Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
Legal Teams Finish Debate on Witnesses, Crucial Vote Imminent. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired January 31, 2020 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:30:00] SCHIFF: -- counsel expressed some indignance - indignance that we should suggest that it's not just the Senate - it's not just the President, rather, who is on trial here but it is also the Senate. How dare the House managers suggest that your decisions should reflect on this body? That's just such a calumny.
Well let me read you a statement made by one of your former colleagues. This is what former U.S. Senator John Warner, a Republican of Virginia, had to say - "as conscientious citizens from all walks of life are trying their best to understand the complex impeachment issues now being deliberated in the U.S. Senate, the rules of evidence are central to the matter. Should the Senate allow additional sworn testimony from fact witnesses with firsthand knowledge and include relevant documents?" he asks. "As a lifelong Republican and a retired member of the U.S. Senate who once served as a juror in a presidential impeachment trial, I am mindful of the difficult responsibilities those currently serving now shoulder. I believe, as I am sure you do, that not only is the President on trial but in many ways so is the Senate itself. As such, I am strongly supportive of the efforts of my former Republican Senate colleagues who are considering that the Senate accept the introduction of additional evidence that they deem relevant.
Not long ago, senators of both major parties always worked to accommodate fellow colleagues with differing points of view to arrive at outcomes that would best serve the nation's interests. I - I - if witnesses are suppressed in this trial and a majority of Americans are left believing the trial was a sham, I can only imagine the lasting damage done to the Senate and to our fragile national consensus. The Senate embraces its legacy and delivers for the American people by avoiding the risk. Throughout the long life of our nation, federal and state judicial systems have largely supported the judicial norms of evidence, witnesses and relevant documents. I respectfully urge the Senate to be guided by the rules of evidence and follow our nation's judicial norms, precedence and institutions to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law by welcoming relevant witnesses and documents as part of this impeachment trial."
That is your colleague, former Senator John Warner. Senators, there is a storm blowing through this capitol. Its winds are strong and they move us in uncertain and dangerous directions. Jefferson once said "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its Constitution." "The only anchor ever imagined - yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its Constitution." I would submit to you remove that anchor and we are adrift but if we hold true, if we have faith that the ship of state can survive the truth, this storm shall pass. I yield back.
J. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Manager.
MCCONNELL: Mr. Chief Justice?
J. ROBERTS: The Majority Leader is recognized.
[16:34:31]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right. So they are going to do a little pause right now, and quorum call as they call it. They are going to do a roll call. They're going to spend a few minutes.
I assume, Jake, what they're going to do is to try to figure out what to do next?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yes. We presume that there is a vote on the motion to call more witnesses and documents to subpoena them and then they would have to decide which witnesses and which documents, but we also do not expected that motion will pass. We think that the vote will be 49 for, that would be 47 Democrats and plus Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, and then 51 against, all the rest of the Republicans or 53 Republicans.
[16:35:11]
And then the big question, what next, because if there are no new witnesses or no new documents, the only thing left really is to vote on the articles of impeachment, and to debate the articles of impeachment.
RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: During the Clinton impeachment, it's a closed session. They locked up the doors. You're locked up in that place. No cameras.
TAPPER: And they turn off the cameras.
SANTORUM: Every -- and you just -- you -- each -- every member gets up and says their piece.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And you could have unanimous consent to have open deliberation if you want --
SANTORUM: And there's no way they're going to get unanimous to give -- the Republicans are going to -- Rand Paul, pick a number, they're going to give Bernie Sanders --
JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Or Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders time to speak.
SANTORUM: -- and Elizabeth Warren the chance to speak to the American public. TAPPER: So, just remind us what happened? So that meant that
everybody who wasn't a U.S. senator and certain essential Senate staffer staffers had to leave.
SANTORUM: Everybody leaves.
TAPPER: Everybody leaves.
SANTORUM: Everybody's gone.
TAPPER: And then -- the cameras are turned off.
SANTORUM: Yes.
TAPPER: And then what? How long did that go for? Do you remember?
SANTORUM: Three days, if you recall.
TAPPER: Three days of people just like saying what they thought and how much of that leaked out to the press? How much came out?
SANTORUM: I mean, you're allowed to go until -- you know, you can -- you can release a copy of what you say. I mean, so, there's no -- there's no, it's not like it's secret. I mean, but it could be. I mean, if you don't want -- if you don't want to release the information.
TAPPER: What is -- and what is the conversations that people are having, and what are people saying?
