-It's the final week of President Trump's
impeachment trial.
After four months of impeachment proceedings,
the Senate appears set to acquit the president.
Final arguments will be heard.
-You must vote to acquit the president.
-But are unlikely to change the outcome.
-Your duty demands that you convict President Trump.
-Corrupting an election to keep one's self in office
is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation
of one's oath of office that I can imagine.
-Acquittal is a cover-up! -Acquittal is a cover-up!
-On my way to Iowa. -Acquittal is a cover-up!
-Meanwhile, Trump's 2020 rivals turn their focus to another way
of removing him from office -- the upcoming election.
While impeachment concludes in the background,
the president's State of the Union address
takes the spotlight.
-The state of our union is stronger than ever before.
-The Senate prepares to take its final,
deciding vote on the impeachment
and removal of President Donald J Trump.
-So, what are we left with?
The House has proven the president's guilt.
He covered it up and he covers it up still.
His continuing obstruction is a threat to the oversight
and investigatory powers of the House and Senate
and, if left unaddressed,
will permanently and dangerously alter the balance of power.
-We are seeing closing arguments
happening right now on the Senate floor.
Val Demings is on the floor right now,
and she is basically arguing that, you know,
if Republicans don't take this seriously,
then Trump is effectively gonna be above the law.
-President Trump's constitutional crimes,
his crimes against the American people
and the nation remain in progress.
-His political agent, Rudolph Giuliani,
recently returned to the scene of the crime, in Ukraine,
to manufacture more dirt.
-And the president's personal interest is now clear --
to cheat in the next election.
-You have the president's team.
They were arguing still about the process,
saying it was unfair to Trump.
-This is an effort to overturn the results of one election
and to try to interfere in the coming election
that begins today in Iowa.
-Did the House Judiciary Committee rush to judgment
in fashioning the articles of impeachment?
-This was a purely partisan impeachment from the start.
-When Ambassador Sondland asked the president,
on approximately September 9, the president told him,
"I want nothing.
I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo."
-We believe that we have established, overwhelmingly,
that both articles of impeachment fail
to allege impeachable offenses and that,
therefore, both articles, I and II, must fail.
-At this point, people have really made up their mind,
and I don't think that these closing arguments
are gonna be swaying anyone anymore.
-It may be midnight in Washington,
but the sun will rise again.
I put my faith in the optimism of the founders.
You should, too.
They gave us the tools to do the job,
a remedy as powerful as the evil it was meant to constrain --
impeachment.
They meant it to be used rarely,
but they put it in the Constitution for a reason --
for a man who would sell out his country for a political favor,
for a man who would threaten the integrity of our elections,
for a man who would invite foreign interference
in our affairs,
for a man who would undermine our national security
and that of our allies, for a man like Donald J Trump.
I yield back.
-The final vote to acquit Trump hasn't even happened yet,
and, already, it seems like people have sort of moved on
from this drama up here on the hill.
We had the Iowa Democratic caucuses last night.
There were problems with the reporting system,
and we have no winner today.
That has sort of taken over all of the headlines
here in Washington.
Nobody thinks that Trump is going to be removed from office.
Nobody thinks that any Republicans
are gonna be voting for this.
The only question they have is whether
the Democrats' own colleagues are gonna go with Trump.
-I must be realistic. I see no path to the 67 votes
required to impeach President Trump
and haven't since this trial started.
However, I do believe a bipartisan majority of this body
would vote to censure President Trump
for his actions in this matter.
Censure would allow this body to unite across party lines
and as an equal branch of government
to formally denounce the president's actions
and hold him accountable.
-Can I ask you an impeachment-related question?
-Sure.
-What do you think of the censure idea?
-I think we should get through this first.
-A censure vote from the Senate
would formally reprimand President Trump
but would not limit or strip his power in any way.
-I will be flat honest.
But, yeah, I don't know what censure does,
other than say, "You're censured."
-Do you think -- Don't you think it would infuriate him, though?
-Oh, I'm sure -- -And maybe deter him from --
-I'm sure he'd be upset,
but I don't know that much deters this president.
-So you're not ruling it out, but you --
They've got to have the first -- The impeachment --
-Let's get through this first.
-As President Trump prepares
to deliver the State of the Union address,
the Senate continues to debate his removal from office.
Some Republicans acknowledge they think President Trump
did do something wrong,
but it's unlikely that will affect their votes.
-The House could have pursued censure
and not immediately jumped to the remedy of last resort.
I cannot vote to convict.
-It was wrong for President Trump
to mention former Vice President Biden on that phone call.
-It was inappropriate for the president
to ask a foreign leader
to investigate his political opponent
and to withhold United States
aid to encourage this investigation.
-One of the reporting targets I have for the next 24 hours
is gonna be asking the question of, "What is next?"
Ukraine was but one of half-dozen to 10 different
huge investigations Democrats undertook in the House
in terms of oversight of the Trump administration.
It's gonna be interesting to watch
what Democrats emphasize from here on out.
Verdicts are gonna be coming down
in the next few months before the election,
so, you know, we can expect more headlines on that.
And, you know, who knows?
Maybe they try to impeach him again.
-Madam Speaker, the President of the United States!
-That night, President Trump does not explicitly mention
his ongoing trial at his State of the Union address,
but the impeachment and his tension
with the Democratic Party is thick in the air.
Chief Justice John Roberts,
who presides over his trial, is in the audience.
And Adam Schiff and the other House
impeachment managers are sitting together during Trump's address.
-Thank you. God bless you.
And God bless America.
Thank you very much.
-With less than two hours until the Senate's final vote,
one Republican surprises his party and the president,
announcing he will break ranks and vote
to convict Trump for abuse of power.
-As a senator juror, I swore an oath before God
to exercise impartial justice.
