The NPR Politics Podcast - Senate Impeachment Trial Begins With Partisan Rules Fight

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

The first full day of the Trump impeachment trial has been dominated by partisan fighting over the rules of the proceedings.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., released his resolution outlining the next steps, including a week of hours-long opening arguments, on Monday. By Tuesday, ahead of the debate, Senate leaders made additional changes to the trial timeline.Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell called the resolution "a fair road map," that closely tracks precedents. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the rules "completely partisan." He said McConnell's resolution seems "designed by President Trump for President Trump." This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, congressional correspondent Susan Davis and political reporter Tim Mak.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Tim Mack. I also cover Congress. And it is currently 7.06 p.m. on Tuesday, January 21st. The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment. And this afternoon, the third impeachment trial in American history officially began in the United States Senate. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. All persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment. While the Senate of the United States is sitting for the trial of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives against Donald John Trump, president of the United States.

Day one of the trial was mainly just about the ground rules of how to conduct the trial itself. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the architect of these rules, and today he largely defended them on the floor. On every point, our straightforward resolution will bring the clarity and fairness that everyone deserves. The President of the United States, the House of Representatives, and the American people. This is the fair roadmap for our trial. And yet Democrats don't necessarily see these rules as being fair. So Sue, what is the disagreement between the parties?

Right. So Mitch McConnell is using the 1999 Clinton impeachment precedent to set the roadmap for the rules ahead. But the big difference between then and now is when they did it in 1999, 100 senators got together and agreed on the roadmap. This time around, you're dealing with a very different Senate. This is almost an entirely partisan exercise where the rules of the road were written only by Republicans and are expected to be passed only by Republicans. Now, they do follow some of the same contours of the Clinton impeachment. Both the prosecution and defense will be given 24 hours each to make their case. There will be 16 hours of senators questioning, and then they will be able to discuss whether they want to hear more witnesses and documents. Mitch McConnell already had to make a change to this resolution that they're still debating on the Senate floor as we

tape the podcast. Initially, he was really trying to jam the prosecution. He was going to try and make them make their case. They had 24 hours, but only two days. So it's like an immensely long day, especially for senators who do not like to work that long of days for certain. And before they brought it up to the floor, they made one tweak to work that long of days for certain. And before they brought it up to the floor, they made one tweak to it or a couple tweaks to it. One, they will now allow senators to debate over three days, taking a little bit of that time pressure off and tweak some language on evidence. Initially, they had written this resolution that said you would have to take an affirmative vote to put evidence into the record. Now they tweak that

to say evidence will be in the record unless you vote to block it. And those changes came about because, yeah, Democrats certainly didn't like them. But a number of Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio, also kind of raised their arms up and said, we don't really like this. We need to change the rules. Sue brings up a really interesting point, right, that that these Republican senators, these small number of Republican senators, which are on the fence about whether or not to bring witnesses later in the trial, really have an immense amount of power and they're using it, they're leveraging it, right? Republican Senator Susan Collins, she's going to be a key vote. And she said that she

was among those who wanted to push for this change to give three days to each side to make their cases. And now this gives a big hint to us about what kind of sway Collins and other Republican senators who are on the fence right now about witnesses, what kind of power they will have as this trial goes on. It's why the Senate today needs a little bit of translation, too, because I think people are going to see that all these motions today on potential witnesses and evidence are all going to lose. And they're going to say, well, how are their swing votes if they all just went down? And what those swing voters, people like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, what they've been saying is their votes are in question. But they're only going to consider it on the other end of these opening arguments.

So a lot of the votes. Meaning witnesses. Yes. Got it. of these opening arguments. So a lot of the meaning witnesses. Yes. So they're going to vote against it all today. But they could change their minds next week when they're asked again after the prosecution and defense makes their cases. So it does lay down a marker today to expect a pretty partisan proceeding. But the question of will they get agreements is still one that's going to linger over this process, even though it doesn't look like they have the votes today. So, Tim, you're joining us from the Senate chambers, right? I'm not in the Senate chamber. Where are you at the moment? You're in our booth, right? I'm in the NPR booth in the Senate, but not in the chamber itself. We're not allowed electronics. We're not allowed our cell phones. We're not even allowed smartwatches, just old-fashioned pen and paper. Can you only drink certain liquids as well? It's true. You can only

drink either water or milk in the Senate chamber. There's a 1966 precedent that allows milk. That's very generous of them. Yes. So, Tim, you have been watching all of this unfold today. What was the mood like in the room? You know, it's very quiet. Senators are used to kind of milling around, talking to each other during votes. This is a much more formal session and folks are not supposed to talk. But you still have lawmakers kind of joking to each other in the middle of presentations by either the impeachment managers or by the president's counsel. You have pages moving back and forth, passing notes between senators and their staff, and they're bringing water to everyone. And you have a lot of senators, to be frank, if you watch them, and we have a view from the gallery

overlooking the Senate floor that perhaps doesn't show up on television, but you see a lot of really bored, disinterested senators sitting there for hours unable to do anything. How do you know they're bored, Tim? Well, you could read their body language, right? You know, Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, did not, you know, I was there for an hour, did not appear to look at the impeachment manager who was giving a presentation for an entire hour that I was in the gallery, right? You know, you see that some lawmakers just don't think that this trial is worth even

having, and their body language shows it. So today is essentially the first time that we've actually had a chance to hear from the president's legal team. I mean, everything that we've been hearing about impeachment to date was from House Democrats. I'm curious, do you feel like there were any surprises to the approach that we heard from what the president's legal team had to say? No, it really has echoed the defenses that the White House has said, but we've mainly only heard them on television, right? Because they never participated in the official process. Now they're part of the official process on the record before the Senate.

