Senate Impeachment Trial Begins With Partisan Rules Fight
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2020
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Kala, I'm covering the presidential |
| 0:07.1 | campaign. I'm Susan Davis, I cover Congress. And I'm Tim Mac, I also cover Congress. |
| 0:11.2 | And it is currently 7.06 pm on Tuesday, January 21st. The Senate will convene as a court |
| 0:19.1 | of impeachment. And this afternoon, the third impeachment trial in American history officially |
| 0:24.1 | began in the United States Senate. Here, here, here, here, here, all persons are commanded |
| 0:29.1 | to keep silent on pain of imprisonment. While the Senate of the United States is sitting |
| 0:34.0 | for the trial of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives against |
| 0:40.1 | Donald John Trump, President of the United States. |
| 0:43.5 | Day one of the trial was mainly just about the ground rules of how to conduct the trial |
| 0:47.8 | itself. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the architect of these rules. And today, |
| 0:53.0 | he largely defended them on the floor. |
| 0:55.0 | At every point, our straightforward resolution will bring the clarity and fairness that |
| 1:00.9 | everyone deserves. The President of the United States, the House of Representatives, and |
| 1:07.8 | the American people. This is the fair roadmap for our trial. |
| 1:16.1 | And yet Democrats don't necessarily see these rules as being fair. So what is the disagreement |
| 1:22.1 | between the parties? Right. So Mitch McConnell is using the 1999 Clinton impeachment precedent |
| 1:27.1 | to set the roadmap for the rules ahead. But the big difference between them and now is |
| 1:30.7 | when they did it in 1999, 100 senators got together and agreed on the roadmap. This |
| 1:36.1 | time around, you're dealing with a very different Senate. This is almost an entirely partisan |
| 1:40.5 | exercise where the rules of the road are written only by Republicans and are expected to |
| 1:45.2 | be passed only by Republicans. Now, they do follow some of the same contours of the Clinton |
| 1:50.5 | impeachment, both the prosecution and defense will be given 24 hours each to make their |
... |
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