SANTORUM: Everybody is basically making their case, and standing up and trying to persuade. You know, I --
TAPPER: This is after the motion to have witnesses or not to have witnesses.
SANTORUM: Well, we had witnesses. This is in the time during Clinton.
TAPPER: Right, right.
SANTORUM: After the testimony.
TAPPER: But in this one we're talking about.
SANTORUM: In this case, after this vote.
TAPPER: The vote on new witnesses, yes.
SANTORUM: What the next procedural thing would be to go to this deliberation time, but that -- that is probably what is being debated. I mean, I don't know under the original Senate rules, because it's not covered in the resolution that was adopted whether Senator Schumer has the right to offer addition amendments. I sort of doubt it, but I don't know.
And so, that's possible that there might be dilatory tactics that the minority can get into. And as you saw the night -- the first night of the trial, where Schumer offered amendments into the wee early hours of the morning and maybe it is a tactic to get an agreement out of the majority to structure some time, and potentially open up the chamber for debate. But I doubt it.
BLITZER: It's interesting, John, because assumption was that following what was scheduled four hours, two hours on each side of the debate right now, and neither side took all of the time, and the House managers took a lot of it and almost all of it, but the White House lawyers took a very small percentage of the two hours that had been allocated to them. The assumption was after the 16 hours of other debate that happened over the past two days, questions and answers, and now this, they would then proceed rather rapidly toward a final vote on witnesses and evidence.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And so, Mitch McConnell has two issues or problems, depending on your perspective, they have to solve right now. Number one is, if the Democrats have these tactics available to them, can they cut a deal? Can they cut a deal for everybody in the chamber, at least have a clear -- OK, we're going to end on this date. You're going to do everything by this time, maybe they push that to next week, or, you know, originally, the plan was to hope to get it all done in the wee hours --
BLITZER: Like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
KING: Through tonight.
So, they will try to work that out. That's the Republican leader with the Democratic Leader, the majority leader with the minority leader, but he also has -- Mr. McConnell also who has issues, according to our Capitol Hill team in some incoming from the Hill amongst several of his Republicans want this time to speak, and other Republicans do not. Other Republicans want to move through this and go.
So, they have to resolve the differences within the Republican family, I would assume, first, so you can have a unified case --
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: There's probably -- I mean, the Democrats, I think they do. I know of at least four people who don't want to be sitting in a locked up chamber where no one can hear them.
BORGER: Right.
BLITZER: They'd rather be in Iowa.
SANTORUM: That's exactly right.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Yes.
And, Nia-Malika, how much of this just -- they call it the world's most deliberative body, sometimes that's meant as a compliment. NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Uh-huh.
TAPPER: Other times it is not.
HENDERSON: Right.
TAPPER: Mo Udall, the former congressman from the House of Representatives, from Arizona, once said that everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everybody has had the chance to say it.
HENDERSON: Yes.
TAPPER: Sometimes, I wonder if that's what's going on in a time like this. We know the arguments. We know the decisions. The real question, the only question I really have is how are Kyrsten Sinema, Doug Jones and Joe Manchin going to vote, three Democratic senators from red states?
HENDERSON: Right.
TAPPER: Apparently there's stuff to be worked out.
John, you're -- what are you -- what are you doing over there?
KING: Just trying to look at the floor to see who McConnell is talking to. You can just see the little piece of it there. I'm just trying to see if the conversations that are absolutely happening on the floor. This is --
TAPPER: John wants a close up.
KING: Well, they're not going to give it to us. They're not going to give it to us with the cameras. That's a very limited view here, hopefully our team up in the galley is looking around to see who he's talking in the floor.
HENDERSON: I think that's right. I mean, we've been focusing on a lot of these other senators, what they would do. We know we've gotten the release from their offices, what they're thinking was, and why they're not voting for witnesses, why they would vote to acquit.
[16:40:06]
But those three senators, you're right. It's not clear what they're going to do. Do they split for the baby and vote for the first and not the second article? It's unclear. And, you know, I imagine Americans for a while have known how this was going to end, and so, it is sort of more shouting to happen before it actually ends.
TAPPER: And, Dana Bash -- let me just go to Capitol Hill, and I'll come right back. Dana Bash, who's on Capitol Hill for us, might have some insights as to what exactly is going on -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: A lot of negotiations in plain sight. John mentioned that you could see Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer. So you have the Republican, the Democratic leader are having a discussion when -- Senator Santorum knows it better than any of us, and when they ask for the absence of the quorum, what they're doing is hitting a pause button on the Senate, so that they can have private conversations because they're trying to find a way to find compromise, to figure out how -- to find the exit ramp and never mind to get on the exit ramp to finish this impeachment trial.
