norm eisen, you are a gift, especially to do this, at this time. thank you, brother, for the -- for the intelligence, as always. >> thank you, chris. >> all right. let's go to cnn's phil mattingly for a state-of-play check on capitol hill. what do you have? >> well, we are in the last vestiges, i guess you could say, on the house floor about the objection to the commonwealth of pennsylvania. look, we know how this is going to end. when it came to the objection to arizona, 121 republicans voted in favor of that rejection. that was nowhere near what they needed. and it didn't matter, anyway, because the senate summarily dismissed. so, what you are watching right now on the house floor and what we are waiting for is lawmakers, republican and democrat, going back and forth. each gets five minutes and once they are done, they will vote. the vote will fail. the joint session would technically reconvene, and then they will finish counting the final 12 states. the endgame here is the same guys as it has been since november 7th. joe biden will be president-

so i see that movement going on well past inauguration day. >> well, norm eisen, somehow, this brings us to you. nation turns its lonely eyes to the sole lawyer on this panel, and i have a number of questions. number one, the founders left us no instructions on how to try in the senate a president impeached for inciting insurrection. i heard you theorize i think it was last night while we're used to having the chief justice preside over the last trial, there's no instructions for that and it could be the senior democratic senator, pat leahy. here's a second question. is there any possibility that someone would approach the president and say, want to avoid a trial? sign this. it takes away your power to ever run again. >> brian, thanks for having me back on the program. and in terms of the logistics of this impeachment trial, you're right. there are a number of unanswered questions. i will start by saying that i believe the founders of our country and the framers of the constitution left us very clear instructions that a president who launches a violent attack, and the professor was so

let's bring in david gregory and norm eisen. politics and law. thank you both. david, how moved are you by the apparent move by gop leadership? >> look, i think it's significant. and the biggest reason why is that if impeachment moves forward as we expect it to tomorrow, it's such an important statement to the country, to those insurrectionists who led this assault on our government, and to history, that there were republicans who were willing to step forward and say, shame on you, mr. president, you don't deserve to be in office, you deserve the shame that comes with being the only president in history to be impeached twice. liz cheney is a study in leadership tonight. that's mature leadership. leadership, doing something that could be really politically difficult in leading the way. i've always felt, chris, and you and i have talked about this over the years, why don't more republicans stand up to trump? because he was too strong or they perceived he was too strong. mcconnell's reported views tonight say to me there is finally a sense of vulnerability that tru

ambassador norm eisen and harry litman of the "new york times," gentlemen, thanks very much. >> thank> it's been on a lot of minds following the capitol riot. shouldn't they have been prepared for this? what went wrong and the plans to fix it, when we come back. there are many names for enthusiast. but there's only one way to become one... by going all in. the new lexus is. with a lower center of gravity, a more responsive suspension, and an aggressive wider stance. this is what we call going all in on the sport sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $359 a month for 39 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. unstopables in-wash scent booster lease the 2021 is 300 for $359 a month for 39 months. downy unstopables (burke)stomer) happy anniversary. (customer) for what? (burke) every year you're with us, you get fifty dollars toward your home deductible. it's a policy perk for being a farmers customer. (customer) do i have to do anything? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) hmm, that is really something. (burke) you get

norm eisen, thank you very much. jimmy schultz, appreciate you. appreciate you both.mp wants to be president very badly, very badly. why? why? he's ignoring the pandemic. he always has. he's got 16 days left. the vaccine, which i would argue will be his biggest positive contribution to this country, he got behind warp speed. he made the bet, and he won. but now the rollout's a disaster, and he's not doing anything to fix it. he won't even address it. that's what we have to address. let's get after it, next. how about no no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. >>> operation warp speed was a strong move, and it paid off in the form of a gift. the vaccine early. why are we wasting it? why are we allowing distribution to suck? retrumplicans nodded to claims of herd immunity this year, okay? here's the reality. they said, yeah, yeah. no, this year we're going to get there. this pace gets us there in 2027. how many more dead, empty seats, empty hearts, sick who can't work, who will never fully recover thanks to long haul? how

