Speaker 1: The first day of former President Trump's impeachment trial has
Speaker 1: just come to a close, and we are joined here
Speaker 1: by one of the jurors to help us break it
Speaker 1: all down. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. I think
Speaker 1: I've heard it before. I think I've said it before,
Speaker 1: maybe almost exactly a year ago, on the very first
Speaker 1: episode of this show. Is that not word for word, verbatim,
Speaker 1: exactly how Verdict began. It is because, you know, Senator,
Speaker 1: it would seem that we are just stuck, suspended in
Speaker 1: mid air in this country. Nothing is changing. I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, when we started this show, it was
Speaker 1: because the first I'm going to start singing, I got you, babe.
Speaker 1: It's just going to keep on and on. When we
Speaker 1: first started, I had no idea really what was at
Speaker 1: play in that first impeachment trial, and that to me
Speaker 1: seems clear cut compared to this second sort of impeachment trial.
Speaker 1: I guess the biggest question on people's minds is is
Speaker 1: this even an impeachment trial? Because obviously Trump is not
Speaker 1: the president anymore. You were there all day, we are
Speaker 1: we are doing exactly what we did a year ago.
Speaker 1: We were here in the middle of the night. You've
Speaker 1: just left the capital. Now, I will say it is
Speaker 1: much more humane. So so when we started this last year,
Speaker 1: I think it was two thirty seven in the morning
Speaker 1: when we started this, it's now, what is it, ten
Speaker 1: twelve pm? Much more recent. I you know, that's positively civilized.
Speaker 1: Does that tell you something about the seriousness of this
Speaker 1: impeachment trial? Yes, luck, To be honest, both sides are
Speaker 1: dialing it in. Okay. The end result of this is
Speaker 1: is preordained that this trial, as Shakespeare put it, is
Speaker 1: full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Senator, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not the most literary guy in the world. I
Speaker 1: thought that was William Faulkner who said that I was.
Speaker 1: I was reading a tweet from Andream Mitchell on NBC.
Speaker 1: She seemed to want to make fun of you and
Speaker 1: attribute that quote to Faulkner. It really was a pretty
Speaker 1: stunning exchange. So this happened a little over an hour ago,
Speaker 1: and I guess Andrew Mitchell decided that she was going
Speaker 1: to upbraid me and demonstrate her intellectual superiority and better learnedness.
Speaker 1: And you know, apparently she does not. Ironically, I didn't
Speaker 1: know this. She has a degree in English literature, American literature. Well,
Speaker 1: that would explain and so and so Faulkner she knows.
Speaker 1: But but but apparently Macbeth she does not know. She
Speaker 1: does not. I think actually there is something in this
Speaker 1: exchange that tells us a lot about the whole impeachment trial,
Speaker 1: which was this this combination not just of ignorance but
Speaker 1: also arrogance to correct someone who's using the correct quote. Well,
Speaker 1: life is a tale told by an idiot, full of
Speaker 1: sound and fury signifying nothing. Wow, and one would think
Speaker 1: not only ABC. Jennifer Rubin at Washington Post chimed in,
Speaker 1: agreeing with Andrew Mitchell, it really is kind of amazing
Speaker 1: that between NBC and the Washington Post nobody has actually
Speaker 1: read Macbeth. I'll tell you, Senator, if you spend as
Speaker 1: much time in the media and around journalists as I do,
Speaker 1: not surprising at all, Absolutely not surprising. Well, and you know,
Speaker 1: I will say, nothing is better than when Ernest Hemingway wrote,
Speaker 1: is this a dagger? I see before me the handle
Speaker 1: towards my hand. Come, let me clutch THEE. I have
Speaker 1: THEE not and yet I see THEE still. I thought
Speaker 1: that was JK. Rowling because I don't know. I said,
Speaker 1: we could go through the whole literary canon. You know,
Speaker 1: this does, though, this issue of ignorance and arrogance, It
Speaker 1: does bring me back to the question of the trial,
Speaker 1: because I'll confess to ignorance here. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is this thing constitutional? Is it unconstitutional?
Speaker 1: Is the Senate have the right to hold the trial?
Speaker 1: Can there be an impeachment trial of an ex president?
Speaker 1: What you were there all day? What's going on? So
Speaker 1: those are really important questions, and we actually address those
Speaker 1: questions yesterday. So the trial itself started today. Yesterday we
Speaker 1: had essentially a pre trial motion, okay, and an argument
Speaker 1: about whether the Senate even has jurisdiction to consider this matter.
Speaker 1: And what's it hard in the argument is is that
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump is no longer the president. And so
Speaker 1: the argument that the Trump legal campaign made is that
Speaker 1: the Senate doesn't have the jurisdiction to try a former officeholder, right,
Speaker 1: that jurisdiction only extends to current office holders, and once
Speaker 1: he left the White House, the Senate could no longer
Speaker 1: have an impeachment trial. So this has been my understanding
Speaker 1: of it. But you know, I didn't go to law school,
Speaker 1: and I'm no constitutional expert. Well, and you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: The constitutional question is actually very close. It is a
Speaker 1: difficult question. It's not a question I had examined until
Speaker 1: till we were faced with it. And I got to say,
Speaker 1: as I looked at it, I actually think the better argument,
Speaker 1: on the substance and on the merits it is that
Speaker 1: the Senate does have the jurisdiction to try a former officeholder. Okay,
Speaker 1: that being said, I don't believe the jurisdiction is mandatory.
Speaker 1: I don't think we have to take it, and so
Speaker 1: I don't think we should take it. Let me walk
Speaker 1: through that, because those are some complicated legal Conscis Wells,
Speaker 1: and I want to point out generally speaking, you've heard
Speaker 1: people it's it's binary. They'll say, either the Senate has
Speaker 1: no jurisdiction here, this is a force of a trial.