One other bit of color while this is happening, I just got a text from a Democratic senator who's kind of in the middle of it, who said that there is a lot of intrigue and uncertainty on the Senate floor as we speak. Nobody knows how late they're going to go tonight, and nobody knows how long this trial is going to go, nobody knows when they're going to take the votes other than the prescribed vote that we would expect on the witnesses at some point today.
So for all of the reasons we've been reporting, particularly the issue that Mitch McConnell is having in his own conference right now with the people he needs on his side, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and others who are telling him that they want a chance to talk, and they don't want to go to closed session. They want a chance to talk. They want a chance to be heard by the constituents as part of this big decision that they are making.
TAPPER: So, I just want to point out to people watching at home, if you are looking at the bottom of the Senate's -- now, the chyrons there, and guys, move the banner. Move the banner. If you are, well, what I want to talk about, you can see -- there you go. Right above where it says Donald J. Trump in red, you will see a bunch of old men with the tops of their heads and this is John Cornyn is the guy with the white hair, and I don't know what you want to call them, but to help identify, but that is presumably what we cannot see is the Democrats on the other side of them, but that is the guy is Mitch McConnell's head to the right of John Cornyn's left, and that is where everybody is talking and negotiating.
Go ahead, Dana. I'm sorry.
BASH: No, I was going to say. I mean, look, Senator Santorum has been a part of the gaggle before, knows what it's like when everybody is huddled around trying to find -- trying to find a way out.
Right now, it looks like it's the Republicans talking amongst themselves in large part I think because of what I was just talking about that Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and others were in Mitch McConnell's office for the extended break, that's supposed to be 15 minutes, it was almost an hour, trying to figure out how they can have their time, in addition to negotiating that with the Democrats.
Now, this is to say, and not to say that the witness vote is necessarily going to change when it comes to the numbers or the timing, but this is about how long they're going to have to talk and what form they're going to talk. The idea that these four Democrats are on the floor watching this happen, instead of running for president in Iowa as they wan to be, is such a fascinating subplot that continues to, you know, flow through all of this. TAPPER: We are told, and this is tougher than tea leave, because it
is the top of people's head, but we are told that one of the individuals, the guy with the full head of dark hair to John Cornyn's right, two over is Senator Chuck Schumer's chief of staff, the Senate --
SANTORUM: Logistically, if it were a Republican discussion, they wouldn't have it right next to the Democratic side of the aisle.
TAPPER: Right.
SANTORUM: Seriously, they wouldn't. They would be way off in the corner there, and so logistically, they are talking to the Democrats.
TAPPER: And they're trying to figure out what next with the motion on the witnesses.
SANTORUM: Here's what I am concerned if I'm -- what I thinking am reading which is taking -- is taking a recess now or not a recess, calling in quorum means they don't know what to do --
BORGER: Right.
TAPPER: Right.
SANTORUM: Because -- because if they knew, they were going to the vote, they would have gone straight to the vote, and then work out while they're voting. So, there must be and this is what Alan Frumin who was here earlier, the Senate parliamentarian, were talking about, there must be some disagreement that there is an opportunity for the Democrats to have an intervening amendment now.
BLITZER: I'm going to bring in Alan Frumin, the former Senate parliamentarian.
But if you look at the part, the top part of your screen, you see the chief justice speaking with Lindsey Graham, and over there on the screen is the managers of the right part of the screen with the White House lawyers having conversations, and various senators are walking over and talking to them.
[16:45:09]
But at the bottom part of the screen once again, as Jake has been pointing out, it looks like Mitch McConnell is having a serious discussion, not only with some of his fellow Republicans, but some key Democrats as well.
I assume they're trying to figure out what to do next. We had assumed what would be next would be an actual vote on whether or not there would be witnesses and new evidence that would be allowed in.
That vote, if it happens, will fail 51-49. There are now 51 Republicans who will oppose any witnesses. Let's see how long it takes to get to that next step.
But, Alan Frumin, you're the former Senate parliamentarian. Walk us through what's going on.
ALAN FRUMIN, FORMER SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN: What's going on is typical Senate chaos.
(LAUGHTER)
FRUMIN: The organizing resolution setting up the ground rules for the trial took us to this point, and we have been following those ground rules.
But on page three -- in the middle of page three of the organizing resolution, there is language that defies a normal person's comprehension. Fortunately, I'm not a normal person. I'm an abnormal person.
