. There were many compelling moments sprinkled throughout the hours and hours of presentation.
During Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, one of the most interesting came during the
portion of the trial when senators can send up questions to be answered by either or both
the House impeachment managers and Donald Trump's defense lawyers, Bernie Sanders sent
up a really simple question, and it completely set off attorney Michael Van Der Veen, one
of Donald Trump's attorneys.
And the question was simply, did Trump lie about winning the election?
Is it true what the House managers said, which is that for months Donald Trump wrongly claimed
to have won the election?
Bernie asked that Vanderveer went nuts, asking who asked that and a titillating exchange
took place.
So we'll take a look.
The question is read by the clerk, but it's Bernie's question that Bernie sent up.
And when Van der Veen asks, who asks that you will hear Bernie in the background say,
I did, and then all hell breaks loose.
And counsel for the former president recognized for two and a half minutes right again and
not happened, of course, the clerk will read the question again.
The House prosecutors have stated over and over again that President Trump was perpetrating
a big lie when he repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen from him and that
he actually won the election by a landslide.
Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie, or in your
judgment, did Trump actually win the election?
The counsel for the former president have two and a half minutes.
My judgment was that my judgment is irrelevant in this proceeding.
It absolutely is.
What's supposed to happen here is the article of impeachment is yesterday.
The Senate will be in order challenge.
The senators under the rules, cannot challenge the content of the response.
The council will continue.
Have the question read again, please.
The House prosecutors have stated over and over again that President Trump was perpetrating
a big lie when he repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen from him and that
he actually won the election by a landslide.
Are the prosecutors right when they claim that Trump was telling a big lie?
Or in your judgment, did Trump actually win the election?
In my judgment, it's irrelevant to the question before this body.
What's relevant in this impeachment article is, were Mr. Trump's words insightful to the
point of violence and riot?
That's the charge.
That's the question.
And the answer is no.
So Michael van der Veen really not liking Bernie's question, but it actually got Van
Der Veen to say something fascinating.
You heard Van Der Veen there say the only issue here is whether what Trump said was
an incitement to the riots.
Many of the Republicans who voted not guilty, including Mitch McConnell, as we just covered,
said Trump did incite the riots.
But that's not the question.
So I this is not trivial.
Understand how disjointed and pathetic this all is.
Trump's own lawyer, when asked by Bernie, was Trump lying when he said he won the election,
says the only only only thing being adjudicated here is did Donald Trump incite the riots?
Mitch McConnell comes in and says not guilty.
Yes, Trump incited the riots.
Yes.
What Trump did is morally indefensible.
Yes, what Trump did was foreseeable in leading to what it led to.
But that's not the issue.
The issue is simply whether we can convict the president that's already out of office.
Even Trump's own lawyer there says the only question is whether Trump incited the riot.
And if yes, then presumably you vote guilty, but Mitch votes not guilty and then says Trump
didn't cite the riot.
But it's a procedural explanation for why I voted not guilty.
They aren't even in agreement about what this trial was about.
Now, to deal with the other part, there are people who wrote to me and said it was funny
to see Vandar being triggered by Bernie's question, but that factual question isn't
actually relevant to these proceedings.
Now, strictly speaking, it is true that the lawyer's opinion about a matter like that
isn't relevant to whether Trump is or isn't guilty.
But remember that this isn't a court of law.
This is an impeachment court in the U.S. Senate.
And adhering to the truth is relevant.
Much of the case that Vanderveer and Trump's other lawyers made didn't adhere to the truth.
So merely and remember, it's not a criminal proceeding.
Senators can ask anything as a check on the validity and comprehension of these lawyers.
It was interesting to hear Bernie ask such a basic factual question.
It's also relevant that in the entire context in which Trump's actions are being interpreted
in terms of his inciting the riot, it would be different if, in reality, Trump had won
Trump may.
I'm not saying that the moral consideration about the riot would necessarily be different.
That would be for each senator to think about and judge and for us if the election really
had been stolen from Trump.
I think there are tens of millions of people, including many on the left, who would see
the entire thing differently.
So an interesting moment for sure.
And Vanderveer just I mean, like instantly hair trigger set off by Bernie's question.
