Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Scott Detro.

I cover the White House.

I'm Deer DeWalsh Congressional Editor, and I'm Kerry Johnson, National Justice correspondent.

And all three of us sat through seven hours of an impeachment trial today.

How's everybody doing?

Why don't we hang in it?

A lot happened today, and we're going to talk about all of it.

Let's start with President Trump's defense.

Really only lasted a couple of hours.

That's how the day started in response to the case against the former president that

Democrats had mounted over the last few days.

One of his lawyers, Michael Vandervingne, mostly took the lead with arguments like this one.

Consider the language that the House impeachment article alleges to constitute incitement.

If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

This is ordinary political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language

that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years.

Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.

And he repeatedly, and I really emphasize repeatedly, burnished this argument with montages

of Democratic lawmakers and officials, including President Biden, Vice President Harris, members

of the House Democratic impeachment managers, many, many, many, many others all using the

word fight.

...