Welcome to Words Matter with Katie Barlow and Joe Lockhart.

Welcome to Words Matter, I'm Katie Barlow.

Our goal is to promote objective reality.

As a wise man once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, not their own facts.

Have power and words have consequences.

Our guest today needs no introduction, but we're going to give her one anyway.

Nina Totenberg is National Public Radio's award-winning and legendary legal affairs correspondent.

Her coverage of the Supreme Court and legal and political affairs have won her widespread acclaim

and recognition. Newsweek calls her the crem de la crem of NPR and Vanity Fair calls her

Queen of the Leaks. She's not a lawyer, but any lawyer in this town will tell you she knows

way more about the law than they do, and I will include myself in that category.

Nina Totenberg, my friend, it is a privilege to welcome you back towards matter.

Thank you so much for having me. I like to think I'm queen of the hard work, not queen of the

Leaks. You are queen of that too. As a former intern, I can say, queen of the hard work comes first.

So last week, an historic week, for only the third time in American history,

the impeachment trial of the president of the United States began in the US Senate.

So, Nina, you covered the trial last time around in the 90s. So take us back to January of 1999,

the Senate impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. And actually, I want to quote how you described

the tone and tenor of that proceeding at the time to give us some context. And this is what you said.

Let me talk first about what it was like in the Senate chamber. It was very somber. I would even say

sad. All the senators were at their places listening pretty attentively. A lot of yons,

some people looking are almost stunned. And all of this with pervasive sadness. So one of the things

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