The Daily - The Candidates: Joe Biden

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

He built a career, and a presidential campaign, on a belief in bipartisanship. Now, critics of the candidate ask: Is political consensus a dangerous compromise? In Part 4 of our series on pivotal moments in the lives of the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, we examine the long Senate career, and legislative legacy, of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Guest: Astead W. Herndon, who covers national politics for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:Mr. Biden now plays down his role overhauling crime laws with segregationist senators in the 1980s and ’90s. In an investigation, our reporter found that the portrayal is at odds with his actions and rhetoric back then.The former vice president and current Democratic front-runner wants to unite the country in a divisive time. Here’s more on what Mr. Biden stands for.This Supreme Court battle explains why Mr. Biden firmly believes in bipartisanship.

In the summer of 2003, a large crowd gathers in the state capital of South Carolina for a funeral of massive proportions. There's a horse-drawn carriage that's gliding through the street with a casket in the back draped in an American flag. Then the casket is brought in to a large church that's ornately decorated with flowers and wreaths. We're here to honor the memory of a man whose life was rich in years, whose career was filled with accomplishments, and whose calling was to serve his state and his country.

One by one, people step up to the microphone. A man who understood the art of compromise, but never at the sacrifice of principle. And praise demands life and accomplishments. From early childhood until the day of his death, his life was governed by a strong sense of responsibility to help his fellow man. The man that they are there to eulogize

is Senator Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving member in the history of the U.S. Senate. He was a noted segregationist and open racist for much of his early career, including his opposition to the early Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and his opposition to the desegregation of schools. And so because of that history, which made Senator Thurman a controversial figure throughout his career,

it's a little surprising who comes to the microphone next to speak at his funeral. Strom and I shared a life in the Senate for over 30 years. We shared a good life there, and it made a difference. It's Senator Joe Biden. I disagree deeply with Strom on the issue of civil rights and on many other issues,

but I watched him change. There's a lot of moments throughout Joe Biden's longstanding political career that point to how he views the world. himself as a bridge builder between Republicans and Democrats, between Black communities and white communities, and sees himself as someone who sees the best in people and can bring that out of them, even as his own party and maybe sometimes his own supporters doubt it. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Part four in our series on pivotal moments in the lives of the top four Democratic candidates for president. Today, Joe Biden. It's Friday, December 20th. Astead Herndon, you pointed us to this moment when Biden is at Strom Thurmond's funeral,

eulogizing him as particularly revealing of who he is as a candidate today. And we repeatedly invited Joe Biden to tell us his story himself. But of the four Democratic presidential candidates that we decided to profile, he's the only one to have declined to participate. So where do you think that this story starts for Joe Biden? Well, for Biden, I think the story starts in the 1960s in Wilmington, Delaware. Good evening. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, 39 years old and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States, was assassinated in Memphis tonight. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, the National Guard was called out in several cities to put down riots.

One of these cities was Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington was one of the cities that experienced riots that changed the landscape of the city forever. And those riots really built on a racial tension that was already existing in Delaware. But now, in Wilmington, the National Guard is still on duty, and the governor, Charles Terry, has no plan to send it back. Now, folks may not know this, but Delaware has always had a pretty racially fraught history. The southern portions, particularly, have been compared to the more Confederate South. It would not be surprising, according to folks at the time, to see Confederate flags there. And it was one of the cities and

regions that were deeply involved in the desegregation fights that culminated with Brown versus Board of Education. And in those northern portions of Delaware, in the suburbsegregation fights that culminated with Brown versus Board of Education. And in those northern portions of Delaware, in the suburbs of Wilmington, you have the more liberal areas and the places that fuel the Democratic electorates. So Wilmington is caught in between those two worlds. It's in that tension, it's in the context of that tension, that Joe Biden gets involved in politics. And who is Joe Biden in this moment? He was a lot of things.

He was a son of Delaware and also someone who had legitimate relationships in Black communities in Wilmington. That included longstanding friendships from his time as a lifeguard at the black swimming pool in town. But it also included relationships with civil rights activists, including the leaders who led some of the civil rights protests and marches for school desegregation. So when the city is going through this tumultuous period, Biden sees those relationships as something that makes him unique in the community and something that positions him to make change. So he decides to get involved in politics. He moves from law to run for the city council and then later for the Senate

in 1971. I'm Joe Biden and I'm a candidate for the United States Senate. And in that Senate race, he leans on those relationships to craft a new brand of politician in the state. Do you believe politicians when they tell you something in an election year? No. Most of the time, no. No comment. That's what we've come to. It's a type of politician that is emblematic of generational change and can tell Wilmington, I'm not like those white politicians of the past.

