robert: full speed hailed for senate republicans. seiday's critical vote on summoning witness fails after key g.o.p. senators stand down. >> i don't think there's a need for additional witnesses. ts robert: democry foul. >> no witnesses no, documents in an impeachment trial. it's a gd tragedy. america will remember this day, fortunately. robert: we go inside the impeachment trial, next. announcer: this is "washington week." nding is provided by -- >> before we talk about your investments, what's new? >> well, audrey is expcting. >> twins. >> grandparents. >> we want to put money for them so change in plans. >> levtsd see what we can

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thank you. once again from washington, mod reator robert costa. d robert: gening. we begin tonight with the latest on president trump's impeachment trial. it r a fast-moving story and we've gathered fi of the best reporters on the beat to discuss the developments just or days b the iowa caucuses and the state of the union address. here is what you need to know. first, the senate debate over witnesses was jolted on thursday when retiring tennessee sator lamar alexander declared that the president's conduct was inappropriate but he decided to not push for witnesses. >> i agree he did something inappropriate but i don't agree bribery, high crimes and mled.n, robert: his decision left democrats struggling to find four republicans to supportef theifort to summons john

bolton andhers. and the remaining holdout, senator likisa murkof alaska announced that he -- she, too,u not support calling witnesses. she criticized house democrats d for g over "articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed.". seco "the new york times" reported early friday that bolton's upcoming boo accuses the president of directing bolton to "help with his pressure campaign to exfract damaging informion on democrats from ukrainian ofcials." an by friday night, right now, senator majority leaderitch mcconnell held his leaders in line and the volt to call witnses did tail with only two senators voting in favor. senator mittoll and i and senator susan collins of maine. ing us tonight. karoun demirjian, congressionalt reporter f "washington

post." jake sherman, sister writer and co-author of political play book. carl hulse chief washington core portant for "the new yo times" and here with me at the table, ayesha rasc, white house reporter for national public radio and susan page, washington brewo chief for usa today. t's start witthe dean of senate reportering, carl hulse. th e's been a question abo the timing of the final vote on the articles of impeachment. what can you tells about the politics and negotiations behin thatcision? >> a lot of wrangling going on tryingo get to an end game here. so what has happen sled that there's been a decision that was cleared with perspective trump to have a final vote on wednesday. i think at 4:00 p.m. now, that's important, because the state of the union, of course, is on tuesday, so thet impeachmill still be going

on. the trial. so first on'l monday, y have closing arguments from the defense and the house managers. nesn the floor will be open, the chief justice won't in the charpe for speeches bitch senators andn that go on for a few days. what happened was there was pushback from moderates, republicans who didn't really like the rush to finish up today so mr. mcconnell, as he usually does, found a way to keepis people united and move forward. over democratic objections, of course. robert: jake, when you look at leader mcconnell able to keep that conference united, wh explains his ability to do so. how did he do it? get those 51 republicans together? >> it's a very important teestion. i think he's a m at knowing the mood of his conference and he knows where people are going

to land before they land in and i think it's also impornt to realize that everybody kind of agreed to the end game. they knew that the president would be acquitted and they had to figure out the path of least resistce to get there but mitch mcconnell is a very adept operator. he is able to stay patient and calm and not blink in the face of adversity. his opponents, democrats and some republicans, that frusates them but's ithat makes him so successful is his ability to navigate these very choppy situations a frankly, democrats didn't have much power here. they're in the minority and they stuck together b we'll see. that democrats at the end of the day are voting to acquit donald trump so tll be a big victory for the president at the end of this e impeachmentort. robert: susan, what are you hearing about that point? about possibly seeing senator

nsion of west virginia and other morate democrats vote to acquittal president trump? >> i think it is like that there will be at least some democratic support for the president. jo mansion being the most obvious. s state went by 42 percentage points to trump in 2016 so understandable but democrats did hold together on this vote today on witnesses and it will be a victory for trump to be able to say heas cleared in a bipartisan way. he's -- it's not the timing he wanted. he wabled to be to stand up at the state of the union and clai vinled occasion and he won't be able to do that on tuesday night as this timetable callses for. robert: to that point abouthe white house's perspective, what's their aim now for the state of the union knowingthhat vote will not happen until wednesday, the day after? >> they'rey'aying t going

to have this very optimistic speech that's ging to be oking at america as the comeba killed and it's going to be -ad thehe the -- president is going to take that to do some victory laps, all the things he's been able to accomplish and there are things. the trade deal with canada and mexico. he's had some victories and he wants to be able tto showt but he's not going to be able to have this victory over impeachment. not that day but he knows that he's going to ultimately get the aquill -- aquiet -- a" -- acquittal. but is that going to be enough for president trump? he likes to homed a grudge, not easy to let things go. i think that's going to be ham ing over and also say we hould all come together as a country. not exactly his style but i'm sureou'll hear little about

that. robert: some republicans tonht outraged about senator romney of utah, senator collins supporting the call for witnesses.re who were t only two senate republicans at the end of the day who voted to push for that vote. >> collins and romney seemed to be sounding the st. in the questions they asked and the statements they were making as if they wanted to hear more of what people like john bolton had to say. we wer watching lisa murkowski and lamar alexander as well but it seems like people like alander took the aument that alan dershowitz gave them, that even if all of this is true and bolton corborates all of this, so what? that's not worth removing the president in office. murkowski alluded to that in

