Democrats Focus Day 2 Of Trial On Trump's 'Dangerous' Abuse

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Senate impeachment trial convenes at 10:00 AM Pacific time today. As house managers continue to lay out their case against the president. On Wednesday, Congressman Adam Schiff took the lead opening and closing the day's presentation. He challenged senators to vote to subpoena specific documents and witnesses to get to the truth of what the president did in his dealings with Ukraine. Meanwhile, president Trump and Davos applauded his legal team and referenced the documents the house Democrats don't have. Speaker 2: 00:31 We're doing very well. I got to watch enough. I thought our team did a very good job, but honestly, we have all the material they don't have the material. Speaker 1: 00:40 Joining me is political analyst, professor Carl Luna, who teaches political science at Mesa college and Carl, welcome back. Nice to be here. Congressman Adam Schiff in particular is getting high praise for his presentation to the Senate yesterday. What is he doing that's been so effective? Speaker 3: 00:56 Well, again, that high praise depends on what side of the political spectrum you seem to be on Marine, uh, from those who've been listening to the words, watching the presentation. He's a federal former prosecutor. He knows has a courtroom presence. He laid out with the managers a systematic argument about what the president did. Now detractors, the president called him a sleazebag that's been echoed on social media. You're seeing, uh, on conservative media. This is being attacked as just a witch hunt. They continue with the talking points, so it's not universal praise. And depending on where you live, you're getting very different reports in the media. If you're in a major city, this is front page news. If you're in the Heartland, this is a bottom of page one below the fold news. It's not even being played up. Speaker 1: 01:38 Now, isn't there a contradiction in what the house managers are arguing? They want more evidence of witnesses, yet they say they already have enough to support the removal of the president. How do you understand that? Speaker 3: 01:49 What they're trying to do is to say, look, we wanted to get more in the impeachment process in the house. The pleasant president blocked us. We were confident enough to move this forward by a vote of the house of representatives to the president has done something wrong. Worthy, the removal. Now it's on you the Senate to bring in additional information so you can make a full opinion. And in every other impeachment case that's ever been done, there've been witnesses, there's been evidence that's been brought in. Documents have been added that weren't in the original house records. So on that level they are arguing again before historical fact, Speaker 1: 02:21 there was talk that there might be an exchange of witnesses for the house managers. They could call some witnesses of the Republicans could call Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. That's been refused now by Democrats and by Biden himself. But what would be the political risk in doing that? Speaker 3: 02:38 Well, I mean the political risks to both sides. I mean the Republican request to bring in Joe Biden and his son is to show that Hey, the president had a reason to engage in what he did. But that in no way addresses the way the president did it. That's the basic summation of this. The president used this for political purposes. It's like you were saying, I'd like to have John Bolton testify and I'd say I'd like to have tiger would testify to help me with my golf game. It's a non sequitur, but if the Democrats don't make a deal, don't get witnesses in. Republicans can say, look, we tried and now we have covered for not bringing witnesses in, but have Republicans look obstructionist. At some point they could pay a political price in 2020 or in 2022 for a number of these senators, this impeachment process is not just going to go away. Speaker 3: 03:22 So meanwhile we heard in the clip, the president seems to be boasting that the impeachment supporters don't have the material they need to prove their case because he has it. Well, depending on how you read that sentence, it almost goes right to the obstruction of justice of Congress. Charge the president sitting on stuff and kind of going, nanny, nanny, booboo. That's not necessarily presidential and it could help the house argument saying to the Senate, look, you are the United States Senate. At some point you have to assert your prerogatives. Otherwise have not. This president, other presidents will run all over you and that becomes a downward slide for the Republic. Republicans in the Senate so far seem unswayed by that. Based on what they're saying to the cameras, as they walk out of the doors, they seem to be talking and talking points. Also president Trump has been tweeting like crazy about the Senate trial. Speaker 3: 04:10 Is that a wise thing for him to be doing? Wiser? Not it is. The president is the way he likes to be. He likes to be the center of things. And in this trial he's actually off to the side. I mean the Democrats had hours that they'd been able to speak on the, on the media and the president's trying to grab back some of the attention. The problem is if he says things off the cuff, it could end up undermining his defense case. He almost did that yesterday talking about how he'd like witnesses. Then they had to lock it back. So you will have to be careful the tweet. But so far his tweeting has not burned him as much as his critics would think they would. So what can we expect as the presentation from the house managers continues today? Today, it seems a, Adam laid this out at the end of yesterday. Speaker 3: 04:53 They're going to move into the constitutional justification's yesterday. They said, this is what the president did today. They're going to say why that's worthy of removal according to history and precedent, the founding fathers and all the rest. You can kind of see that maybe resonating a wall street journal, New York times both had op-eds and editorials from a conservative perspective that are saying, okay, what the president did was politics. So they're, they're actually looking at what he did and conceding, but they said, everybody does. It's the old, well, why should I be blamed when Timmy is doing the same thing business? It's a sign that they may be shifting and urging the presidents defense counsel to actually address what was said yesterday eventually and say, yeah, he did it, but it not rising to an impeachable level, whether or not that will play with the presidents and other issue. I've been speaking with Cora Luna, who teaches political science at Mesa college. Carl, thank you. Thank you. KPBS. We'll resume live coverage of the Senate impeachment trial when it begins this morning at 10:00 AM.