Politicians have done such a job on the people that the people don't believe them anymore. And I'd like a shot at changing that. I come from your community, I know your community, and I'll legislate in your interest. That's his pitch to voters, that in this time when there is legitimate tension between Wilmington and the rest of the state, between kind of black communities and white communities, he's someone who has good relationships in both. And that pitch to Delaware voters worked. Joe Biden was elected by a tiny margin, 50 to 49, and he came to the Senate to embody that new type of politician that he sold himself as.

And as a new senator, he's trying to figure out how to navigate a Washington that really runs on personal relationships at this time. Joe Biden, fresh and new, is trying to figure out what he can accomplish and also how he can serve those dual constituencies, the Black and white communities in Delaware. And one of the issues he decides to focus on is crime. And why crime? Why that issue? So since those riots in the 60s, there has been a fear around crime in Wilmington, some founded, some unfounded. But as you move throughout the decade, particularly through the 70s, there is a kind of more increasing nationwide focus on the presence of drugs.

America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive. And an increasing violent crime rate. That is kind of a whisper in the 70s that grows to a full-blown chorus by the 80s. It is a war. Cops against gangs. Gangs against cops. Compared to this time last year, the overall crime rate is up by 11%. Nearly 3,000 people killed and 15,000 wounded since 1980. Auto theft up by almost 18%. Whole neighborhoods of Los Angeles live in fear. Many police departments say they're caught in the middle between budget cutbacks, manpower shortages, and what appears to be a national crime epidemic.

There was a national panic around drugs and drug dealing. There was a national panic around violent crime. And this crosses racial lines. It is by far the most critical problem in the cities of America, large and small. Both white and Black leaders were seeing their communities upended. I'm not talking about heart disease, sickle cell anemia, high blood pressure. I'm a physician, but I'm talking about homicide, the leading cause of death for young Black men. Seeing their communities really ravaged. They're killing our people. They're destroying our neighborhoods.

They're eroding our social fabric. They're crippling our cities. And we're looking for the federal government to intervene and do something about it. So with this issue that cuts across race, Biden sees a political opportunity for himself and for the Democratic Party. For himself, he sees a chance to really hone in on an issue that can appease both Black and white communities and insulate himself for what was going to be a tough re-election in the Senate. And for the Democratic Party, he thinks he can change the reputation that Democrats have as being soft on crime. He sees focusing on this issue as an opportunity to broaden the Democrats' national appeal and actually become the leaders on reforming the criminal justice system. So what does he actually do now that he's landed on this issue as his focus?

So Biden works his way on to the most important committee that focuses on this issue, the Senate Judiciary Committee. And for him to accomplish anything, he knows that he needs to have working relationships with Republicans who at this point are in the majority and control the Senate. And the number one person who could impact Biden's ability to pass legislation on the Senate Judiciary Committee is its chairman. The committee will come to order. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Unfortunately, the state of our criminal justice today favors the criminal.

Strom Thurmond, like many conservative Republicans at the time, has that law and order streak. Our public safety officers are standing as a thin blue line, sheltering us from criminal anarchy. And has always thought that the way to kind of combat lawlessness was through the expansion of the prison system. Today, the criminal has four chances in five never to be arrested. A person arrested has five chances out of six not to serve time in prison.