Speaker 1: Or the Senate not only has jurisdiction, but we have
Speaker 1: to do it. It's our constitutional responsibility to throw Trump
Speaker 1: in the gulag. And you, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: this is a unique legal take. Hey, yeah, it may
Speaker 1: well be. Although actually Mike Lee, by colleague, he and
Speaker 1: I are very close to agreement on this. We've talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot. Mike is a serious legal scholar,
Speaker 1: clerk for Justice Sam Alito on the Supreme Court. Mike
Speaker 1: and I have spent many, many hours talking about this issue,
Speaker 1: and his view and mine are very very close on this.
Speaker 1: Let me start on just the threshold question. Do you
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction? So if you look at the constitutional text,
Speaker 1: you can take arguments from the text on both sides.
Speaker 1: So the Constitution says the House shall have the sole
Speaker 1: power of impeachment and the Senate shall have the sole
Speaker 1: power to try all impeachments. Interestingly, those are the only
Speaker 1: two places in the Constitution you find the word soul power.
Speaker 1: And so it's just impeachments. House is entirely in charge
Speaker 1: of impeachments, the Senate is entirely in charge of trying impeachment.
Speaker 1: Nobody else has power. Right And actually, even on this point,
Speaker 1: I think it's worth clearing up because because we use
Speaker 1: these terms in a loose way, Trump has already been
Speaker 1: impeached shrecked twice, correct, because that the House voted they
Speaker 1: impeached him, he was in office both times. Then there's
Speaker 1: the trial. He's been acquitted once during the first episodes
Speaker 1: of verdict. And now the question is will he be
Speaker 1: acquitted or convicted? And this is one of the things
Speaker 1: most misunderstood just in sort of general Marlans. But to
Speaker 1: be impeached, think of it like in the criminal context,
Speaker 1: to be indicted, like if the grand jury indictes you,
Speaker 1: it means they bring charges against you. If you're indicted
Speaker 1: for running over somebody's dog, doesn't mean you're convicted, it
Speaker 1: means you're charged with it. And then when you have
Speaker 1: a trial, if you're convicted, is when you're found guilty.
Speaker 1: So the House impeaches, which is to bring the charges,
Speaker 1: and the Senate conducts the trial. Now, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of textual arguments that were raised as to why
Speaker 1: former officeholders do not fall into the impeachment power. One
Speaker 1: is that another portion of the Constitution refers to the
Speaker 1: president rather than a president, right and Donald J. Trump
Speaker 1: right now is not the president. There's only one the
Speaker 1: president in any moment in history. Today, Joseph Biden is
Speaker 1: the president. Trump is a former president. That's a textual
Speaker 1: argument that is used to say, well, he's not the president,
Speaker 1: so he's not subject to impeachment. What that as it
Speaker 1: actually says, though, is when the president is impeached, the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice shall preside. Because Trump isn't the president, the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice is not presiding. Right. There is another provision
Speaker 1: that says that when the president is impeached and convicted,
Speaker 1: he shall be removed. It uses the word shall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the argument is made, well, shall, but he can't
Speaker 1: be If he can't be removed, that means you can't
Speaker 1: remove an X officeholder. Look, that's a real argument. That's
Speaker 1: a substantive argument. On the flip side, As we said,
Speaker 1: he's not the president, he is a former president. If
Speaker 1: you look at the history, as you examine it at
Speaker 1: the time the Constitution was written, it turns out the
Speaker 1: question of what's called late impeachment was actually a topic
Speaker 1: of discussion. Can former officeholders be impeached? If you look
Speaker 1: to British common law, and the Framers were very familiar
Speaker 1: with British common law, and often when you're interpreting US
Speaker 1: constitutional provisions, you look to what where did it come
Speaker 1: from under British law, because many of the concepts the
Speaker 1: Framers took from British law. And there were two very
Speaker 1: notable British impeachments. One was in seventeen twenty five, and
Speaker 1: that was Lord Chancellor Macaelesfield who was impeached for public corruption.
Speaker 1: It's very well known impeachment. Now, yeah, I knew all
Speaker 1: about it. I was, you know, I talked about it.
Speaker 1: You know, is there a day you don't talk about
Speaker 1: the Michaelsfield impeachment. Well, Michaelsfield was impeached after he left office.
Speaker 1: A second impeachment was the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Now
Speaker 1: Warren Hastings was the Governor General of India. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: his impeachment began in seventeen eighty seven. So literally, while
Speaker 1: the Framers were in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia and in
Speaker 1: the debates of the Constitution, they discuss the impeachment of
Speaker 1: Warren Hastings. Now Hastings likewise was no longer the Governor General,
Speaker 1: and yet nonetheless he was impeaching. By the way, do
Speaker 1: you know who led the charge to impeach Hastings? Who
Speaker 1: someone you're a big fan of? Would this be Edmund
Speaker 1: Edmund Burke, a great considered the founder of modern conservative philosophy.
Speaker 1: Very it's actually very important context for how these Framers
Speaker 1: are thinking about that. So they're literally talking about at
Speaker 1: the Constitutional Convention the impeachment of an out of office officeholder.
Speaker 1: And by the way, right after the founding eighteen oh
Speaker 1: six in Great Britain, Lord Melville was impeached as well,
Speaker 1: so very shortly thereafter. So you've got a fair amount
Speaker 1: of history with British common law, and then you look
Speaker 1: at US history. The first impeachment we have was of
Speaker 1: Senator Blunt of Tennessee, and he was impeached. He was
Speaker 1: actually impeached because he tried to essentially sell Florida and
Speaker 1: Louisiana away from the US, and and he was impeached.
Speaker 1: He was thrown out of the Senate. The guy was crooked.
Speaker 1: This is like when someone says, you know, if you
Speaker 1: believe that I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you,
Speaker 1: he tried to sell. He tried to sell a bridge.
Speaker 1: And so there was a big debate during the Blunt impeachment.