I am profoundly religious.
My faith is at the heart of who I am.
I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.
I knew from the outset that being tasked
with judging the president, the leader of my own party,
would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced.
The president asked a foreign government
to investigate his political rival.
The president's purpose was personal and political.
Accordingly, the president is guilty
of an appalling abuse of public trust.
With my vote, I will tell my children and their children
that I did my duty to the best of my ability,
believing that my country expected it of me.
I will only be one name among many --
no more, no less --
to future generations of Americans
who look at the record of this trial.
They will note merely that I was among the senators
who determined that what the president did
was wrong, grievously wrong.
We are all footnotes, at best, in the annals of history,
but in the most powerful nation on Earth,
the nation conceived in liberty and justice,
that distinction is enough for any citizen.
-We are 20 minutes out from the final vote on impeachment.
The big news is that Mitt Romney is going to vote to remove
Trump from office.
So that means that after six months of trying to convince
even a single Republican to say
that what Trump did was impeachable,
Democrats, today, finally succeeded
on the last day of the impeachment saga.
We just heard that Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona --
She was a moderate Democrat that we thought could go either way.
She's gonna be voting with her party.
She's gonna be voting to convict Trump.
Now we're just waiting on Joe Manchin, who is, again,
from West Virginia, very close with the president,
but he's a Democrat, so will he choose his party
or will he choose, you know, to stick with Trump on this?
-And salute. -I feel like this has been
one of the best weeks of his presidency for so many reasons.
The first one --
Iowa was a total disaster for the Democrats.
You see the Gallup Poll come out, showing him at 49%,
the highest it has ever been for the president.
He has this State of the Union where he didn't
even mention impeachment, which was shocking to me.
And then, finally, today, he's gonna get
that acquittal he's been wanting since, you know, last September,
when Pelosi first announced this.
-The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.
-It's just a really big week for Trump,
and you could just feel the Democrats' --
their frustration and sort of seething behind the scenes.
-Mr Chief Justice, the Senate is now ready
to vote on the articles of impeachment.
And after that is done,
we will adjourn the court of impeachment.
-The question is, on the first articles of impeachment,
senators, how say you?
Is the respondent, Donald John Trump,
guilty or not guilty?
A roll-call vote is required.
The clerk will call the roll.
-Mr Alexander. -Not guilty.
-Ms Collins. -Not guilty.
-Not guilty.
-Not guilty. -Mr Romney.
-Guilty. -Mr Romney -- guilty.
-Guilty. -Not guilty.
-Not guilty. -Guilty.
-Not guilty.
-48 senators have pronounced Donald John Trump,
President of the United States, guilty as charged.
52 senators have pronounced him not guilty as charged.
The Senate adjudges that the respondent,
Donald John Trump, President of the United States,
is not guilty as charged in the first articles of impeachment.
-So, I'm proud of my colleagues for seeing through that,
for knowing that even though, if you ask a typical voter,
"Should there be witnesses in a trial?"
, they'd say, "Sure.
Of course there ought to be witnesses."
That it was really about not the president.
We all knew he was not gonna be removed from office.
But about trying to take the Senate.
I'm glad it ended the way it did.
I hope the message to the House of Representatives --
don't do this again.
-The question is on the second articles of impeachment.
Senators, how say you?
Is the respondent, Donald John Trump, guilty or not guilty?
-The Senate turned its back on the truth, on a fair trial,
on doing what the Founding Fathers
would have wanted us to do.
I believe the American people will know
who stood in the way of truth,
who were afraid of the facts, who covered up.
-The clerk will call the roll. -Mr Alexander.
-Not guilty. -Mr Barrasso.
-Not guilty.
-There was no other conclusion that I could come to.
The facts are overwhelming.
-Mr Manchin. -Guilty.
-Mr Manchin -- guilty. -Not guilty.
-Make no mistake about it -- the drip, drip,
drip of evidence is gonna keep coming out.
With each new revelation,
Republicans are gonna have to answer for their votes.
-Mr Cornyn. -Not guilty.
-Not guilty. -Mr Booker.
-Guilty.
-Guilty. -Not guilty.
-Not guilty. -Not guilty.
-Not guilty. -Mr McConnell -- not guilty.
-On this articles of impeachment,
47 senators have pronounced Donald John Trump,
President of the United States, guilty as charged.
53 senators have pronounced him not guilty as charged.
Donald John Trump, President of the United States,
is not guilty as charged in the second articles of impeachment.
It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged
that the said Donald John Trump be
and he is hereby acquitted of the charges in said articles.
The Senate sitting as a court of impeachment
stands adjourned sine die.
-This is really not a news conference.
It's not a speech.
It's not anything.
It's just we're sort of -- It's a celebration,
because we have something that just worked out.
I mean, it worked out.
We went through hell, unfairly, did nothing wrong,
but this is what the end result is.
We were treated unbelievably unfairly,
and you have to understand,
we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia.
It was all bullshit.
And I'm sure that Pelosi and "Cryin' Chuck" --
Known this guy all the time.
The only time I ever saw him cry was when it was appropriate.
But I'm sure they'll try and cook up other things.
I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go
through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people.
And Ivanka's here and my sons and my whole family.
And that includes Barron.
That includes Barron, who's up there as a young boy.
And Mitch McConnell, I want to tell you,
you did a fantastic job.
Nancy Pelosi and all of these guys --
I mean, Nadler -- I know him much of my life.
He's fought me in New York for 25 years.
I always beat him.
If they find that I happen to walk across the street
and maybe go against the light or something,
"Let's impeach him."
So I'll probably have to do it again,
because these people have gone stone-cold crazy.
But I've beaten them all my life.
And I'll beat them again if I have to.
Our country is thriving.
Our country is just respected again.
And it's an honor to be with the people in this room.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.