Only about one criminal in 30 ends up behind bars. But let's remember, Thurman's approach isn't that unique in this era. Because of that national panic around crime and drugs, it's not just conservatives who have that law and order mindset like Thurman, but Democrats are coming around to that idea too. And Biden is one of those people. So while Biden and Thurman had different rhetoric, came from a different civil rights background,

there is an agreement about the direction the criminal justice system needs to go. He agrees with Thurman that a more punitive approach is necessary. And so Biden and Thurman together start working on crime legislation. So I get that for any Democrat to get anything done while they're in the minority, they need to work with Republicans. But I'm wondering how Biden, someone who thinks of himself and talks about himself as a civil rights champion, thinks that this partnership with this particular Republican

could end up being good for him, given Strom Thurmond's well-known reputation on race. Well, Biden has incentive to grow his stature on Capitol Hill. That includes relationships with Republicans, and most specifically, it requires him to have a working relationship with his partner on this important committee. But Biden is also making a lane for himself. He sees this as an opportunity for Democrats to make inroads on a very specific issue. So he's willing to have this relationship with someone whose reputation might be controversial because it is helpful for him. But let's remember that Strom Thurmond gets something out of this also. Instead of these

issues being seen as completely partisan or only being helmed by someone who has a checkered reputation on race, assorted reputation on race, he now has a new face for the legislation. There is a civil rights lawyer from Delaware, someone with good record in Black communities, who can allow the legislation to move in a way that it probably wouldn't have if it was just linked with the stench of Strom Thurmond's racial history. So for both men, it's a marriage of convenience. And this kind of partnership, it's also just the way it worked back then. People had relationships because of votes, but also the collegiality, the old boys club-ness of it all.

That's just the way the Senate was. So how do they approach this legislation once they decide that they are going to work together? Well, they go big. They don't just try some incremental change to criminal justice. They propose something that is sweeping and bold, something that would probably be

the most significant overhaul of the criminal justice system in decades. In 1982, they proposed legislation that would target almost every area of the criminal justice system. It would limit access to bail and parole for those who had been arrested. It would create much tougher sentences for those who were convicted of crimes. And it would just overall expand the government's ability to pursue the war on drugs. And the bill passes the Senate by a huge margin, 95 to 1. Wow.

And so with this legislation, Biden is able to bring the Democrats along with him on what has typically been seen as a conservative approach to the criminal justice issue. So the Democrats following Joe Biden's lead are now fully embracing this law and order legislative agenda. Yeah. And it shows the power of the relationship between Joe Biden and Strom Thurmond.

So from there, the bill heads to President Reagan's desk, who campaigns for the Oval Office on the tough on crime agenda. We live in the midst of a crime epidemic that took the lives of more than 22,000 people last year. Many of you have written to me how afraid you are to walk the streets alone at night. We must make America safe again, especially for women and elderly who face so many moments of fear. So Biden and Thurman feel confident in the president's signature. But Reagan vetoes it. He thinks that some of the measures are just too much of a federal government intrusion into the criminal justice space.

So this is a big defeat. Well, on one hand, it is. The president killed their big bill, their sweeping overhaul of criminal justice. But on the other hand, it is a real testament to their partnership and what they can achieve by reaching across the aisle. And it signals a real path forward for Biden. It shows that through building bridges,

he can bend the Senate to his will. We'll be right back. To Kill a Mockingbird has not played to a single empty seat. Reports 60 Minutes. It is the most successful American play in Broadway history. Rolling Stone gives it five stars, calling it unmissable and unforgettable. All rise for the miracle that is Mockingbird on Broadway. It's a New York Times Critics Pick. Jesse Green calls it a mockingbird for our moment. Beautiful, elegiac, satisfying, even exhilarating. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

A new play by Aaron Sorkin, a New York Times Critics Pick. Tickets at telecharge.com. So after this 1982 bill fails, but with this partnership very well established, how do Biden and Thurmond move their agenda forward? So even though their big legislation fails, they know they have support in Congress for the ideas.

We said, now let's look at everything we can agree upon and put it on this side of the table. And let's take everything we disagree upon and put it on this side of the table. And we added up all that we agreed upon. And we agreed upon 90% of the changes that had to take place. Probably 95%. So they try to pass each of the major planks of the legislation.

They just do it in separate parts. So having failed to do it all in one big package, they try to do these same reforms piecemeal. Right. And they're successful at it. They start with mandatory minimums. You get caught, you go to jail. Which places a baseline amount of time that someone has to spend in prison for a drug crime. We don't allow judges' discretion to sentence people.

They also create a sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, which are the same drug, just one is cheaper and more widely available. It meant that people who were caught using crack, the more street-level version, were treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than people who were caught using powder cocaine. If you have a piece of crack cocaine no bigger than this quarter that I'm holding in my hand, one quarter of one dollar. You go to jail for five years. You get no probation. Judge doesn't have a choice.