but let's go back to the chief white house correspondent katelyn collins and norm eisen, he is a cnn alyst. norm, what are you watching for as these house impeachment managers get ready to walk over, deliver this one particular to the senate? donald trump is no longer in office, he is a private citizen, what message are the democrats sending with this impeachment trial to formally begin the week of february 8th? >> wolf, thanks for having me back. the house managers are sending the most fundamental message under the american constitution and u.s. law, wolf, that no person is above the law. donald trump, as we'll hear when jamie raskin, a great constitutional scholar to serve in the house of representatives reads that article, will hear that donald trump incited an insurrection, that there's no doubt about the factual or legal basis, wolf. this was the nightmare of the frailers of the constitution, a president to use a mob to disrupt the electoral process to ben benefit himself. since there's no question about the facts, no real question about the law, we'll be looking for the thing th

let's bring in norm eisen. we have two guests in this segment, norm eisen, former white house counsel, former counsel during impeachment, former u.s. ambassador. he was the ethics lawyer in the obama white house and we saw him, of course, behind the house judiciary committee members during the hearings. counselor, this is, am i correct that tonight's procedure is going according to hoyle? this is going the way it normally goes, despite all we've been through, despite everything over georgia and the violence of today? >> well, brian, today has been a cross between hoyle and hobbs. because we have seen the savage forces that donald trump has unleashed and stirred up and exercised and it has shocked the senators and the congresspeople that i worked with when i was impeachment co-counsel. and they have reverted to the normal decorum. mike pence, for all of his failures and all the enablers, brian, as i've come on the show to chart the historic moments with you over the past four years, all the enablers, mike pence

ambassador norm eisen, thank you for your time this afternoon. >> thank you. >>> next the internationalction to the riots on capitol hill and the challenges the attacks could pose for president-elect biden and the incoming state department. stay with us. pass pass pass pas advanced non-small cell lung cancer can take away so much. but today there's a combination of two immunotherapies you can take first. one that could mean... a chance to live longer. opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread and that tests positive for pd-l1 and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. it's the first and only approved chemo-free combination of two immunotherapies that works together in different ways to harness the power of the immune system. opdivo plus yervoy equals a chance for more days. more nights. more beautiful weekends. more ugly sweaters. more big hugs. more small outings. opdivo and yervoy can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues in your body and affect how they work. this may happen during or after treatment h

. >> i want to bring norm eisen into this conversation. norm, in this article of impeachment that was passed by the house of representatives, 232 in favor, including 10 republicans, 197 opposed, one sentence jumps out at me, that they're going to have to try to prove in a formal trial in the u.s. senate. they say that the president betrayed his trust as president to the manifest injury of the people of the united states. so they're going to have to bring witnesses before the trial in the senate to make that case. walk us through that process, how you think it's going to unfold. >> the best witness, wolf, to the president's betrayal of trust against the people of the united states is donald trump himself. the two most important pieces of evidence that we have are his speech to the insurrectionists when he incited them, he used language of we have to fight and if you don't fight your country will be taken away from you. let's march down pennsylvania avenue. we saw the results. and then, wolf, the other most important piece of evidence is the

joining us now is ambassador norm eisen, former special counsel and special assistant to president obamadiciary committee during president prup's impeachme impeachment. also with us is harry litman, legal affairs columnist for the "los angeles times" and host of the podcast "talking feds." he's a former u.s. attorney who served as deputy assistant attorney general during the clinton administration. good to see you both. harry, let me start with you. we've had the words sedition and treason and insurrection thrown around a lot this week. could you parse those words out? some of them have precise legal meanings. sedition, treason, insurrection. others are more cultural terms of art like a coup. how do you see the words we're using to describe this? >> yeah. they sound like tough medicine, and they do fit the cultural meaning. but joshua, they fit even more precisely the legal meaning. so if you look in the code under seditious conspiracy, you find that someone has tried specifically to impede the authority of united states law or otherwise halt the authority. i'll read you the actual terms

also with us, norm eisen. he served as counsel on the house judiciary committee during the first impeachment of president trump. let me just make note of the fact that we are poised on the brink of history here. it does seem inevitable that donald trump will be the second president ever to be -- sorry, the first president ever to be impeached twice. it is stunning. it is remarkable. ambassador eisen, i want to start with you. given that it is unlikely that this will remove donald trump from office prior to january 20th, why is the important to do this? >> john, thanks for having me back on the show. it's critically important for house to respond, when you have a president who, as the constitution says, engages in treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. there could be no higher crime and misdemeanor than leading an attack on your own government! it's not just congress! the executive branch, the vice president was there, too. so irrespective of the fate in the senate, they should do this. >> dav