And I read this to be Senatese for, oh, my God, everybody's got a chance to throw a grenade here. The motion before the body ostensibly to be disposed of after these four hours of argument is an amendable motion.
And under the Senate's impeachment rules, amendments are subject to two hours of argument. Rick Santorum and I were looking at this earlier. There is language in here that says, without intervening action or debate, but that language was meant to modify the next step of this process.
That step would be motions to subpoena specific witnesses, which motions would only be in order if the current motion before the Senate is adopted.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: The vote on the witnesses...
FRUMIN: So, the fact that the Democrats know they're going to lose this amendment means they want to -- this is their chance -- this is their last chance.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: This is the last time they have leverage.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: And this was the plan.
SANTORUM: Someone made a mistake here in drafting this.
BORGER: Well, another thing Mitch McConnell has to think about, don't forget, is the White House.
Now, I don't know if you can see what the White House lawyers are doing right now. But you have a president who wants to get this done. He wants to get it over with, particularly by the...
TAPPER: Before the State of the Union on Tuesday. BORGER: ... State of the Union.
But also maybe he wanted it done by the Super Bowl. And that doesn't look likely at this point.
TAPPER: Because he's doing an interview during the Super Bowl.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: You notice that there are no White House lawyers anywhere near McConnell.
BORGER: Right.
SANTORUM: And the reason for that...
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: No, no, no. This is Senate prerogative.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: They're not going to say a word to McConnell on it.
BORGER: So, what Chuck Schumer is saying, look, we have our opportunity now to offer these amendments.
You have a bunch of people who want to talk, and you have a bunch of people who want to go home.
SANTORUM: And you got a bunch of people who want to go to Iowa.
BORGER: And you have got a president -- and then he says, you have a bunch of people who want to go to Iowa.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: And you have a president who wants to get this over with.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: The key, as Senator Santorum said -- and I want to bring in Jeff Toobin to get his take on this.
Senator Santorum, and Alan Frumin.
The key is, because the legislation for this whole Senate trial was written in such a way that this is now the only time that Democrats have leverage over the process.
So, Alan Frumin, let me just bring you back for one second before we go to Toobin.
What does that mean? So the Democrats could theoretically gum up the works for as long as possible by just offering amendment after amendment? And each amendment gets two hours' debate. So -- and the Republicans obviously want to avoid that. Frankly,
there's some Democrats that would like to avoid that as well, especially four who are running for president and would like to go to Iowa as soon as possible.
So what does this mean? They're trying to exact some sort of agreement here, more favorable to their terms than they would ever be able to get at any other time?
FRUMIN: No doubt, a lot of senators would like to avoid that.
The issue here is dealing with those senators who want to take advantage of this opportunity for amendments at this stage, which, by the terms of this resolution, do not appear to have an enforceable limit.
TAPPER: So, basically, I don't know who this would be. And maybe it's actually nobody but, theoretically, Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, has more leverage over the process than he has had in a long time, if not ever, and is saying...
SANTORUM: Since the first night.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: The first time in this trial, since the first night.
SANTORUM: No, no. The first night, he had leverages.
And he used that leverage to go until 2:00 in the morning.
FRUMIN: This is a repeat of the first night.
TAPPER: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: It's interesting, Nia, because I'm sure a lot of viewers out there are saying to themselves, we know there will be a vote on witnesses, it will fail.
We know after that there's supposed to be a vote on whether or not to convict and remove the president of the United States from office. That needs 67 senators. That will fail. Why don't they just get this over with and move on?
HENDERSON: Yes, I think a lot of people...
TAPPER: These are good questions from our viewers.
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: ... are asking that question, what is going on right now? What are they talking about? Why drag this on?
[16:50:03] And I think it's really a question for Schumer in many ways, right? Does he want a repeat of what happened on that first night? It was 11 or so hours with a lot of amendments that ended up failing.
He could do the same thing here. Again, those would fail. Again, we know they're not going to be any witnesses. Again, we know that the president is going to -- is not going to be removed for from office.
So, you know, is this just sort of a theater when everybody knows what's going to happen at the end?
KING: But he's the Democratic leader who constantly, throughout his tenure, but especially right now, has been criticized by the most activist liberal part of the Democratic base.
They want some flesh.
JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And they want him to keep fighting as late as it can be tonight.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Guess what? There's politics at play. Surprised.
And there are -- yes, four Democratic senators would like to end this, although even they understand. They want to make -- put some pressure on the White House team here, put some pressure on their fellow Republicans.