And then they keep going. A number of other severe penalties. They put something in place which is called civil asset forfeiture. They put something in place which is called civil asset forfeiture. If you are arrested and you are a drug dealer, the government can take everything you own. And what it means is that the government can take your property if they suspect that you've used it while committing a crime. Everything from your car to your house, your bank account, they can take everything. your car to your house, your bank account. They can take everything. And most dramatically, we've gone from there all the way up to saying, under the leadership of Senator Thurman, and I'd like to suggest that I take some small credit for it myself as well, that there is now a death

penalty. They reinstate the death penalty on the federal level. And the legislation specifies that it can be applied to drug trafficking. If you are a major drug dealer involved in the trafficking of drugs and murder results in your activities, you go to death. So through pieces of small legislation, they accomplished the overall overhaul that they initially set out to do. And Joe Biden has successfully changed the Democratic Party's reputation on the issue of crime. The truth is, every major crime bill since 1976 that's come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill has had the name of the Democratic senator from the state of

Delaware, Joe Biden, on that bill and has had a majority vote of the Democratic members of the United States Senate on the bill. By the 90s, you have a Democratic party that has completely shifted on criminal justice. George Bush talks a good game, but he has no game plan. And the biggest evidence for that shift is Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee in 1992. He won't streamline the federal government and change the way it works, cut 100,000 bureaucrats and put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of American cities, but I will. He is saying, I'm going to legislate, kind of tough on crime. He's talked a lot about drugs, but he hasn't helped people on the front line to wage that war

on drugs and crime, but I will. And those aren't just empty words. It is backed by a series of legislation, helmed by Biden, which give Democrats real credence to say that we are now the tough-on-crime party. Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States.

Thank you. And once Clinton wins... Members of the 103rd Congress, my fellow Americans. He wants to deliver on that campaign promise of tough-on-crime legislation. Violent crime and the fear it provokes are crippling our society, limiting personal freedom, and fraying the ties that bind us. And so his natural partner in this is Joe Biden, because Biden has had a decade's worth of practice building consensus on this issue. So Clinton is tapping Biden to follow through on Clinton's

campaign promise on criminal justice, and that's going to further the Democratic Party's agenda to be this party that is tough on crime. Exactly. And what's important about this time is that Democrats are now in the majority. So unlike the 80s, when there was Strom Thurmond leading the Judiciary Committee, it is now Biden at the helm.

And that gives him a unique space of power in which to operate. He is able to implement those lessons of consensus building between Democrats and Republicans and apply them as the head of the Judiciary Committee. And so with that power and with those skills, he is now able to craft the most significant legislation of his Senate career, the 1994 crime bill. A lot of people deserve credit for the passage of this bill. And it passes. But I think no one will disagree when I say that the one person most responsible

for the passage of this bill is Senator Biden. With big bipartisan support. Joe Biden is both the most underrated legislator in the Senate and the most effective legislator in the Senate. That's nice, George. Thank you. I hope my mom was listening. It provides billions in funding to increase the amount of police officers on the street, to build new prisons and states,

and it incentivizes states to create harsher sentences on drug crimes. But it does include some measures that are more progressive, that try to stop people from committing crimes in the first place. It includes money for alternative measures that aren't prison. The thing that has meant more to me than anything I have done in 22 years in the United States Senate. It also includes the Violence Against Women Act. I can't tell you how much, but it truly will make a difference

in the lives of women who are being abused and battered in this country. Which focuses on preventing domestic violence. And it includes an assault weapons ban, a rare rebuke to the National Rifle Association. which focuses on preventing domestic violence. And it includes an assault weapons ban, a rare rebuke to the National Rifle Association. Because no Republican president, no president that I have served with in the 22 years I've been here,

was willing to go out on the line and say, we're not going to have a bill unless there is the gun ban in the bill for assault weapons. But let's be clear. While there are some progressive measures, this is a continuation of that tough-on-crime approach we saw from Biden in the 80s. There's a lot of reasons, I think, for the American people to breathe a little sigh of relief today.