Speaker 1: So Blunt was impeached, the House brought charges, the Senate
Speaker 1: expelled him because he was a senator, and then there
Speaker 1: was a big debate on jurisdiction. There were two arguments
Speaker 1: on jurisdiction, One that the Senate couldn't impeach him, because
Speaker 1: he was a senator, and that impeachment didn't apply to
Speaker 1: members of Congress. It only applied to members of the
Speaker 1: executive branch or the judicial branch Okay. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: an argument that was given was he couldn't be impeached
Speaker 1: because he was no longer in office, or he couldn't
Speaker 1: be tried. Rather, the Senate ended up voting by a
Speaker 1: vote of fourteen to eleven that the Senate did not
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction over Blunt Okay. That has both arguments were presented,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily conclusive. But the predominant arguments that
Speaker 1: were raised was that he was a enitor, and so
Speaker 1: it was a comment about what kind of job he
Speaker 1: had rather than being a former office holder. One other
Speaker 1: major president eighteen seventy six, Secretary of War, William Belknap,
Speaker 1: now Belknap resigned, was crooked, was caught in corruption, was impeached,
Speaker 1: and the Senate actually had two weeks of debate over
Speaker 1: whether a former officeholder could be impeach because Nap argued,
Speaker 1: I'm out of office, you can't impeach, And the Senate
Speaker 1: ended up voting thirty seven to twenty nine in favor
Speaker 1: of jurisdiction in favor of saying we can try a
Speaker 1: former officeholder. So as I look at this the textual
Speaker 1: language of the Constitution, there's some ambiguity, but the grant
Speaker 1: of power to the Senate is really broad. The Senate
Speaker 1: shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. That's
Speaker 1: a very broad power. Given the history of British common
Speaker 1: law in American history, I think the better constitutional argument is, yes,
Speaker 1: you can try a former officeholder. And let me give
Speaker 1: an example. Imagine we discovered we found evidence that a
Speaker 1: former president had sold American nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. Yea,
Speaker 1: that they were guilty of treason and bribery both, and
Speaker 1: the evidence was conclusive. And by the way, treason and
Speaker 1: bribery are both mentioned explicitly in the Constitution as grounds
Speaker 1: for impeachment. I think in those circumstances, the House would
Speaker 1: conclude overwhelmingly it had jurisdiction to impeach them. The Senate
Speaker 1: would conclude overwhelmingly it had jurisdiction to try them, even
Speaker 1: though they were a former officer. Right, So I concluded.
Speaker 1: I wrote an op ed last night laying out these
Speaker 1: arguments as to why I think the right constitutional argument.
Speaker 1: It's close, but I think the right argument is, yes,
Speaker 1: we have jurisdiction over a former officeholder. I think you've
Speaker 1: actually managed to change my mind on this in this discussion,
Speaker 1: because I was leaning very much text of the Constitution
Speaker 1: certainly made it seem to me as though Senate doesn't
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction. But when you factor in British common law,
Speaker 1: when you factor in these other debates that were happening
Speaker 1: at the time, that is a compelling argument. And yet,
Speaker 1: and yet, so yesterday I voted against jurisdiction. Yes, And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is, generally speaking, there are two
Speaker 1: kinds of jurisdiction, mandatory jurisdiction and discretionary jurisdiction. Okay, Mandatory
Speaker 1: jurisdiction means you must take the case if you have
Speaker 1: the authority to take it. You must take the case
Speaker 1: and you have no choice. Discretionary jurisdiction is you have
Speaker 1: the authority to take the case, but you can choose
Speaker 1: whether or not to hear it. And the easiest example
Speaker 1: is the US Supreme Court. The vast majority of the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court's docket is discretionary jurisdiction. We heard a
Speaker 1: lot about this during the election. Right, there were these
Speaker 1: cases that the Court didn't take. The Court didn't take.
Speaker 1: You were actually slated to argue one of the the
Speaker 1: Court said, no, thank you, we don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1: In any given year, the Supreme Court will get about
Speaker 1: eight thousand what are called petitions for sirtiori, which are
Speaker 1: requests for the Court to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction to
Speaker 1: hear a case. Ye, out of those eight thousand, the court,
Speaker 1: here's about one percent. It here's about eighty out of
Speaker 1: those eight thousand, so seventy nine hundred. It says, go
Speaker 1: jump in a lake. Right, as I look at the Constitution,
Speaker 1: there's nothing in the Constitution that says we have mandatory
Speaker 1: jurisdiction the Senate has to take a case. It says
Speaker 1: the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.
Speaker 1: It's up to the Senate. The Senate makes those determinations.
Speaker 1: And so what I argued to my colleagues, and actually
Speaker 1: at lunch today, I made this argument to all of
Speaker 1: my colleagues that, for what it's worth, here's my thinking
Speaker 1: that in this case, we should not exercise jurisdiction. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't take up the case and the reasons we shouldn't
Speaker 1: take it up. Our number one, the House had zero
Speaker 1: due process. Yeah, they considered it for seven days. They
Speaker 1: heard no witnesses, they held they held no hearings, they
Speaker 1: examined no evidence. This was a political impeachment. It seems
Speaker 1: as though they're sort of changing their arguments. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get into that a little bit on just what happened today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it just it seems it seemed like a
Speaker 1: shallow process in the House. And I don't think the
Speaker 1: Senate is obliged. Look this precedent. You know, this has
Speaker 1: also been called a snap impeachment, where they just vote
Speaker 1: out an impeachment because we hate the guy. I don't
Speaker 1: think the Senate has any obligation if the House engages
Speaker 1: in a sham proceeding to conduct a full trial. I
Speaker 1: think we are perfectly justified in saying we are declining
Speaker 1: to exercise jurisdiction over this because it doesn't meet the
Speaker 1: threshold of a credible, real serious impeachment right. Secondly, on
Speaker 1: the merits, I think there is no serious argument that
Speaker 1: this meets the legal threshold for impeachment. There's only one
Speaker 1: count that the House alleges, which is incitement insurrection, incitement
Speaker 1: to to riot and violence. Now there clearly was riot.
Speaker 1: There was a terrorist attack on the Capitol. It was horrific,
Speaker 1: and you know today, so we went through eight hours
Speaker 1: of the House Manager's arguments and they did an effective job.