Let me know your thoughts now that the impeachment trial is done.
What's next?
I'll talk later about well, one of the things that should be immediate is covid relief.
But send me your thoughts.
You can find me on Twitter at Dipak The David Pakman Show at David Pakman Dotcom.
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So we spoke earlier.
A Trump second impeachment trial is over.
He's been acquitted exactly as we predicted.
I was expecting five Republicans to vote guilty.
We got seven.
That's something, but still not the sixty seven that were required to convict.
Now, with impeachment out of the way and not that this should have delayed covid relief
anyway, but now with impeachment out of the way, no more excuses.
It's time to get covid relief done.
Now, I am already to be very clear, I think Joe Biden's been doing a good job so far.
I like how much he's gotten done and how quickly he has got it done.
Joe Biden did say checks going out right away when I'm sworn in.
If we have the two Senate seats, Democrats have the two Senate seats, we're getting close
to a month and we're still dealing with how exactly is this stimulus bill going to pass?
It is increasingly and abundantly clear that at least in the lead up, Republicans aren't
going to play ball.
Now, I've said before, I think that the political risk of voting no on the stimulus bill is
too great for all Republicans to vote no.
I believe that if Democrats move forward with passing the covid stimulus package, one point
nine dollars billion via budget reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority, meaning
they can do it with fifty senators.
And Kamala Harris is a tie breaking vote votes.
I believe that if that's the way to do it, they should do it.
This is too important.
And it was Joe Biden's promise, after all.
But I think he will get some Republicans who go who go for it because many of the same
Republicans who voted guilty for Trump in the second impeachment trial have more moderate
constituencies and or don't care so much about being seen as sticking with the Republicans
and being on the team.
I think it's quite plausible Mitt Romney would go for it.
Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, a lot of the same people who voted
guilty on Saturday for Donald Trump, I think ultimately will come around because they realize
that this is actually what their constituents want.
So there's a New York Times article which says the Biden agenda now with now with impeachment
out of the way, the Biden agenda takes center stage and that the order, the priorities will
be passing the one point nine trillion dollar stimulus bill and then doing green infrastructure
and then doing immigration and then doing climate change and starting to go through
this list.
Now, that's probably 18 months of stuff.
We have to be realistic about how quickly, you know, maybe a year.
It's not clear, but we just have to get the covid relief bill done.
It's very clear that that is the next step.
It's very clear that Joe Biden is now risking failing on a major campaign promise.
You can you can argue that he already failed in the sense that he said it would happen
right away.
And it's been a month since he initially said it'd be two thousand dollar checks.
Then it was well, it'll be fourteen hundred to get to the total of two thousand.
OK, some are defending that.
Some are not.
Some are saying it's a flip flop.
Regardless, we're almost a month in.
It's time to do it.
And so the report from The New York Times says that this is now the priority and that
Joe Biden and Democrats are willing to go it alone.
What has changed over the last two weeks?
Nothing.
Joe Biden brought Republicans to the White House.
They wanted a plan.
That was it was humiliatingly small.
It was a micro plan, I would call it, and it was less than one third the size of what
Joe Biden and Democrats want.
You're negotiating with people who are negotiating in bad faith.
They're negotiating down down to something that's pathetic.
It's peanuts for what we need.
Just do it.
It's time to get it done.
And we will we will soon see whether Joe Biden understands the limits of so-called unity
and the limits of bipartisanship.
And as Jen Psaki Psaki now I know, as Jen Psaki said many times now, bipartisanship
doesn't mean that you unite Republicans and Democrats into one party.
Democrats say one point nine trillion.
And it includes the you know, it includes the payments that we've outlined before in
terms of payments to individuals, payments for children, business stimulus, enhanced
unemployment, money for vaccine, all these different things.
Republicans want something so dramatically different that there's really no way to negotiate
to anything that would make sense.
The American people are overwhelmingly on the side of Joe Biden and Democrats, not everybody
but Signior.
Support for the one point nine dollars billion package, so it's just time to pass it and
this would be a major accomplishment for Joe Biden.
My expectation would be that as high as Joe Biden's approval rating is right now and it's
the highest initial job approval of any president since Bill Clinton in 1993, over twenty eight
years.