certain ways, even though she was expressing the pros says that had gone on her statement today. we see that that argument works to be t framework that a lot of republicans v toiced ov last few days and that's what ended upnc cong alexander, who would have needed two adtional republicans to join democrats for them to have the votes to carry e witnesses across the finish line and it seems they found that compelling reason to say we don't neat to -- need to keep this going a longer. bert: are were over senate republicans watching senator alexander on thursday night? were others thinking about maybe crossing that line? was that the key, thursday night? >> ith k so. i think some of the senators let senator alexander speak f them. i melt with the senator today. he was very thoughtful about his decision. a big thing for him was the t

facts th caw culls were on monday. he thinks there woadd be a public reaction to try and remove a president right now and he wanted nothing to do with it. he did talk a lot about the fact that he thought the public would notci semithis on at this point. i think that weighed heavily in hiseleration. robert: susan, beyond those consideration, what about president trump's influence on how republicans voted? is this totally his party at this moment? susan:is yeah, thi trump's party. en senators -- republican senators running in competitive states in places like arizona and colorado stuck with the president on this because they've made the clarification that they want to get re-- calculation if theyant to get voted for this november, they s need tnd on trump's side. just this evening, mitt romney,

who didn't volt, by the way, to contribute president trump. he only voted the s listen e witnesses. was disinvited by thec, che convert political conference that is a big deal next year in washington. as a sign that it is unacptable enl to say i'd like to hear from john bolton. >> yeah, at this point republicans are with trump and if you're not with trump, you're th the good standing wi republica and you're certainly not in office. you looks at former senat bob corker and jeff flake.oo they'reng at this from the sidelines. speak out against trump so if you don't want that to happen, you have to stay tt line. you cannot go and cross him and he's not going to let it go. they're going to make sure -- even know there was that whole big thing overhe heads onhe pike and all of that.

the white house doesn'tave to put pressure on these senators. they know what the repercussiony are if t go against the president. robert: jab -- jake, what are the options now for senate majority leader schumer now. . what's going on t toni the capitol? >> he doesn't have any options. he basically has to cry uncle. he's out of options so on monday and tuesday there wil be aot of talking but not a lot of action and then on wednesday is the final vote so i don't see much opportunity for him and democrats politically have to rely on the fact thatli they e they've created a compelling narrative that this president exist outside of the bounds of theaw ande -- is not lawful and has conducted himself in aay that's n be fitting of the presidency and that republicans in the house and senate a complicit in that behavior. i'm skeptal based only my

reportering and talking to people on capitol hill and at mithe party cees that any o in will matter in november. i can't imagine in colorado that people arine to be asking about corey gardiner's vote to not call wins. if our reporting is correct,ey l be asking him on -- about health care, about how top maple's jobs, better, how or give them higher wages. in co, i don't imagine they're going to be having about the wnls. democrats influence polling think witnesses are very popular. i don't doubt that but i don't think it's going to be high on people's priority as they go to the ballot box nine months from now in a presidential ar. absent some event outside of what we know,an imagine it's going to be a massive issue across the board in november. robert: let's look at the

arguments made. >> every public official they know believes that his election is in the public interest and if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. >> you are being asked to remove a duly elected president of the united statesu' and y being asked to do it in an election year. >> ya sy you can't hold a president accountable in an election year where they're trying to cheatn that election, you are giving them >> no one covers chairman schiff, the lead impeachment manager better than you, car right now. he began his argument today talking about the explove reportering by the "new york times" about john bolton's upcomi book. how vexed is he and other house democrats about the inability of

all these bolton stories to move republicans? >> pretty vexed. most of the articles ofim achment have to go -- do with the obstruction of congress. the house wanted to have more of the first hand witnesses close to trump come in andte corrobo whathey found and make the case in the senate stronger. this has been a bit of contention in th trial because the g.o.p. said you should have brought us a better case and no, we're not going to subpoena the first hand witsses. if these witnesses had been allowed to come forward, if bolton had bee allowed to come forward by the administration before this,ould he have made such a stronger case that some of whe republicansld have to have voted with democrats to convict the president? that's going t a question we can't answer because we're probably not going toear from john bolton. but there's a situation where

there's a greater debat happening on whether thease is too much based on hearsay and whether anyone can speak what e president's motives were if they weren't getting their cue from the president. that's wha -- why you say the two legal teams looking at the exact same things and cooling up with two completely different explanations for it because they disagreebout what the president's intentions were. whether the bidens represented corruption if the president, that. a legitimate thing for him to ask into t investigation and whether it was it have him putting his personal trillions over the national trillions. we didn't come to a fivel conclusi of what that is or any sort ofsu cons because both sides never got to meet in the midd barry: you wanted to jump in? >> i think this is why that points about what these first hand witnesses and what bolton