But Schumer's got a tough act here. I think Senator Santorum was talking about this, this morning. You know, how long? To what end?
At what point -- how does he balance the, let's get a little bit more flesh here, but let's be reasonable doing it?
And again if McConnell also has an internal Republican dynamic to work out as well is what makes it complicated. The funny part is, is, when you ask for a quorum call, that suggests there are not enough senators in the room to do your business.
That's what it's officially. But it's a pause button here. They're all they're. All 100 are required to be there.
TAPPER: Yes, all 100.
And one of the things that happened the first night of the trial, it's important for people to remember, is that that could have been dispatched in a few hours, but it went well into the night.
And there were several individual amendments basically calling for the subpoena to compel the testimony of John Bolton, calling for a subpoena to compel the testimony of Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, et cetera, et cetera, things that could have been consolidated.
But the theory went among Republicans what Senator Schumer was trying to get because every single one of these votes required every single senator to say yea or nay was trying to get vulnerable Republicans like Cory Gardner of Colorado, who is up for reelection, Susan Collins of Maine, who's up for reelection, Martha McSally of Arizona, who is up for election, et cetera, trying to get them to say nay.
That can be used in an ad of their voices saying, at a time when the nation needed them, Senator Blank voted to cover up President Trump's blank, you know, here -- and Senator Collins, nay, or whatever, et cetera.
And that is a theory, Republican theory of what Schumer was trying to get. And the question is right now, what does he want to get?
PSAKI: Yes, exactly.
I mean, and I think the politics of this, it's unlikely to be a big impact right now on the Democratic primary or even necessarily the presidential election. It's a Senate play from the Democrats' perspective. Schumer is the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, and he wants to get them on the record.
He wants to have more messaging amendments that that can be raised, again, as you said, in ads and social media campaigns and in digital advertising and fund-raising.
BORGER: So it's really not about the president anymore. It's about control of the Senate, which is what Republicans...
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: We need to go to Jeff Toobin for one second -- Jeff.
BLITZER: Hey, Jeff, are you there?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. Yes, sir.
BLITZER: OK, go ahead.
TOOBIN: Well, I just think -- just to emphasize something I believe it was Jake who just said, the leverage that Schumer has here is to get Republicans to make uncomfortable votes, you know, as he did at the beginning of this process, you know, vote to say no witness, individual witnesses, no John Bolton, no Mulvaney, no documents.
And so Susan Collins and Cory Gardner will have to defend those votes on the campaign trail. The other thing that I think Schumer would be thinking about here is that Donald Trump really wants to deliver the State of the Union on Tuesday, having been acquitted.
Chuck Schumer has within his ability, at least as we understand the rules, to make that impossible, to make them sit there for enough hours, so that that dream of the president's cannot come true.
He may well decide that that's worth it. I think, you know, those are relatively small goals in the context of an impeachment trial. But that's what happens when you're in the minority. You don't have that many opportunities to win.
TAPPER: And it's kind of a mixed bag, because, I mean, yes, you want to -- if you're the Democratic leader, you want to deprive a Republican president of a talking point.
But by the same token, it also gives the Republican president of the talking point, John King, in the sense that it's like, I want to do the people's business and I'm still being impeached.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: The chief justice has just -- the chief justice, John Roberts, has just walked out of the Senate chamber, which is not necessarily...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Our people who can see the full room -- Manu Raju just put in a note -- the ones who can see the full room, that after talking for 10 or 12 minutes, Schumer and McConnell with each of them with a top aide, that then those talks have broken up and Schumer went to huddle with his side.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: So, what I saw is that Laura Dove, who is Bob -- Dove, who is the former parliamentarian -- Laura runs the Senate Cloakroom.
She went over after the conversation and talked to Eric Ueland. Eric used be a Senate staffer, was someone who's very skilled in parliamentarian things, but is now at the White House.
[16:55:05]
She sat. And John Cornyn came over, talked with him to sort of download to White House what was going on. Then Eric took off. He's now walking back in. He's the gentleman walking toward the camera.
BORGER: He may have had to call the White House.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Right. He's the liaison between the legislative branch and the White House.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: So that's what I'm guessing happened.
And he's now probably reporting back as he's walking over to McConnell.
BORGER: I think there are people with very different goals throughout all of this.
And it's hard to figure out a way to make all of them unhappy to the same degree, because nobody is going to be happy with the end result of this, most particularly those who want to get it over tonight.
SANTORUM: Compromise.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: And let me -- let's bring back Alan Frumin.
