disputed that, you could inconceivably take the position that i want to keep the bidens out of this, and out the same time, do something that made them centrally relative to the case. >> chris wallace here. i am a little bit confused about this whole issue whether they are going to trade witness for witness or not, because in the end, it really isn't up to the democrats to rule on the republican witnesses. the republicans on the democratic witnesses. if we get to the point where four republicans have joined with democrats to approve calling witnesses, is in each one is going to come to about? and is there a majority to call for the vote? calling for john bolton, than he is called or subpoenaed. if there was a majority, and it would obviously be a very different majority to call for joe biden or hunter biden, so i'm not quite sure why it matters what one side thinks

about who the other one is to call. >> chris, i actually thought that that was the strongest position on the matter that adam schiff took yesterday. whether a witness is relevant depends on whether he has probative information or not. it is not a matter of we will give you one if you give us one. if you have information that advances what the disputed issues in the caves are, that witness should be eligible and admissible. my problem is -- has been that there has been a big difference between the existence of information and the relevance of information. so, what the democrats have been saying again and again is if they can point that somebody may have relevant information, that person should be called. what district judges tell witnesses at the end of the cases that if you're at yankee stadium and there are 50,000 people in the stands and the shortstop pulls a gun out and shoots the second baseman,

you don't need to call all 50,000 people in order to establish what happened. you call enough people to get the main facts in front of the jury. and if there is no dispute as to what happened, it doesn't matter if you have three witnesses or 50,000 witnesses. you don't have to call every one of them, so the democrats are talking about a lot of people who have relevant information, but it seems to me about the republicans and the president are not really contesting -- at least much of -- the underlying facts of the case. their underlying defenses that even if you assume all that happen, this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. if that is their defense, and i do think that they should be less coy about it. they should come out and say that. but if that is your defense, you don't need all of these witnesses because you can jump to the bottom line. they are basically saying assume for argument sake that the president squeezed zelensky to get these accommodations. at the end of the day, nothing

actually happened. they got their money. they got their defense funding. zelensky got his visit. no investigation had to be announced. so even if something inappropriate happened along the way, this doesn't rise to an impeachable offense. if that is their position, i don't see why you need the witnesses. >> martha: all right, let's go to trey gowdy. i would like to sort of what the opposite argument about that judge napolitano wrote a piece about where he says it is described as criminal. the mere solicitation from a foreign national government. there is no dispute that mr. trump did that. the case for it is stronger because more evidence has come in. trey gowdy. >> you know, martha, i will go i go back to the transcript. what did the president to say? not what did the judge right, what did the president say?

it's not the trump reelection campaign. it's our country. you hear adam schiff a lot of times he was the "dirt," that president trump was trying to dig up dirt. my follow-up question is sometimes dirt is truthful and sometimes it is false paid what is the evidentiary area basis for launching an investigation and if someone happens to be our current or potential political opponent, does that mean they are off limits? if joe biden were not running for president would you and i have this conversation? of the chief executive, top law enforcement officer in our country wanted to investigate possible impropriety in a foreign country. is it only an impeachable offense when you run for president against someone that it becomes impeachable because then it is a political opponent? i just disagree with that. >> bret: there is a question here and the question is whether

it is impeachable definitively. are you okay with the president calling a foreign leader to get dirt on a political opponent? is that okay? >> i would have the same question for you that i would have for adam schiff, what do you mean by dirt? dirt is a pejorative word, it suggests that it's untrue. i didn't hear the word "dirt" in the transcript. is it okay for the head of our executive branch to ask a foreign leader for information about potential impropriety, i think the answer to that question is overwhelmingly yes. it does come down to the inten intent -- then, bret, we have a separate category for people who don't want to run for president as opposed to you and i paid if he called zelensky and said, give me what you have on bret baier. what if it was somebody in 12 place,