So what does this moment represent for Biden? This 1994 bill is the political culmination of what Biden set out to do in Washington. It's now that Biden has solidified himself as the bridge builder between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, particularly on criminal justice. And Biden's no longer reliant on a Republican like Strom Thurmond to get this legislation done. In fact, Strom Thurmond votes against the 1994 crime bill, citing some of those progressive measures. But Biden is able to get it passed anyway because he's moved the Democratic Party along with him and because he has his own relationships with Republicans to be able to win over some of those votes.

It's a full circle political moment from where Biden started in the 70s. He is no longer learning from some of the Senate wheelers and dealers of the past. This is now Biden's political brand. So this is a major accomplishment and it's clear evidence that Biden can bridge the parties in Washington. But you also told us that Biden's focus on criminal justice was also about this desire to serve both the black and white communities in Delaware. So did that work?

Depends on how you slice it. Politically, it worked well. He keeps getting reelected, and he does so with significant support in both Black and white communities in Delaware. Tons of people love him. But that is not universal. There were definitely people,

as early as the 80s, who were saying that this criminal justice overhaul that was led by Biden would have particularly devastating effects in Black communities. Reviving the death penalty, spending several billion dollars on prisons and longer sentences is not the answer to reducing crime. It's settling disproportionately on the poor, on the Black. We must break the cycle.

And now, we have a lot of evidence that those people have been proven correct. on the poor, on the Black. We must break the cycle. And now, we have a lot of evidence that those people have been proven correct. The U.S. has the world's largest prison population, more than 2 million people behind bars. You can't overstate what the war on drugs did to Black communities. We've got a mass incarceration epidemic in this country. More than 2.2 million

disproportionately Black, Latino, nonviolent drug offenders. There are 10 times more people in jail for drug offenses by 2017 than there were in 1980. Certainly one of the sad ironies in this entire episode is that a bill which was characterized by some as

a response to the crack academic in African-American communities has led to racial sentencing disparities, which simply cannot be ignored in any reasoned discussion of this issue. The longer sentences for crack disproportionately hurt people of color, specifically Black people. And the white drug users who were often arrested using cocaine got away with shorter prison sentences for what was essentially the white drug users, who were often arrested using cocaine, got away with shorter prison sentences for what was essentially the same drug. We can't talk about this without talking about race and poverty. We know, for example, that white people in this country are 10 times more likely to use drugs than African Americans, and yet disproportionately African Americans are in jail about that. The whole stop and frisk in New York City.

The amount of police on the streets meant constant surveillance of communities and report after report of police brutality. It's the kind of scene that could play out on any given day in any city in America. Men in blue stopping young men of color as tensions rise. And what that has is a real human effect on these communities. These aren't just numbers.

These are lives. Two days after a New York City grand jury cleared a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man, the protests are growing larger and spreading across the country, including Boston and Chicago. And now another New York grand jury, this one in Brooklyn, is about to investigate the shooting of another unarmed Black man. So families are disrupted. Community leaders are gone. And the whole structure of government's relationship, particularly in Black communities, is forever upended.

I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! You will be free! No justice, no peace! You may be charged with additional... Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter! So the impact of this legislation has been devastating, particularly for communities of color. has been devastating, particularly for communities of color.

It's been so bad, in fact, that both Democrats and Republicans have largely moved away from many of these positions and agree that the measures were overly punitive. Joe Biden himself has changed positions on a number of these issues and is now arguing the exact opposite of the legislation that he passed in the 80s and early 90s. He is against the death penalty. He is against mandatory minimums. He wants to eliminate the disparity

between crack and cocaine and sentencing. But here's the thing. While he disavows the policies that were put in place as a result of this legislation, he does not disavow the politics that helped produce these policies. Biden sees the bipartisanship, the cross-hour relationships, the bridge building that produced the legislation in the 80s and 90s as foundational to his vision of politics. And it's a view of Washington that says what's most valuable is bringing people together.

The place in which I work is a majestic place. If you're there long enough, it has an impact on you. And it's that belief that leads him to eulogize Strom Thurmond in 2003. This is a man who was opposed to the poll tax. This is a man who I watched vote for the extension of the Voting Rights Act. This is a man who I watched vote for the Martin Luther King holiday. And when I listen to this eulogy, it strikes me that Biden's political vision is also a personal one.