It really boils down to a couple of broader arguments. One, they're going to make the case that nothing that the president has done is an impeachable offense, that he was always acting within the confines of executive power. Yeah, like the White House counsel, Pat Cibollone. We believe that once you hear those initial presentations, the only conclusion will be that the president has done absolutely nothing wrong. They're also going to make the case against obstruction

and saying that it's a weak case because Democrats never issued any subpoenas for these documents and also never fought anything in court. So you don't have a court ruling that says they were in defiance of Congress. They evaded a decision and they're asking you to become complicit in that evasion of the courts. It's ridiculous. And we should call it out for what it is. And that, I think, is one of the stronger cases the White House has to make, because the House is essentially asking the Senate to vote to remove a president from office for not complying with a House investigation. And that is a pretty that would set a precedent that I think a lot of Democrats, even probably some Democrats, have you got them quietly inside their own heads, not necessarily thinking that that meets the standard of an impeachable offense. Now, Adam Schiff and other Democrats have made the case, and they will continue to make the case, that if you use the courts on these matters, you essentially nullify the impeachment clause because the court process

can drag out over terms of years and years and years. And their argument is this question involves the 2020 election. It is of imminent concern to the country and that they couldn't wait for the courts. It's ultimately to the Congress to decide. So, you know, we've heard a lot from the Democrats thus far in this entire debate about impeachment. What is essentially their argument, though, to counter what you're saying the president's legal team is saying at this point? Did we hear from the impeachment managers in the House making any clear sort of rebuttal to that? Well, the impeachment managers say that one of the two articles of impeachment here is about obstruction of Congress.

They're saying that if the Senate is to have a fair trial, they need to have all the evidence before them. They need to have documents from the State Department, from the White House, from the Office of Management and Budget, and they need to have relevant witness testimony. Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff explained his position on this this way. And if the Senate and the Senate leadership will not allow the House to present its case, will not allow the calling of witnesses or presentation of documents, if Senator McConnell

makes this the first impeachment trial in history without witnesses or documents, it will not prove the president innocent. It will merely prove the Senate guilty of working with the president to obstruct the truth from coming out. They're saying that a fair trial, a fulsome trial, cannot proceed without these things that are done. Now, the current proposal by Mitch McConnell does not lay out any process to get those documents or to get those witnesses to come before the Senate and testify. So that's what the major thrust of Democratic amendments to the framework that's being proposed right now. The major thrust is to try to insert some ability for senators to get documents and witnesses. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about where things go from here. get an account that holds up to 45 currencies at once and convert between them anytime. Join over

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And so, you know, we mentioned that we are recording this podcast before the official day one of the trial has actually ended. Mercifully. We are not coming to you late into the night. But let's first just, I have a quick question. Any agreement yet on these rules? No, right? No. I mean, the reason why we can sort of somewhat confidently do this podcast now is we kind of know the outcome of this. Democrats are going to lose all of their motions today. And ultimately, the McConnell resolution is expected to prevail. And what that sets the terms for is really for the trial to begin in earnest tomorrow. Got it. OK. And what can we expect from that tomorrow? I mean, there will be sort of proper opening arguments.

So the way that the McConnell resolution lays it out is the prosecution and the defense have 24 hours over three days to make their respective cases. The prosecution in this case, House Democrats, will go first and then the White House will follow. They don't have to take all 24 of those hours. They don't even have to take three days. But that's the maximum amount of time they have if they want to run out their respective clocks and take the full three days, that puts us into the early part of next week before opening arguments are over. Then senators will have 16 hours to ask their questions, but they have to do it in writing. They can't talk during that either.

When they conclude questions, the Senate will then consider whether to dismiss the charges or to move forward with more witnesses and documents. I will say expectation setting as we sit here in the beginning of the trial is there is very low levels of confidence that there's going to be bipartisan witness agreements. I don't think there's a high level anticipation that's going to happen. That would be a big major breakthrough in the impeachment saga if there is. If there is not, then at that point, the Senate will have to decide whether to dismiss or convict or acquit on those charges. And we could be wrapped up by the latter part of next week. So, Tim, with these opening arguments and the fact that senators cannot talk, I'm just curious what this is going to sound and look like. Will you have,

you know, the impeachment managers presenting the case in just sort of a long 10 hour spiel? I mean, what can we expect? Well, what we've noticed today is they're already kind of laying some of the groundwork for their opening arguments during this conversation about the parameters of the trial. They're making their arguments about why they feel that the president abused his power and why they feel that the president obstructed Congress. Now, they're using it in a way to kind of make the argument that they should get documents and witnesses. But essentially, we're seeing a little bit of a hint of how they'll carry themselves out, both on the prosecution side and on the defense side. On the prosecution side, you see that the House impeachment managers, at least stylistically, are making a very ordered kind of PowerPoint-y case. They're going from point to point to point, and they're using audiovisual methods to back up their points.

The defense side has really favored, stylistically at least, a much more kind of extemporaneous speaking method as their way of presenting their evidence. One thing I think Democrats want to use a lot of is video clips, not just of the testimony that we heard during the House investigation, but already today you've seen them play clips of the president himself saying contradictory things about hearing witnesses, non-hearing witnesses. And this ability to be able to use the president's own words against him is something that I think Democrats are going to try to use for maximum discomfort. All right. That is a wrap for today. And as we mentioned, day one of this historic Senate impeachment trial is still not over. So we recommend tuning in to our colleagues over at our sister podcast Up First. They will publish their podcast at 6 in the morning.

And so every day when you want to know what's happening in the impeachment trial, we recommend listening to Up First as a setup for the day and tune in to us for a wrap of the impeachment news near the end of the day. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Tim Mack. I also cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.