Speaker 1: Let me start by saying that they look Democrats have
Speaker 1: a lot of trial lawyers, and they had some trial
Speaker 1: lawyers today that were good storytellers who were emotional. I mean,
Speaker 1: they got up, they walked through, they were well organized,
Speaker 1: and it was We watched a lot of videos today.
Speaker 1: They seemed to rely a lot on these very charged
Speaker 1: videos that drove evoke a lot of emotions, and it
Speaker 1: was powerful. It was horrified. I mean there were a
Speaker 1: lot of moments in the Senate where you could hear
Speaker 1: a pin drop because you're watching this and it's horrific.
Speaker 1: It's horrific seeing violent criminals and terrorists assaulting, beating police officers,
Speaker 1: loudly proclaimed their desire to carry out murder and succeeding
Speaker 1: in murdering one police officer and injuring over a hundred.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was all of us, and I think
Speaker 1: all of the country who watched today was horrified. At
Speaker 1: what happened, and that this was a grotesque terrorist attack
Speaker 1: carried out by violent criminals who should be fully prosecuted
Speaker 1: and spend a long, long time in jail, I think
Speaker 1: is unequivocal. Sure, but the emotional effect of the videos
Speaker 1: and even the stories that these impeachment managers were saying,
Speaker 1: it's not the same thing as an argument that the
Speaker 1: president committed an impeachable offense. Well, and ninety plus percent
Speaker 1: of the time of the house managers today was on
Speaker 1: how horrific the attack was and if we were impeaching
Speaker 1: you know, the guy with Viking horns that were beating
Speaker 1: people up, Sign me up? Where do I vote? Right?
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, incitement. The standard
Speaker 1: for incitement is it has to be a very direct
Speaker 1: call for violence. And if you look at what the
Speaker 1: president said the president and listen the president's rhetoric at times,
Speaker 1: I think is overheated. I wish some of the things
Speaker 1: he says, some of the things he tweeted, I wish
Speaker 1: he didn't say and tweet. But if you look at
Speaker 1: what he actually said at the speech on January sixth,
Speaker 1: the Democrats are making a big deal of well, he
Speaker 1: kept saying fight. You need to fight, like hell yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. If we take every person who
Speaker 1: has ever said you gotta fight, you gotta fight like
Speaker 1: how you gotta win, We gotta take our country back,
Speaker 1: you would literally be prosecuting every single political candidate in
Speaker 1: America for incitement. Like I guarantee you of all the
Speaker 1: all fifty Democratic senators, every single one, and if you've
Speaker 1: ever given a stump speech, if you ran for seventh
Speaker 1: grade class, President, I'm willing. I'm willing to Batmichael. You
Speaker 1: stood up and said we gotta fight. Yes, I did,
Speaker 1: and I won my race. Darn it there, because it's
Speaker 1: effective political rhetoric and everybody does. It is ubiquitous. It
Speaker 1: is commonplace language to say fight. In this case, President
Speaker 1: Trump said peacefully. He explicitly said peacefully. It was not
Speaker 1: a call to violence. And where the House Manager's argument
Speaker 1: falls apart is whatever standard. They haven't really articulated a
Speaker 1: standard for incitement. Maybe they'll do that tomorrow, but they
Speaker 1: haven't even tried to say, this is how you distinguish
Speaker 1: ordinary political speech or even hot rhetoric, I mean, from
Speaker 1: truly criminal incitement. Any standard they would articulate right after
Speaker 1: this trial, we better start moving forward against Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker 1: at Maxine Waters and Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton for them,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, Kamala harrisy Booker. Look you look at Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi called police officers Nazis. Yeah, there's some rich irony.
Speaker 1: Now all these Democrats are defending police officers given a
Speaker 1: year of vilifying cops and saying abolish the police and
Speaker 1: acab their motto, all cops are bastards is what that
Speaker 1: stands for. And these are now the defenders of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: I mean it. You know, if God were still in
Speaker 1: the business of throwing lightning bolts, some Democrats might have
Speaker 1: been struck down. Right. You look at Chuck Schumer who
Speaker 1: went to the steps of the Supreme Court, called out
Speaker 1: two Supreme Court justices by name and says, you have
Speaker 1: unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. He
Speaker 1: threatened them directly. Now look that if what Trump said
Speaker 1: is incitement, what Schumer said is inside. Well. Maxine Waters
Speaker 1: said when you see Republicans in public, go up, get
Speaker 1: in their face, or started confrontation, she explicitly urged violence.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you Kamala Harris, who the media is
Speaker 1: right now in the midst of beatifying Kamala Harris when
Speaker 1: we had violent riots, and we had for a year
Speaker 1: riots across this country. City's being burned, mostly peaceful police cars.
Speaker 1: CNN apologizing for him, like crazy police cars being firebomb
Speaker 1: police officers being murdered, and these Democrats who are now
Speaker 1: high and mighty, we're apologizing for celebrating, encouraging Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: raised bail money, yeah, to bail out not the peaceful protesters,
Speaker 1: the violent criminals. So it was literally after they had
Speaker 1: committed acts of violence, she was raising money to bail
Speaker 1: them out. Now, the truthful matter, the truthful assessment of
Speaker 1: it is none of this is incitement. But there is
Speaker 1: no coherent standard that says what Trump said his incitement
Speaker 1: and what Kamalin Schumer said is not. You can't have it.
Speaker 1: You can't have The only people guilty are the ones
Speaker 1: politically I dislike. And that's really what the Democrats are.
Speaker 1: This is the issue because I don't think any Republicans
Speaker 1: out there are really saying we need to kick Corey
Speaker 1: book or out of the center because you know, he
Speaker 1: said something one time, but they're actually believe in free speech.
Speaker 1: Even don't speech you have a right right to it.
Speaker 1: But if we're going to take this unprecedented action impeach
Speaker 1: a former president now a private citizen in Florida for
Speaker 1: this language where he said maybe it was overblown at times,
Speaker 1: but he did say at the moment, be peaceful, don't
Speaker 1: be violent. If we're going to do that, why on
Speaker 1: earth are we letting Nancy Pelosi off the hook? Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: Maximars all these people. Because this is not a legal argument,
Speaker 1: it's not a constitutional argument, and it's not a principled argument.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why ninety percent of what they did
Speaker 1: today was emotional. It was just designed to have you go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this was horrible. Yeah, and it was horrible.
