The NPR Politics Podcast - Senate Votes To Acquit President Trump, Ending Historic Impeachment Trial

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

Senators voted mostly along party lines this afternoon to acquit President Trump on two articles of impeachment. The White House called President Trump's acquittal a "full vindication and exoneration." But in a surprise decision, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, joined Democrats to vote "guilty" on Article I.This episode, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.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 Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. Chief Justice, the Senate is now ready to vote on the articles of impeachment. And after that is done, we will adjourn the court of impeachment. And it is 6.44 p.m. on Wednesday, February 5th, and about two hours ago, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the result of the impeachment vote. The Senate, having tried Donald John Trump, president of the United States, upon two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein.

It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles. We've come to the end of the road. This is not a surprise, and yet it does feel like it has fresh impact on the day that it actually happens. And it was a moment. Each senator had to stand and say guilty or not guilty in two long series of votes on both of these articles of impeachment. Senators, how say you? Is the respondent, Donald John Trump, guilty or not guilty? And in the end, on the first article of impeachment, which was abuse of power

for President Trump's call to the Ukrainian President Zelensky and holding up funds to Ukraine, on that count, the vote was 48 to 52. Not an exact party line vote. Mr. Romney, Mr. Romney, guilty. And on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, the vote was 47-53. There was a bipartisan vote to convict the president, but it didn't actually happen the way we thought it would. The anticipation going into this that it was Democrats that might break with their party and vote to acquit the president because of their own political considerations. And Democrats fell in line. They all voted with the party to convict the president. And the surprise here was Mitt Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, who,

in a rather emotional floor speech, announced that he would indeed vote to convict on the first article of impeachment, but not on the second, and essentially cited his Mormon faith and his faith in God as saying he couldn't take an oath before God, the oath of impartial justice, which is the oath that senators take when they're in an impeachment trial, and was really candid about the fact that he knew that he would, you know, face a lot of blowback for this decision. I'm aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced. I'm sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters.

Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me. It was a surprise when Romney made that announcement. I think a lot of people were guessing that if there were a Republican who would be wavering at all, it might be Susan Collins because of some of the things that she has said in her call for the president to apologize, which he's, of course, roundly rejected. And I think it was also a surprise that none of the Democrats did bail out. I mean, we've got Doug Jones, we've got Kyrsten Sinema, we have Joe Manchin, all people who have states to answer to where Donald Trump is enormously popular. Party nominee. He was the party standard bearer. And now, as soon as he announced that he was

planning to do this vote to go against the president, the RNC, the Republican Party, was out with scorching statements. People who used to work on his campaigns. Members of his own family. Yeah. And and Ronna McDaniel, who used to be Ronna Romney McDaniel, but dropped the Romney after President Trump was elected, who's the GOP chairwoman. She essentially said, I don't agree with Mitt. No. And you had the president's own son, Donald Trump Jr., tweet out that he thought Mitt Romney should be expelled from the party, certainly something that conservative activists were

echoing today as pushback. Although this was a question that was put to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today, and he essentially just laughed it off. We don't have any dog houses here. The most important vote is the next vote. And basic reality, basic political reality there is what's Mitch McConnell going to do? Get rid of one of his own votes in his Senate majority? I mean, it's just you understand the sort of impulse, the political impulse of pushback on Romney.

But the idea of expelling him from the Senate Republican conferences is pretty laughable. Let's put it this way. For Mitt Romney, this event is not the pinnacle of his political career. The pinnacle of his career was when he was the party nominee. And if he ever had any thought of being the party nominee again, or having some sort of prominent position beyond Senator from Utah again, he's long since abandoned that. So this is, he's in a unique position, if you will, of perhaps historical invulnerability to do this. And also, he doesn't have to stand for re-election until 2024, by which time he may have had all of the Senate he wants. It is pretty fascinating that the two previous Republican nominees for president are also the two Republicans that have delivered Trump some of his biggest blows in

office. Former Senator John McCain, obviously being that thumbs down vote on the health care bill, and Mitt Romney today essentially depriving the White House of what they wanted to be a really potent talking point, which was a bipartisan acquittal or at least a total party line acquittal of the president. And Mitt Romney kind of blew up that narrative. There could be some insight into Donald Trump's success right there, because he has run not just against the Democrats, but against the establishment of his own party. And he has energized and inspired a lot of people who might not have thought of themselves as particularly Republicans, but saw themselves as conservatives and didn't much care for the candidates the Republican Party was putting up for president.

Ron, you referenced Doug Jones. He is a Democrat from Alabama, a senator who is up for reelection this year and does not have a great chance of being reelected in a very red, very Trump-centric state. And there had been some thought that perhaps he would be a Democrat who would give President Trump a bipartisan acquittal, but he didn't. He gave a speech on the Senate floor today explaining his thinking. Throughout the trial, one piece of evidence continued to stand out for me. It was the president's statement that under the constitution we have article two and I can do anything I want. That seems to capture this president's belief about the presidency that he has unbridled power unchecked by congress or the judiciary or anyone else. That view dangerous as it is explains the president's actions toward Ukraine and Congress. I think one of the lessons of this impeachment process is, especially when you look at votes

like Doug Jones, there's just really no awards for moderation on this stuff anymore. I mean, the idea that you could be a senator who sometimes breaks with your party and sometimes sides with the other side, there's less and less of that. And I think Jones is kind of taking a lesson from former Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who was often a critic of the president. And you just you win no allies that way. Democrats still don't like you and Republicans get mad at you. And I think Jones saw this here where if he was going to vote against the Democratic Party, all he would have done was inflame Democratic voters and you would get no credit from Republicans. So if you're going to take a tough vote, it seems now that the thinking is it's almost exclusively to your benefit to

stick with the party because the blowback risk is much greater. We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, how President Trump is reacting. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Google. From Connecticut to California, from Mississippi to Minnesota, millions of American businesses are using Google tools to grow online. The Grow with Google initiative supports small businesses by providing free digital skills workshops and one-on-one coaching in all 50 states, helping businesses get online, connect with new customers, and work more productively.