Alan, I don't remember from the Clinton impeachment, but were every one of these votes voice votes, as opposed to just filling -- hitting the switch on the -- on your desk, so that your voice was recorded?
FRUMIN: There's no switch.
TAPPER: There's no switches, like there is in the House of Representatives?
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: No.
TAPPER: OK. Well, sorry.
FRUMIN: We didn't have a lot of these votes in the Clinton trial.
This is unusual. This didn't happen before.
TAPPER: But, Senator Santorum, don't you think that one of the things Santorum will likely -- I mean, that Senator Schumer will likely want is the voice vote.
BLITZER: The chief justice has just come back in. So maybe that's encouraging.
There he is on the left part of your screen in the upper part.
TAPPER: Don't you think Schumer is going to want voice votes? He's going to want to have Collins and Gardner...
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: No, there will...
TAPPER: They will do voice votes?
SANTORUM: Every member will stand up at their chair and they will vote on each article.
TAPPER: Is that how it happened during Clinton as well, for every single thing?
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: It will happen every single...
(CROSSTALK) BLITZER: During the Bill Clinton impeachment trial, there was a lot more coordination and cooperation between the two, the Democratic and the Republican leaders, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott.
SANTORUM: We did.
BLITZER: They worked a lot more closely together than Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer.
SANTORUM: It was a much more functional Senate than it has been for the past eight years, to be honest.
TAPPER: There was also an agreement for new witness testimony, compelling Vernon Jordan, Sid Blumenthal, and Monica Lewinsky to testify as well.
Dana Bash on Capitol Hill, tell us more about what's going on.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Jake.
And Manu Raju just came out of the Senate chamber. And we were joking that America now gets to see what a quorum call looks like and what it means when they're trying to figure out what their next steps are in the Senate.
We get to see that a lot as people who cover it. What did you see in there?
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, they were engaged in a very direct conversation that lasted about 10 to 12 minutes.
Initially, at the beginning, Mitch McConnell huddled with his top aide on the floor who deals with a lot of the floor negotiations. Her name is Laura Dove. She went over and talked to the top Democratic floor general, source, as we call them up here, Gary Myrick.
They had a discussion. Then Chuck Schumer came over, huddled with Mitch McConnell. They were going back and forth, having a direct conversation. Other people came in the conversation, other aides, including other senators too.
John Thune got into the conversation, later John Cornyn. They went back and forth for some time. And then after that, Chuck Schumer went and huddled in his corner. He retreated into his office.
So what that tells me is that there's a serious discussion happening about exactly how to end this trial and whether or not Chuck Schumer will go along with the proposed plans to move to the end of the trial.
Now, what that exactly is at the moment is unclear. Chuck Schumer made clear earlier he does not want to allow votes to happen through the -- what he calls the dead of the night. He wants to allow senators their opportunity to give their speeches.
So how that happens over the next several days, that's one of the key points of negotiation that is happening right now. So we will see if they can get a deal.
BASH: And McConnell's getting the pressure from both sides, because while Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are saying, we don't want it to happen in the dead of night, we want to be able to talk, he's also hearing that from the most important members of the Republican Conference.
RAJU: Yes, no question.
Before -- in this last extended break, before this one, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Mitt Romney, all Republican senators in -- met with Mitch McConnell in his office.
And Murkowski and Collins in particular have been advocating for more time, so allow members to go to the floor and speak their minds over the next few days beginning in the early next week, beginning on Monday.
But there's been some pushback internally at the Republican lunch. I'm told, earlier today, the Republicans were -- not everybody was happy about that. In fact, most were not happy about the idea of this being extended.
They wanted this done at the end of the night tonight, but Mitch McConnell needs the votes of 51 senators to move to a final vote.
BASH: Exactly.
RAJU: So if more than -- we have been talking about four senators for witnesses. If there are four senators who are going to break ranks to get to a final vote, or three votes, three senators, really, if it's 50/50, it would fail, that's going to be -- that's an issue for him to deal with.
BASH: Yes.
And for people who say that things don't work, you know, what you are looking at now is really a high-stakes situation, where they are actually talking across the aisle.
It's process, but these are things that they have to do all the time, even up to and including an important issue like the impeachment trial, for the Senate to work.
We don't -- really don't get to see it in plain sight. But, because they're all standing there, we get to see it now. And we're going to continue to watch it.
And maybe we will actually hear what the resolution is, because they're going to have to come up with one soon to figure out when they're going to take these votes -- Jake and Wolf.
[17:00:00]