Speaker 1: It was a terrorist attack. Now there is a difference,
Speaker 1: which is that you and I and most people on
Speaker 1: the right unequivocally condemned this violence. It's bad. And let
Speaker 1: me be clear, whoever is responsible for killing officer sick Nick,
Speaker 1: assuming it was deliberate. I think those facts are still
Speaker 1: being investigated, But assuming it was deliberate, I'd execute for
Speaker 1: murdering police officer as far as I'm concerned. If that's
Speaker 1: deliberate and not, maybe the facts come out that they
Speaker 1: was somehow accidental, in which case it wouldn't fall under
Speaker 1: capital punishment. You'd instead prosecute them and put them away
Speaker 1: for a long time. But you and I are perfectly
Speaker 1: happy to unequivocally condemned the violence. The difference with the
Speaker 1: Democrats is most of the Democrats still haven't condemned the
Speaker 1: violence and rioting of BLM of Antifa. When they agree
Speaker 1: politically with someone, violence somehow doesn't count. So the Democrats
Speaker 1: seem to not have any coherence standard here, and the
Speaker 1: Republicans seem not particularly interested in this. I know there
Speaker 1: were a handful of Republicans who seemed GungHo on the
Speaker 1: impeachment trial, but most seem really uninterested. I think there
Speaker 1: was a report that some Republican senators were like reading
Speaker 1: books today, gazing off in the distance. Yeah. Look, to
Speaker 1: be honest, that's a little bit of gotcha journalism. It
Speaker 1: was okay, so when you were in the room, you
Speaker 1: saw Yeah, so I was in the room. We were
Speaker 1: all sitting at our desks. Most senators were at their
Speaker 1: desks the entire time. People would occasionally get up and
Speaker 1: go to the restroom. Look at the median age and
Speaker 1: the senators about ninety seven, so people have to go
Speaker 1: to the restroom. You know, you would also have so
Speaker 1: periodically you would get up and go in the cloak room.
Speaker 1: It's something we talked about in the last impeachment trial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were multiple times during the trial when I went
Speaker 1: back in the cloak room. I went back to talk
Speaker 1: with Lindsey Graham, went back to talk with Rand Paul,
Speaker 1: I went back to talk with John Kennedy. I don't
Speaker 1: want to ask for tales out of school here, but
Speaker 1: I do can you give us anything of what was
Speaker 1: going on? You know, I don't necessarily want to get
Speaker 1: into it because a lot of what I was talking
Speaker 1: with them about was strategy for the next couple of days,
Speaker 1: about where the arguments are going, what are the responses.
Speaker 1: Although look, a lot of what we were talking about
Speaker 1: is some of what we're saying here, which is the
Speaker 1: double standard that that that by any measure, um, you know,
Speaker 1: Lindsay was pointing out that that I guess one of
Speaker 1: the people who was bailed out from this fund that
Speaker 1: Kamala raised money for went out and committed violence and
Speaker 1: yet another riot and injured somebody else. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was it was not you know, not just once
Speaker 1: but twice. Yeah. Um, and so we were talking about
Speaker 1: we're going to have probably on Saturday, four hours of questioning.
Speaker 1: Remember the first impeachment trial, we had centator questions and
Speaker 1: so a lot of what I was talking with Lindsay
Speaker 1: and John and Rand about is what sort of questions
Speaker 1: to ask you. But there's a fair amount of that
Speaker 1: strategizing that goes on just off of the just off
Speaker 1: of the floor in the cloak room. Now. I know
Speaker 1: some reports are I mean, you have to take it
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt because it's the left wing media,
Speaker 1: but that the House Impeachment managing. They're doing a great job.
Speaker 1: As you say, it was emotionally persuasive, if not logically
Speaker 1: all that persuasive. So how long is this going to go?
Speaker 1: Is there any chance that the Democrats succeed? Or is
Speaker 1: this full of sound and fury signifying nothing? So stop
Speaker 1: quoting Funer. So I don't think it will go much longer.
Speaker 1: I think we are likely to be done Saturday night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what's currently scheduled. The House managers have two days
Speaker 1: sixteen hours to present their case, so we're one day
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, they have tomorrow we'll go I guess
Speaker 1: as we'll wrap up eight or nine o'clock tomorrow night,
Speaker 1: and then Trump's lawyers have sixteen hours over two days
Speaker 1: to present their case. I think it's quite likely Trump's
Speaker 1: lawyers will not take the whole sixteen hours. I think
Speaker 1: virtually every senator thinks they should not take the whole
Speaker 1: sixteen hours. When that is completed, there will be a
Speaker 1: vote on whether we should call a aditional witnesses now
Speaker 1: right now. My understanding is the Democratic senators don't want
Speaker 1: additional witnesses, so everyone expects that vote to be now.
Speaker 1: Remember we had a big fight and the last one
Speaker 1: about calling witnesses, right right, But is the idea here,
Speaker 1: what's the point? What would be the point of additional witnesses?
Speaker 1: I think so, And I think also I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the Democratic senators wish they weren't there that
Speaker 1: this impeachment. Look, if you're a Democrat, your guy just
Speaker 1: won the White House, you've got a new administration, you're
Speaker 1: getting new Democratic cabinet members, you've got a Democratic majority
Speaker 1: in the House, and you just got a Democratic majority
Speaker 1: in the Senate. So they're a bunch of Democratic senators
Speaker 1: who suddenly are committee chairman. They have gavels. They want
Speaker 1: to get onto the business to destroying the country and
Speaker 1: and by the way, that is what they're going to
Speaker 1: be doing, right, But they are eager to pass their
Speaker 1: radical agenda. Yeah, and this is just sort of an impediment.
Speaker 1: There's a waste of time for that. I think they're frustrated.