It's very easy to say today that that was pure political expediency. But I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that Strom Thurmond was doing what few do once they pass the age of 50. He was continuing to grow, continuing to change. to grow, continue to change. Different from most politicians, it's not just that he thinks bipartisanship is important because it can make things happen in a legislative context. He sees reaching across parties and reaching across communities as a necessary thing to actually personally transform people.

You cannot, if you respect those with whom you serve, fail to understand how deeply they feel about things differently than you. And over time, I believe it has an effect on you. He has chosen to believe that if you do the hard work of reaching across the aisle, you won't just get a policy to happen, but you can make someone better. You can transform the soul of an individual, but also of Washington and in turn the country. If we stand together, we will win the battle for the soul of this nation. That's why you hear him talking so much about civility in this campaign. There's not a single thing beyond our capacity if we stand together and get up and remember who we are.

This is the United States of America, period. His slogan is restoring the soul of America. We are in a battle for the soul of this nation. That's why, primarily, I'm running for president. He is evoking an era in which consensus building and cross-isle relationships were the order of the day. And the promise of his candidacy is to bring that time back. But that is coming into conflict with a growing wing of the party that is more concerned around ideals than process. It is their argument that for too long,

Democrats have been concerned with reaching across the aisle to build Republican support and should be thinking about how to overcome them to produce the big solutions that they desire. Right. The left wing of the Democratic Party, which is very skeptical of Joe Biden, says you cannot separate this instinct of his, this kind of bipartisan politics and dealmaking,

however noble it is in intention, from the policies that those politics have produced and from their real world impact, which in the case of criminal justice reforms were devastating. And Biden seems to be saying, actually, you can separate them and you should separate them. Don't fixate on one bill or one legislative partner that I had in the Senate. Focus on the tactics and the tone and imagine a world where those are used for whatever it is you want to get done because that's what it actually takes to get big things done in Washington. because that's what it actually takes to get big things done in Washington. Right. But here's why the left disagrees. The left's evidence for their criticism is not in the 1970s or 80s or 90s, the time in which Biden was in the Senate.

They point to the last Democratic president. They say that Barack Obama tried to use these same type of strategies to reach out to Republicans, to try to build consensus. And in this era of polarization, of partisanship, of divisiveness, that it didn't work. This is the central question that the Biden candidacy is asking of Democrats. Can the bridge building still apply in this era? Or with the tone that has been set in Washington, is it more important for Democrats to orient themselves around ideals

and around making big things happen, no matter if Republicans are included in that solution or not? Biden chooses to believe something different. That even in this era, even with this tone, that restoring the collegiality and consensus building of Washington should still be the priority of any president. He believes that if you create a Washington that is more civil, then that could be more transformative than any particular policy could ever be.

Astead, thank you very much. Thank you. We'll be right back. an explosion of every imaginable idea of what a musical can be. The New York Times calls it an indisputable boundary-busting masterpiece. Now in previews. Opens February 6th, 2020. Tickets at telecharge.com. West Side Story on Broadway. Something's coming. Something good. Here's what else you need to know today. And until we can get some assurances from the majority leader that he is going to allow for a fair and impartial trial to take place,

we would be crazy to walk in there knowing he set up a kangaroo court. On Thursday, just hours after impeaching President Trump, House Democratic leaders raised the possibility of withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate indefinitely in order to negotiate better terms for a trial or avoid a trial altogether. How long are you willing to wait? As long as it takes. The Democratic leaders, including Majority Whip James Clyburn on CNN, predicted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would hold a rushed and biased trial that would quickly exonerate Trump without seeking or introducing any new evidence.

By not transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Democrats can stall a trial for weeks or even months until they get the kind of trial that they want. What they're proposing to not send the articles for disposition to the Senate after being passed in the House is incredibly dangerous. Senate Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, called the tactic a form of legislative extortion. Just think for a moment. You pass articles of impeachment in the House. You refuse to send them into the Senate until the Senate constructs a trial of your liking as Speaker of the House. We have separation of powers for a reason. You can't be Speaker of the House. We have separation of powers for a reason. You can't be Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate at the same time. Annie Brown, Claire Tenesketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson,

Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Luke Vanderploeg, Adiza Egan, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Yanasamandan, Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnik, Michaela Bouchard, Stella Tan, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Nora Keller, Sydney Harper,

and Cheryl Gay Stolper. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you on Monday.