Right now, this is the highest initial approval rating of any president dating back 28 years.
I think it goes higher if Joe Biden is able to get this done in the next 10 days.
And if not, it will start to be a drag on him politically.
Politics aside, we need to do it for the economy.
We need to do it for people.
And I remain cautiously optimistic that in the next seven to 10 days, there will be progress.
We'll see what is said about it at this week's press briefings with Jen Psaki, which, of
course, we'll be covering on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook moments after being acquitted
in a second impeachment trial on Saturday with 57 senators voting to convict but falling
short of the required 67 senators.
Donald Trump immediately put out a letter saying he is not going away.
We've been wondering, will Trump go away or will he stick around in politics, at least
for now?
Trump claims he is not going to go away.
We will talk later about the implications of this.
But he wrote on Saturday, we'll look at his letter.
I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work
upholding justice and defending truth.
Not exactly what they did, but OK, Trump says, my deepest thanks as well to all of the United
States senators and members of Congress who stood proudly for the Constitution we all
revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.
Well, they didn't many of them wrongly said you can't try and or convict a former president.
That is not actually the reality.
Constitutionally, Trump goes on to say, our cherished constitutional republic was founded
on the impartial rule of law, the indispensable safeguard for our liberties and our rights
and our freedoms.
It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free
pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters
and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance and persecute blacklist, cancel
and suppress all people with viewpoints with whom, that which, with whom or which they
disagree.
That sounds like what the rioters did.
Trump saying that to criticize, I guess, Democrats, he goes on and says, I always have and always
will be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement and
the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice
and without hate.
This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.
No president has ever gone through anything like it.
Well, no president has ever done the things Trump did.
And it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest
number ever for a sitting president who voted for us just a few short months ago.
No one's forgetting them.
We remember them and were horrified by them.
Nobody's forgotten them.
I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law abiding
God and country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these
very difficult and challenging times.
Our history, historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to make America great again has only
just begun a key moment in the months ahead.
I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey
together to achieve American greatness for all of our people.
There has never been anything like it.
We have so much work ahead of us and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright,
radiant and limitless American future.
Together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish, Trump saying.
We remain one people, one family and one glorious nation under God.
And it's our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and
for many generations, for generations of Americans to come.
May God bless all of you and may God forever bless the United States.
I know that's not true.
He did say United States.
It was in writing so the slur didn't apply.
So most of what Trump says is completely backwards, but that's not surprising.
I wasn't expecting Donald Trump to suddenly tell the truth.
But the matter of practical importance here is that of if and how Trump will remain in
politics and remain a force in the Republican Party, not forever, but at least for the next
few years.
We know based on a poll from 10 days ago, 64 percent of Republican voters said it said
they would follow Trump to another party, 64.
Two thirds almost of the Republican Party is willing to leave if Trump says, here's
my new party, come with me.
And with Trump putting out a statement like this, it doesn't seem as though Trump is planning
to go quietly.
Now, the questions that remain include will Trump's involvement in Republican politics
help Republicans or hurt them in twenty twenty one in the.
Turrill races that there are, will Trump's involvement in the Republican Party help or
hurt them in twenty, twenty two when they want presumably to take back control of the
House of Representatives, take back control of the Senate?
Will Trump end up criminally charged in Georgia, where he's under criminal investigation in
New York, in other states?
And will that interfere with Donald Trump's political plans?
And will the Republican Party, which for now is still officially speaking, mostly behind
Donald Trump, will they sour with Trump and say enough is enough at some point?
These are the questions we don't yet know the answers, but judging from what Donald
Trump is saying, he's going to try something in the next few months in terms of an involvement.
And we will see how the Republican Party reacts.
Curious to know your thoughts.
We'll have more coverage of this on The David Pakman Show Instagram page, which you can
find at The David Pakman Show.
Find me on Instagram at David Pakman.
And we will be back right after this.
I will argue that the extremist wing of the Republican Party has become too big to fail.
The radicals are too numerous to simply go away.
And we'll talk about that after the break.
The David Pakman Show at David Pakman Dotcom.