TRAILER: Dem Impeachment Manager: Here’s Why We Didn’t Call Witnesses During Trump’s Trial

The New Abnormal

The Daily Beast

News & Politics

4.6 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2021

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We know how the story went: Trump was impeached for a second time. There is a trial. He is found not guilty because there not enough votes needed to make it happen, despite the majority of the Senate voting against the former president. Lots of people have questions in regards to this process. Namely, what the hell? But also, why didn’t the Democrats forgo their right to call witnesses? Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CA) told co-host Molly Jong-Fast his perspective on things in this member-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal. “Whether it's five witnesses or 5,000 witnesses, it would not have changed the ultimate outcome,” he says, echoing Rep. Jamie Raskin has said on the issue. They did consider witnesses nonetheless, says Neguse, but to him, it came down to timing. “It was clear that other witnesses whom had been speculated about in the media in terms of potential witnesses that we could have heard from were unlikely to voluntarily comply and voluntarily appear, which meant we would have to issue subpoenas. And they could very well contest those subpoenas in court,” he says. Ultimately, he feels the point was made, and everyone knows Trump was responsible: “That is something that obviously was crystal clear by virtue of the evidence that we showed during the course of the trial, which of course the American public had a chance to see as well.” He shares his own experience during the Capitol insurrection, including the moment he realized things had gotten bad. “I texted my wife and told her that, uh, I loved her and our daughter,” he says. Plus! He and Molly discuss what plans the House has to make sure this doesn’t happen again and that people in power are held responsible. And is Medicare for All and federal legalization of marijuana on the horizon?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When you're about to hear as a teaser for the bonus episodes we do for Beast Inside,
0:03.9	the Daily Beast Membership Program. Today we have a very special bonus episode with Joe
0:08.4	Nagus, who's the US representative for Colorado's second congressional district.
0:13.3	You may know Joe as one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party after his role as an impeachment
0:18.7	manager and we're going to talk to him all about that and a handful of other issues.
0:22.8	To hear this along with all of our past bonus episodes with guests like Cory Booker, Billy Eichner,
0:27.7	Q&As, as well as gain full access to the Daily Beast Fearless Journalism and a new abnormal
0:33.0	at thedailybeast.com. That's new abnormal. Got thedailybeast.com.
0:37.7	On this show we had James Carval and we were talking before and he said,
0:43.6	the thing about impeachment, because I was asking him if he thought it was a success and he said the
0:47.6	thing that's so great about impeachment is we've just discovered all this new talent in the Democratic
0:52.6	Party. So I'm pretty sure he was referring to you. I think that's fair to say. Yeah. Very
0:58.3	kind. So talk to me about the impeachment manager. How did you get the job? How did that go down?
1:04.3	I think people would love to hear a little backstory on that.
1:07.2	Tour. Well, you know, so by way of background, myself, Mr. Raskin, now I good friend,
1:12.3	colleague, Jamie Raskin, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Chairman Schiff,
1:16.6	and then Chairwoman Lothgren, a Zoolothgren from California. The four of us had been asked by
1:21.9	Speaker Pelosi to prepare the arguments for the electoral college certification process on January
1:30.2	6th. So we had been working for about a month, you know, over virtual zooms and kind of preparing
1:37.2	for January 6th, recognizing given the public reporting that various Republican members were
1:43.7	likely to make, you know, baseless objections to the electoral college certification. And we wanted
1:48.2	to make sure that we were fully prepared for that moment. So we, as I said, had spent a great deal
	...

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