Speaker 1: It was really the House Democrats that drove this. They're
Speaker 1: so the House Democrats are just consumed with hatred for Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I think the Senate Democrats felt like they
Speaker 1: didn't have much of a choice. They had to go
Speaker 1: through with it. I don't get the sense Biden's very
Speaker 1: happy about this. I mean, you know, look, if you
Speaker 1: were you know, we were in week three of the
Speaker 1: Knowles presidency, I don't know that you would be all
Speaker 1: that interested in impeaching former President Ben Shapiro would be like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, in that specific case maybe, but but of course,
Speaker 1: if you if you get in there, you say, especially
Speaker 1: if someone like Joe Biden has been running for president
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty eight, right, it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: This guy knows what he wants to do. He wants
Speaker 1: to wield the power, and he's got to hold up
Speaker 1: to keep talking about the guy that he just booted
Speaker 1: out of the White House. The way, you know, Biden
Speaker 1: was accused of plagiarism too, just like Andrew Mitchell accused me.
Speaker 1: So maybe that augurs well for future future political endeavors.
Speaker 1: But look, Biden wants to get on with it. I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot So my sense of the Democrats,
Speaker 1: they don't want to see witnesses. We don't want to
Speaker 1: see witnesses. I think we'll vote on that. I think
Speaker 1: witnesses will they will not be called, and then we'll
Speaker 1: have four hours of questioning. And the way the questioning
Speaker 1: works is it alternates Democrat republican, Democrat Republican. Under the agreement,
Speaker 1: if we seeded back our time, you just have four
Speaker 1: hours of democratic questioning. So I don't think we'll do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think if we could actually give back our time,
Speaker 1: we might, but given that we'd just be giving it
Speaker 1: to the Democrats, I think we're unlikely to do that, right,
Speaker 1: And then my guess is at the end of that,
Speaker 1: which will be probably Sunday evening or Saturday evening, I
Speaker 1: think we'll vote, and to cut to the ending, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump will be acquitted. You're confident there's no it is
Speaker 1: to convict Trump takes sixty seven votes, There's not going
Speaker 1: to be sixty seven votes. There's gonna be fifty five
Speaker 1: votes to convict him. And I'd say plus or minus two, okay,
Speaker 1: So it could be as high as fifty seven, as
Speaker 1: low as fifty three. It ain't getting close to sixty seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we actually saw a proxy of that. We've had
Speaker 1: two votes now on the jurisdictional question. The first vote
Speaker 1: there were fifty five votes on jurisdiction. Actually, the second
Speaker 1: vote there were fifty six. And I think those are
Speaker 1: proxies for where the final vote is going to be. Well, presumably,
Speaker 1: if you're one of the forty five senators who said
Speaker 1: the Senate doesn't have jurisdiction here, can't imagine you're going
Speaker 1: to vote to convict, right, you're saying the whole trials
Speaker 1: of Farus, one would certainly think so. Yeah, but who knows.
Speaker 1: I mean that's why I say plus minus two. I
Speaker 1: mean you could have one or two who changed their mind.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at the first vote we had
Speaker 1: was a procedural vote on the jurisdictional question. Right at
Speaker 1: the outset that there were forty five the vote yesterday,
Speaker 1: they were forty four. Bill Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana, who
Speaker 1: sits next to me on the floor, he changed his vote.
Speaker 1: And the reason he changed his vote he thought the
Speaker 1: Trump lawyers did terribly. You know, Bill's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting guy, Bills a doctor. He's listening to the two
Speaker 1: sides and he just said, well, gosh, you know, the
Speaker 1: Democratic lawyers did a much better job than than the
Speaker 1: Republican lawyers. And he said, so I'm going to vote
Speaker 1: for them. This is something that surprised me the first
Speaker 1: time we did this, you know, a year ago, which
Speaker 1: is that it does matter what arguments people are making
Speaker 1: in the room. You know, these are these are real
Speaker 1: people in the room. They're responding in real time. Maybe
Speaker 1: in this case it's not going to be enough to
Speaker 1: change the outcome, but it does matter. It does matter,
Speaker 1: and it matters probably more for those without legal training
Speaker 1: and a deep constitutional background. Bill's a very talented doctor.
Speaker 1: If we were having a couple of people arguing about
Speaker 1: the right medical procedure to do, I wouldn't know anything.
Speaker 1: I guess I'd have to depend on whoever presented the
Speaker 1: best argument. If I were asked to judge, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: how to treat some disease or injury. I'd have to
Speaker 1: listen to the like the size and go. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that guy sounds like. He knows what he's
Speaker 1: talking about, particularly with those look for for people who
Speaker 1: have a lot of experience in these issues. Frankly, the
Speaker 1: arguments of the lawyers, you listen to them. But I'm
Speaker 1: spending time studying the text of the Constitution, the history.
Speaker 1: I'm assessing the arguments on my own. And so this
Speaker 1: is not a debate tournament. You're You're not filling out
Speaker 1: a ballot for who gave the best speech. You're trying
Speaker 1: to reach the right conclusion, right, And so I felt
Speaker 1: very comfortable with the conclusion how I voted yesterday, which
Speaker 1: is no jurisdiction. Otherwise, I said, not that we don't
Speaker 1: have the authority, but that we shouldn't exercise jurisdiction. And
Speaker 1: I'm very comfortable that on Saturday or whenever we vote,
Speaker 1: that I'll vote not guilty. And I think there will
Speaker 1: be the president will be acquitted. I think one were
Speaker 1: as always over time, but one important mail back question.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, I do have to tell
Speaker 1: you kind of a funny thing that happened at the end. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we are almost completely done, and in fact, Jamie Raskin,
Speaker 1: the lead Democrat House impeaching manager, stands up and says, okay,
Speaker 1: we're done for the day. We can wrap up, and
Speaker 1: everyone's relieved because they finished a little bit early tonight.
Speaker 1: They went, they didn't go quite as long as they
Speaker 1: had told us they would. And as we're getting ready
Speaker 1: to leave, Mike Lee stands up and he raises an objection.
