begin with a fox news alert former
president trump acquitted in his second
impeachment trial seven republicans
sided with democrats to convict him
of inciting an insurrection our own
griff jenkins live in washington d.c
with the aftermath griff good morning
good morning pete will
and jed it was a wild day indeed that
almost dragged out
for weeks but ended up being the
shortest impeachment trial in history
just five days democrats voted
unanimously to convict but fell
short 57-43 to acquit only seven
republicans you see here
crossed the aisle they needed 17. senate
minority leader mitch mcconnell voted
to acquit then delivered a harsh rebuke
suggesting trump could
still be criminally prosecuted watch
we have a criminal justice system in
this country
we have civil litigation and former
presidents are not immune from being
accountable by either
one president trump is still liable for
everything he did while he was in office
as an ordinary citizen speaker pelosi
blasted republicans who voted to acquit
calling them
cowardly and adding this
hang mike pence was the chant
and they just dismissed that why because
maybe
they can't get another job what is so
important about the political survival
of any one of us
that is more important than our
constitution that we take an oath
to protect and defend former president
trump reacted to his acquittal thanking
his attorneys and supporters
in teasing this in a statement 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
president joe biden issuing a statement
as well saying this sad chapter in our
history
has reminded us that democracy is
fragile that it must always be defended
that we must be ever vigilant that
violence and extremism
has no place in america so are we at the
end of the road
well it seems like we are there was a
movement for cincher
but pelosi shot that down calling
cincher a slap
in the constitution's face jed will pete
thanks griff thanks so much groff thank
you chris you know so we've been
breaking this down for the last few
hours and we've talked about how that
charge of incitement
was problematic very very hard to prove
perhaps a better charge would have been
dereliction of duty we've talked about
so many components of this but the
reality is it's done
it's over he you know he was acquitted
um you can argue that he was acquitted
but not vindicated fine
but the bottom line is you know we've
talked also about division within the
republican party my hope is
that this becomes a conversation again
about policy there was always division
in the republican party there was always
division in the democrat party but there
was a time
when that division was about the
national debt when that division was
holding the gop
establishment accountable for not
dealing with taxes or the debt or things
of that magnitude
policy debates that has vanished from
the stage for some time now it needs to
come back because the national debt is
still growing
people are still having trouble in their
businesses their taxes are too high
these problems have not gone away
the focus has just shifted so i'm hoping
that somehow
everyone can get on board and bring that
focus back
to really the issues that ultimately
will help people
count me as skeptical there was a time
in
television when people said if it bleeds
it leads you know what has led for going
on more than four years it's donald
trump
he's been a boon to television to
liberal networks that don't want to let
go of donald trump believe it or not
their addiction to him is deep
it has been a boon to democratic
politicians they believe talking about
donald trump has been a win for them and
that brings us to this impeachment trial
it was all about
trial by tv trial by social media post
trial by video clip trial by emotion
i said it's about two things this
morning standard and purpose there was
no standard to convict donald trump what
was it
was he guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
was it more likely than not
against what charge inciting an
insurrection it was never a standard set
so there could never be guilt
established what more the purpose
impeachment was not
the vehicle if you want to hold donald
trump accountable for something that's
to remove a sitting politician from
office mitch mcconnell said there are
other mechanisms for a private citizen
i'm also skeptical that donald trump is
guilty of anything in the criminal or
civil courts
what this ultimately comes down to is
this is a political process
and if there are people out there
everyone believes what happened on
january 6 was terrible
but if there are people that are out
there that believe donald trump is
responsible the accountability mechanism
is the ballot box
they can choose not to vote for him in
the future and pete that brings us to
the point you've made several times this
morning
there will be a divide in the republican
party when it comes to
that mechanism for holding donald trump
accountable will they
support him going forward yeah it was
all about politics from the beginning
the rush
in the house first and the senate is the
reason why there was that wee bit of
uncertainty yesterday when it was
unclear whether they would call
witnesses or not for a couple of hours
and then a deal was cut
and then they finished it off because it
was all it was a snap impeachment it was
for some a former president which the
constitution as many believe does not
allow and with the speech that mitch
mcconnell gave
while not the beginning of the divide uh
well indicative of it uh this is
this is a minority leader who took to
the podium and said i'm going to vote to
acquit based on procedural grounds
but then i'm going to slam the former
president uh in
in a way that seemed quite unnecessary
and very heavy-handed and was read that
way by a lot of the
republican party and his base you saw
you saw the parties in north carolina
uh and louisiana immediately sort of
criticized
bill cassidy and richard burr who voted
to acquit and you're going to see it
with mitch mcconnell
i would preview guys this week you're
going to hear calls for potentially a
new minority leader a possibly a
leadership challenge and
jed to your point about about policy i i
agree with
uh will's skepticism but the this the
disagreement is real even if it's not on
policy is it the dc
establishment class the sort of dc first
or is it the american america first uh
movement that donald trump has led that
sort of reject a lot of the deal making
that has not worked in favor of american
citizens and taxpayers and workers
that's i think the divide that's still
very real and it came out in what mitch
mcconnell talked about if i might type
let me just say though
yeah no i was just going to say that
what mitch mcconnell was saying though
he he's not attacking
america first he's just simply stating
that this being a nation of that
behavior not only on the day of the
capital but leading up to the capital
but that doesn't uh preclude the fact
that he had to vote
well i mean maybe maybe it's deeper but
it's not about policy this is not a
debate we're having about policy
no one is saying well mitch mcconnell
doesn't care about taxation that's not
the debate we're having maybe that's the
debate we should be having when it comes
to republicans
and the national debt maybe we should be
talking about that but that's not what
we're talking about
we're talking about censoring people
centering people for voting their
conscience we're talking about mitch
mcconnell not being able to say
listen this behavior was abysmal i don't
believe this trial is constitutional but
i'm not going to condone that why can't
he say that
just to talk about a lot of people stand
with that why just to tie this together
for one moment
i'm skeptical that it'll move to policy
because i think television is addicted
to personality
and to tie together what pete you
believe and i totally agree with you
pete
there is a restructuring of policies
right now that divides
elites from the every man out there in
america
i would hope that will soon be reflected
i think it has been reflected in that
i think the affirmation affirmation
mitch mcconnell may get from the new
york times editorial page and from
democrats will not be reflected back
from him from the small number of
republicans that feel the same way
and he'll find that out when he goes
back to kentucky and goes out across
america well if that populism can find
its way into policy continue to find its
way into policy
it means getting back to work