I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, January 14th.

The second impeachment of Donald Trump will go next to the Senate, and with us now is one of the

100 members who will become a juror,

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. And we will talk about the insurrection and impeachment,

of course, but also the transition and the urgent business to do for the people, like beating back

the coronavirus and its economic shocks and getting serious about racial equality. Hi, Senator,

just another day in America. Welcome back to WNYC. Thanks, Brian. How are you doing? I'm doing

all right. And the question is, how are you doing? And I wonder would you like to begin with some

oral history of your experience during the insurrection. What will you always

remember from that day? Well, it certainly was a very anxious day. It was an important day,

so most of the senators were actually in the chamber at the time to listen to the arguments

of both sides. And all of a sudden things started to change.

Staff got up, they quickly went to the podium,

took the vice president down from the podium,

and then moved Senator Grassley to the podium,

and no one knew it was happening because normally you're not on your phones

during the Senate, and so we weren't scrolling through the news feeds.

And so we started to do so and realized that the riots outside were becoming more and more

violent, and within moments we were informed that the Capitol had been breached.

And so it was just one of those just high anxiety days where you couldn't understand what was happening

in the moment.

On reflection, looking back, I'm more and more horrified as the days go on with now

...