Speaker 1: So in the course of the Democratic House Manager's presentation,
Speaker 1: they talked about on January sixth, right as the Capitol
Speaker 1: riot was beginning, that President Trump called Mike Lee's cell
Speaker 1: phone and he was looking for Tommy Tubberville, the new
Speaker 1: senator from Alabama, and apparently the White House had the
Speaker 1: wrong number. So like Trump calls and says Tommy, and
Speaker 1: as they relayed, Mike said, no, no, it's not Tommy,
Speaker 1: it's Mike. Leave. But here, let me give you Tommy.
Speaker 1: It's so brought the phone over and put Tuberville on
Speaker 1: the phone with Trump, and so they relay that those events,
Speaker 1: but the Democratic House Manager also describes some things that
Speaker 1: he says. Mike Lee said and I guess this came
Speaker 1: from some newspaper article about what Mike said contemporaneously at
Speaker 1: the time. So Mike got up and raised an objection
Speaker 1: and said, I asked for this to be stricken from
Speaker 1: the record because I didn't say that it's a lie,
Speaker 1: it's false, there's no evidence of it, and I asked
Speaker 1: it would be stricken from the record. Now this is
Speaker 1: where so everyone's kind of confused and not sure, And
Speaker 1: this is where some of the dynamics you gotta understand. Normally,
Speaker 1: the presiding officer would be the chief Justice who is
Speaker 1: prepared to make rulings and has legal training. Because the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice is not there because Donald Trump is not
Speaker 1: the president today, the presiding officer is Pat Lahey. Now,
Speaker 1: Pat lay He is the President pro tem. He's the
Speaker 1: most senior, most centered her in the majority. Now, by
Speaker 1: the way, he is also a partisan Democrat who's already
Speaker 1: said that that Trump should be convicted. So pause for
Speaker 1: a moment to think about what kind of fair and
Speaker 1: impartial judges that who's a juror in the case and
Speaker 1: has already stated before it starts that he wants the
Speaker 1: defendant convicted. The whole things even more ridiculous actually than
Speaker 1: already does. It is a big talk top circus. So
Speaker 1: lay He is kind of confused and he's not sure
Speaker 1: what to do. So the Senate Parliamentarian sits right in
Speaker 1: front of lay and look, Pat's not a spring chicken
Speaker 1: President pro tem never is. Definition. They are the most
Speaker 1: senior senator in the majority, and so they're typically in
Speaker 1: their high ad s Senate Parliamentarian and we've talked about
Speaker 1: her quite a bit on verdict as well. She hands
Speaker 1: lay He a piece of paper that she's written that says,
Speaker 1: under the agreement for the trial, the House managers are
Speaker 1: not required to limit their arguments to the record, so
Speaker 1: the I rule your objection out of order. Now, Mike
Speaker 1: is like, what are you talking about. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that it's not in the record. I'm saying it's false.
Speaker 1: I'm saying they said something about me that's a total
Speaker 1: lie and there's no evidence of and and lay He
Speaker 1: is just kind of confused, dazed, and so he reads
Speaker 1: the same ruling again, which is just the pretyight piece
Speaker 1: of paper the parliamentarians handed it. At that point, Mike
Speaker 1: stands up and says, I appeal the ruling of the chair,
Speaker 1: which is, at any point a senator can appeal the
Speaker 1: ruling of the chair and it goes to a vote
Speaker 1: to the body and lay. He's kind of moving forward.
Speaker 1: The parliamentarians like, all right, fine, asked for the yas
Speaker 1: and days, which is you have to have sufficient senators
Speaker 1: raise their hand and second it. Yeah, and if there's
Speaker 1: enough seconds, then you have a roll call vote and
Speaker 1: everyone votes and we all second it, and they start
Speaker 1: the role call vote. Now Chuck Schumer is looking at
Speaker 1: this going, wait, oh crap, this is a problem, and
Speaker 1: it's a problem on a couple of fronts. Number one,
Speaker 1: just on the merits. It's a little bit ridiculous that
Speaker 1: you've got a senator who you're saying a House member
Speaker 1: came and said something totally false about me and it
Speaker 1: should be out of the record. That's pretty messed up,
Speaker 1: right by the way, Joe Mansion, a Democrat, stands up
Speaker 1: and says, well, what was false about it? And so
Speaker 1: it's chaos on the floor. But Mansion's concern, like, you know, look,
Speaker 1: no senator wants House members to come into proceeding and
Speaker 1: just say stuff about libel on the record. So on
Speaker 1: the substance, Schumer recognizes it's a problem. Not only that
Speaker 1: if we have a vote lay, he's going to have
Speaker 1: to vote. Yeah, House a pat going to vote on
Speaker 1: whether to overrule his own ruling. And it really does
Speaker 1: underscore how asinine it is to have a partisan Democrat
Speaker 1: presiding over this impeach the judge right. Not only that
Speaker 1: if it ends up being a party line vote, that
Speaker 1: all the d's vote one way and all the urs
Speaker 1: vote the other way, that's a fifty fifty vote. So
Speaker 1: maybe they have to call Kamala Harris. You have the
Speaker 1: presidence president to break the time. So it was it
Speaker 1: was chaos and they're just going ahead with the vote,
Speaker 1: and Schumer, to his credit, and you won't hear me
Speaker 1: off and praise Schumer, but I will say Schumer stepped
Speaker 1: in the way a majority leader like if they don't
Speaker 1: like what's going on, they stand up and say, I
Speaker 1: suggest the absence of a quorum, which is sort of
Speaker 1: magic words that pause everything. It's just like hitting pause, right, okay,
Speaker 1: and the clerk starts calling the role just if they're
Speaker 1: to see if there's a quorum. By the way, everyone's
Speaker 1: in the room, like everyone knows, yes, there's no one
Speaker 1: disappeared in the There are a hundred senators in the room,
Speaker 1: but when you suggest the absence of a quorum, it
Speaker 1: like freezes everything. And so Schumer goes over to the
Speaker 1: house managers. He's like, guys, this is stupid. Come on,
Speaker 1: why are you doing this? Look like I mean, he's
Speaker 1: talking to the to the House Democrats and do you
Speaker 1: care about this? And they're like, no, we don't care
Speaker 1: about it. So then he goes talk to Mike, and
Speaker 1: Mike's Matt. I love Mike, but he's emotionally He's like,
Speaker 1: they said something about me that's false and I wanted
Speaker 1: about that in the wreck. I understand that. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: Schumer do his credit, says all right, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: He tells the house managers you withdraw it, and Mike,
Speaker 1: will you withdraw your objection? Mike says all right, and
Speaker 1: so they get up and they have Jamie raskin lead.
