The Daily - The Latest: No Witnesses

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

In a 51-to-49 vote, Republicans shut down an effort by Democrats to bring new witnesses and documents into the Senate impeachment trial. As they cleared a path toward acquittal, some Republicans stepped forward to explain why they voted as they did — even though they believed what President Trump did was wrong.“The Latest” is a series on the impeachment process, from the team behind “The Daily.” You can find more information about it here.

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. All persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment. The Senate will receive the managers of the House of Representatives to exhibit the articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump, President of the United States. Let us pray. Lord, help them to remember that they can't ignore you and get away with it. For we always reap what we sow. It's Julie Davis in the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. So this is the day this entire impeachment trial has been building to. The day when the Senate would finally decide on the question of whether to hear from new witnesses, like John Bolton, or to see new evidence. The question is, shall it be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents?

The yeas and nays are required under Senate Resolution 483. And throughout this whole process, Democrats have been looking for four moderate Republicans to join them in voting to hear from new witnesses. That's how many they would have needed to make it happen. And so at 6.30 p.m., they finally call the vote. And first up among the moderates is Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Mr. Alexander. No.

Then Susan Collins of Maine. Ms. Collins. Aye. Then Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Ms. Murkowski. No. And finally, Mitt Romney of Utah. Mr. Romney. Aye. No. And finally, Mitt Romney of Utah.

Mr. Romney. Aye. Aye. Two ayes and two noes. So those four votes, along with the 96 others cast today... If not, the yeas are 49, the nays are 51. ...went 51 to 49, with the majority voting not to hear from any witnesses or to see additional documents or evidence in the trial. The motion is not agreed to.

But the latest is the explanation that Lamar Alexander gave in an interview with my colleague Carl Hulse for why he decided not to vote with Collins and Romney and the Democrats. All right, so how'd you get here? How'd I get here? And the conversation was pretty revealing about the headspace that at least some Republicans are in right now and how they've decided to talk about it. My first decision is I don't need more evidence to decide that he did it. Alexander says that even without hearing from another witness,

I already know that the president did what he's accused of doing. And I'm not going to exonerate him of that. I think he did something that was clearly inappropriate. I think it's inappropriate for the president to ask the leader of a foreign nation to investigate a leading political rival, which the president says he did. And I think it's inappropriate for him,

at least in part, to withhold aid to encourage that investigation. But that's not treason. That's not bribery. That's not high crime and misdemeanor. But then he says, look. I mean, the Senate reflects the country. And the country's as divided as it's been in a long time. For the Senate to tear up the ballots in this election

and say President Trump couldn't be on it, the country probably wouldn't accept it. I mean, they'd just pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there. We're in an election year. The voters should make the ultimate decision. To take that decision away from them is borderline dangerous, and they wouldn't stand for it. So let's just let the voters decide in November.

Should the Senate or should the people remove him? And I think what people would expect is you take this into account with everything else he's done, with whatever you think of his behavior, with the terrific economy, with conservative judges, with fewer regulations, and you add in there an inappropriate call of the president of Ukraine and you decide if you prefer him or you prefer Elizabeth Warren. And it wasn't just Lamar Alexander saying this today. Senator Lindsey Graham said Alexander was speaking for the country. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said, quote,

Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us, unquote. And Senator Marco Rubio, who is an ally and has been a defender of the president, took it a step further. He came out with a sort of unsolicited statement today that said, yes, the president's conduct was not just inappropriate, as Alexander said, it may actually have been impeachable. But we're not going to remove him from office for it. I think what we're seeing is that Republicans have now taken the hardest vote they were going to take in terms of needing to justify something to the American public. And now that the vote has happened, they need to offer an explanation for why they're willing to essentially shut this thing down without any more information. And the explanation that appears to be the most compelling is a lot of them are conceding the fact that President Trump did do what he was

impeached for, but it's not enough to remove him from office for it. Of course, Democrats would say if you're that uncomfortable with what he did, then vote to remove him. But in the end, the Senate has never removed a president before, and Republicans just didn't want this responsibility. They preferred to let voters decide. The timing of this weighed more heavily on them than what the president did. We're just days away from the 2020 campaign actually getting underway, with voting starting in Iowa on Monday. For some Republicans, they genuinely wanted to leave it up to the voters. And for others, that ends up being more of a political calculation.

And letting the voters decide means not breaking with President Trump because Republican voters will punish them if they do and they could lose their seats. So yeah, that's the latest. The Senate will recess over the weekend and come back Monday for closing arguments. And we expect a vote to acquit the president on Wednesday afternoon.