Learn more productively. Learn more at google.com slash grow. Queer Eye's Karamo Brown still remembers what his teacher said years ago on his first day at a new school. What kind of name is that? And I remember just shrinking in my seat and feeling like I don't want to be different. The stories behind the celebrity. Every Tuesday on It's Been a Minute from NPR. And we're back and we've gotten statements from the White House and the Trump campaign.

We also have President Trump saying that he's going to make a statement tomorrow about this victory in the impeachment hoax. So it's pretty clear that President Trump and the White House feel good about this. There have been a lot of Republicans and Trump allies tweeting out acquitted for life. That seems to be the motto of the day, acquitted for life, which, of course, is a bit of a nod to what Democrats had been saying, which is that he will be impeached for life. Like you can't take away the impeachment. We have the White House statement here. It's coming from White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham. And she says that the president's acquittal by the Senate is, quote,

full vindication and exoneration, unquote. And she goes on to say that only the president's political opponents, this is a quote, all Democrats and one failed Republican presidential candidate, voted for the manufactured impeachment articles. That's the end of the quote. Of course, she's referring there to Mitt Romney. I think the president ends this process feeling very strong and he has reason to write. Like we've talked about the fact that in this moment, his approval ratings are on the rise. The economy is doing very well. If sort of the national climate wasn't as strong around him. Impeachment might have been a greater weakness, but his fundamentals are strong. And I think that impeachment has,

in the end, sort of fallen along the already established political lines in this country, and that I certainly don't think it's helped Donald Trump. And it may ultimately hurt him in the end, but it wasn't as big of a deal as we maybe thought it could have been at the beginning of this process, when it seemed like there was a million different wild cards and who knew if this would be the thing that upended his presidency. And in the end, it didn't really. Americans don't like impeachment. That's been clear for as long as impeachment has been around. It took forever for people to come around to the idea that Richard Nixon might need to go. It was almost as though Nixon came to that conclusion before the country did, because support for it in the polls didn't get to 50 percent until days, almost hours before he himself actually saw the handwriting on the wall and voluntarily resigned.

Americans don't like impeachment. It was a meme that he has tweeted out before that makes liberals crazy. And I think that was the whole point. But it's this Time magazine cover. Oh, gosh, it's playing on my phone. It's it's this Time magazine cover with Trump 2020 yard signs that become 2024, 2048, 2100. The idea that he may never leave, that he is president for life or at least acquitted for life. Or at least the Time magazine cover was implying that Trump or something like Trump, Trumpism, if you will, is here to stay. This vote was not a total exoneration of the president. You know, we knew from the start that it was almost certain that he would never be convicted and removed from office. But in the end, the judgment of many members of his own party was harsh about the president and his actions. Lamar Alexander, Rob Portman, any number, I think eight to 10 Republicans are on record as saying they thought it was wrong or inappropriate or unethical and he shouldn't

have done it and he shouldn't do it again. So this is not the Senate saying the president didn't do anything wrong here. However, the president is a master communicator and his ability to be able to say this is a total exoneration and use this and sort of turn it into a positive for him, I don't think can be undercounted because nobody knows how to pound a message into the electorate better than he does. Well, the Mueller report was not a total exoneration either. It had laid out numerous examples of potential obstruction of justice. But President Trump said it was total exoneration, no obstruction, no collusion. It became a mantra. And I don't know what the mantra will be this time, but I probably will be acquitted for life.

And, you know, the day after Robert Mueller's final appearance that did not seal the deal and that clearly gave the president the leeway to call it total exoneration, That was in July. And the day after that, the president got on the phone to the leader of Ukraine and said some things that led eventually to his being impeached. It's interesting to speculate what the president might feel free to do tomorrow. Trump is the most powerful president that I have covered in terms of his relationship with Capitol Hill. President Obama, President Bush all had pretty consistent critics within their parties, within their wings, different ideological wings. One of the things the impeachment process proved is just absolute loyalty to the president. Even when they think he wants it, if he says it should be thus, he can get the votes on Capitol Hill to make that happen. Which brings us to this moment in the press conference that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had, where he was asked multiple times whether he believed President Trump did something wrong. And he wouldn't answer the question. And this is important because for months and months and

months, Mitch McConnell has been asked, is it appropriate for the president to solicit help in an election from a foreign power? And Mitch McConnell has never directly answered that question. He was asked it three times again today, still refused to answer the question. So while he might not embrace the president's defense, he is going to stand by him no matter what. All right. That is a wrap for today. We will be back in your feeds tomorrow, we hope, at the normal time, 5 o'clock. Until then, keep up with all the latest updates by heading to NPR.org, listening to your local public radio station, or on the NPR One app. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Ron Elving, editor-correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.