Speaker 1: House managers say we withdraw it, and so Mike withdraws
Speaker 1: its objections. So that's how the night ended. And it's funny.
Speaker 1: Mike was still pissed and I'm like, Mike, you won.
Speaker 1: Like they surrendered, They withdrew it and took it out
Speaker 1: and and Franklin I was telling one of the Democratic
Speaker 1: senators after I said, look, Schumer was really smart to
Speaker 1: do that. That was the right thing to do. Clever guy,
Speaker 1: no question. But so that's just a bit of huh.
Speaker 1: It was the night, you know, people were kind of
Speaker 1: it woke everyone up and startled everyone because it was
Speaker 1: a bit of drama and chaos that no one knew
Speaker 1: what would happen. And then it got resolved. And it's
Speaker 1: a sort of it's a minor issue, I mean relatively
Speaker 1: that some journalists live and some house impeachment manager live.
Speaker 1: Mike Lee was upset about it, but it raises all
Speaker 1: of these major issues about the nature of this impeachment trial. Well,
Speaker 1: and it does, and it also shows, you know, things
Speaker 1: seems so ordered and structured. It was chaotic. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: nobody knew there. So when Mike appealed the ruling of
Speaker 1: the chair and the clerk starts calling you know, miss bald,
Speaker 1: when mister Barrasso starts calling the names, you know, Schumer
Speaker 1: gets up and goes, what was the ruling of the chair?
Speaker 1: Like we didn't know what we were voting on, Like
Speaker 1: how do you vote yes or no? If usually things
Speaker 1: are more orderly, but it was truly chaotic where no
Speaker 1: one even knew whether to vote yes or no because
Speaker 1: we didn't know what the chair had ruled and what
Speaker 1: we were like, what yes or no means? You know it.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good symbol of the of the
Speaker 1: entire impeachment trial. Yeah, I also have to say, this
Speaker 1: may be the first episode where you have changed my
Speaker 1: opinion about something from the beginning to the end of it. So,
Speaker 1: because we've been dealing with these very intricate, sophisticated issues
Speaker 1: and arguments, I want to end, even though we're way
Speaker 1: over time, I want to end on what I consider
Speaker 1: to be a much more important question. You're spending what
Speaker 1: eight hours it a clip or more in these kind
Speaker 1: of long proceedings from Brian, how's the food in the
Speaker 1: Senate cafeteria crappy? So it's actually normally quite good in
Speaker 1: normal times we have lunch together, the Republican senators have
Speaker 1: lunch together Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the food's quite decent. Thursdays,
Speaker 1: a different Republican senator hosts it, and so you bring
Speaker 1: in and often you'll fly in food from your home state.
Speaker 1: So I've flown in barbecue and Mexican food, and you
Speaker 1: host it and you normally give a goodie bag of
Speaker 1: treats to your other senators and you'll give, you know,
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. I've given people shiner back, we
Speaker 1: give each other lots of liquor. It's interesting that I've
Speaker 1: given salsa and things from Bucky's and you kind of
Speaker 1: from your state. You get up and bring them stuff
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Wednesday that the Senate food is usually quite
Speaker 1: good that we eat. Because of COVID, we're eating all
Speaker 1: prepackaged stuff and so like for lunch today, I had
Speaker 1: well and I'm also trying to do kind of keto.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to avoid cars. We're all trying to do keto.
Speaker 1: You know, we hear it's supposed to work, and it's hard.
Speaker 1: And so I come in and the choices are really
Speaker 1: like I got a salad, which I hate salad. I
Speaker 1: feel like it was the food that you I know,
Speaker 1: I tell Heidi all the animals I eat or vegetarian.
Speaker 1: And then they had like this sort of shrimp salad
Speaker 1: sandwich that was like packaged, and to be honest, it
Speaker 1: was almost like what you'd see and like a grocery
Speaker 1: like a gas station. Yeah, and since I'm doing keto,
Speaker 1: I just scraped this shrimp stuff off the like, didn't
Speaker 1: eat the bread. So it was I will be glad
Speaker 1: when COVID is over and meals can return to some
Speaker 1: semblance of normals. Senator, of all the stories that I
Speaker 1: expected to hear today about this awful, just disgusting impeachment trial,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the food would really it would be
Speaker 1: as grotesque it would match in So for dinner tonight,
Speaker 1: because we did have a dinner break, they had something
Speaker 1: where you could order some stuff. I actually had a
Speaker 1: guy on my staff go down to Union Station and
Speaker 1: get a cheese steak with no bread, just cheese steak
Speaker 1: on a bed a lettuce and so just chopped up
Speaker 1: beef and cheese and that that was my dinner, which
Speaker 1: we went to Union Station to get that, frankly sounds
Speaker 1: more exciting. It was good. Then the entire impeachment trial
Speaker 1: you really have, that you've really really explained it to me,
Speaker 1: makes me. It makes me actually long for this impeachment
Speaker 1: trial to continue, because I wanted to stave off whatever
Speaker 1: kind of crazy legislation the Democrats want to push on us. Well,
Speaker 1: it's coming and there's going to be a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about. But but we did get a chance to
Speaker 1: do quite a bit of loggeek stuff and I know
Speaker 1: it's well, you always enjoy doing it because you know
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and I always enjoy it because I
Speaker 1: don't know any of it, so it's pretty helpful to me.
Speaker 1: But there will be there will be a whole lot
Speaker 1: more once this silly season is over, and that will
Speaker 1: have probably far greater consequences for the country. We'll have
Speaker 1: to wait until then. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
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