would have said. i think that' why alan dershowitz's arguments were sot importor republicans because it gave them something to hang their decisions on becae he also said that even if everything that bolton say is true, that doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. so i don't think they needed alan dershowitz to give them that idea but now they n say we have a constitutional lawyer, a respected lawyernd he says this doesn't rise to the level ofmpeachment andhat's essentially what you had lamar alexander saying. es the ent did do something improper. he's saying he believesthat democrats didn't make their case. we don't need any more witnesses. >> we're not going to hear from john bolton in front of the we're going t hear from john bolton with his book and perhaps in other ways well and it t a surprise that we're ending up with the senate votin largely along party lines to

acquit the president. what's been a surprise is the amount of evidence that has tumbled from the sky to this point and i think will continue to be emerging through the next months and weeks. robert: jake, what is next for t house demo speaker employeesy, chairman schiff. do they try to subpoen bolton now in the house or just move on and look fwarled toward november? >> house democrats say they leave the opportunity, th option on the table. i any, i would imagine if i'm reading the tae leaves that it's going to be tempting for them to subpoena bolton but remember, his book comes out in this six eight weeks or so. it's not going to take that long for us to understand what he knew and i would argue and a lot of sources have argued this to me. the house looks silly but -- by subpoenaing john bolton if he has all this in a book that he's saying. but there's another line of thinking, which is the house

should not reinsert itself into this mess. it should move into perhaps other areas of oversight, perhaps other areala ofng. they have closed the chapter. the h president been acquitted in some democrats' point of vien th look obsessed with taking down the president and th is, inome people's opinions, notok a good or the majority takers, the people that put the gavel in nancy pelosi's hands. robert: carl, when you step back and look at the institution the senate, what ve you learned about where it is i january 2020 and what that tells us about polics today? >> i think it's a very troubled institution and to your earli points, this is really sort of completing president trump's takeover o senate republicans. if you remember at the beginning there were a lot of people

necessary but they have fully bought in now. they knowhis is the way the have to go into the future so i think you're going to have a lot of clashes between the republicans and the democrats trying t bring out the republican economy. to trump. i think the senate, everyone recognizes, has big problems sing forward. senator alexandd that today. th it's very tense. they stillag m to do a few things like the trade deal, black historical college funding ill but don't see much cooperation going forward. these kind of things leave a mark and i think people will b processing this for quite a while. robert: carl, real quick, on tuesday, leader mcconnell told senate republicans he didn't ve the volts to block witnesses but then they wednesday morning, wnesday afternoon, it was clear he had whipped them together.

what happened? that was all part of his tactic. he wants thm to know, hey, look, we don't have to volts. you folks need to start coming out and saying what you're goino o. so he played that card, pushed everybody in that dection. do think one of the big factors was those senators hated sitting on the floor without their phones. they kw what the outcome wasg ng to be so let's not have witnesses. robert: -- party, its mitch mcconnell's u.s. senate. when was the last time we had a lead we are such com. he's not so popular with the people ags his rat in his home state aren't that grate bu he has a power over his senate that is historic. robert: carl commented on the senate but what about the house and its conscious of the executive branch? do they feel sometime eyed each

and every step of the -- sometime eyed each and every step of the way? >> you heard stitch -- schiff an say if you let us have a legitimate trial then basicallyn the constitus a paper tiger. no, we won't give you any witnesses or documents, that this is basically giving thumbs up to the practice of stonewalling by the trump administration. he said basically the house democrats will conduct consequences too for them to conduct oversight o a white house they're not particularly fond of. for a lot of people clawing -- drawing conclusions about this experien what i am the means going forward to investigations that don't rise to the level ofism people. but are the basic practice of the interplay between the executive branch and legislative branch. we'll see if the warnings of either side are bourn out. the house is making the point th

congress needs to be stronger whereas a lot of republicans are staying -- ying you're trampling on the president's branch to do things here and that's not ok. that's another debates that wasn't completely resolved. house will change their approach to congressional oversiilt but itbe interesting to see now that we're nearing the end of thekraine chamchamentser. robert: any tae leaves on the ate of the union snow what about the market drop on friday because of fears around the world in the coronavirus. >> even as all s thff is going on, you have this very poteial -- this virus that could be a very potential global issue and could affect the economy,which is president

trump's streng. so i think you'll probably hear some talk about that them tryin to say there on topf it. this is another examplehere trump can also say he wants to be better thanormer esident obama. he had to deal with ebola. he wants to show now he can deal with this robert: that's all the time we haveonight. i really appreciate ayesha rascoe here rat the table. pain page from u.s.a. todaand capitol hill. you're able to do this.sy night i really appreciate it. karoun demirjian, jake sherman, carl hulse, thank youmu s. we're talk about the upcoming iowa kick discuss -- caucuses. it will be on our website and social media. before we go, a note about gwen identifyll.

she was honored this ifill she was honored this week by the u.s. poach office. they dedicated a speci stamp for her. a special hono for a special personal. i'm robert costa, good night. announcer: corporate funding is provided by -- >> i was able to turn the aircraft around and the mission around and was able to save two men' live that night. >> myirst job helped me to grow up pretty quickly. that will happen when you're asked to respond to a coup. >> in 2001 i signe up for the air force. two days later, 9/11appened.

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