-Welcome back. -Well, thank you, Seth.
-Thank you for finding -- -Straight from Iowa.
-Straight from Iowa. -Yes.
-You had a debate last night.
It was the smallest debate, the seventh debate,
the first one with only six people.
Has it been -- I mean, It must be strange, in some ways,
because some of the people who have dropped out
are colleagues of yours.
-I miss my friends, especially Kamala and Cory.
-But is it also nicer to have a little bit more real estate
over the course of two hours of the debate?
-Yeah. You got more room. You know, emotions read.
You don't run into Bernie, you know?
-But it is -- No, it's good and it really gives me
the chance to show, really, three things.
One, optimistic economic agenda for this country,
given what this president does every single day,
where he brings people down.
And the second thing -- that you're tough enough to beat him.
Check. And I think the debates --
The debates actually -- the debates give you
that opportunity, because they see
you interact with other candidates.
And the third thing is that you can win,
because that is the one thing that unites
our party more than any.
And I -- The case that I have been making
is that a lot of people are talking about it,
but when you look at my record, they say,
"Women often run on their record,
and men run on their potential."
And, in my case, I have won every single race every time,
in all of those Trump counties, that we need to win,
bringing in rural, suburban.
And, in fact, my last three Republican opponents
have all gotten out of politics for good.
And I think, given the guy in The White House,
that sounds pretty nice.
-There was a situation last night --
I was getting ready to watch the debate at 9:00,
here on the East Coast, and at around 7:00, 7:30,
this Giuliani/Lev Parnas news breaks.
So, this situation -- Obviously, you're prepping.
The other candidates onstage are prepping.
You're probably not even aware this is happening.
And then, in the sort of moments after the debate,
the news has to balance both talking about this
and talking about that.
Is it frustrating to you how quickly the news cycle
moves on from what happens over the course of
a fairly substantive discussion of issues
that happened on the stage last night?
-To pick the president, yes. -Yeah.
-And you would like that debate and the moments from the debate
to be captured, but this is what it's like
in the era of Donald Trump.
Day after day after day, things come up,
and I think it is up to us to make our own case
and to not allow everyone to be distracted.
And there will be those moments where people
are going to focus on this primary.
It will happen.
It's happening right now in the early states.
But given that, we've got a really important thing
happening right now, and that is
the impeachment trial that I'm going back to tonight.
-Yes. So, here's another crazy thing you have to balance,
which is running for president, while, at the same time,
being a senator, while, at the same time, being a juror
in this trial that's basically going to take place.
This new information was about Marie Yovanovitch,
who was a former ambassador to Ukraine.
You actually -- You know her. -Yes, quite well.
-What year is this trip?
-Okay, this was right after Donald Trump got elected.
And that is Senator McCain, who I miss very much,
who was a good friend, and Senator Graham
and then Marie Yovanovitch, then the ambassador, and me.
You notice my outfit.
I thought I would try to fit in in camouflage.
-Yeah. Right.
-We were actually on the front line.
And that's the former president.
We were on the front line.
And Ambassador Yovanovitch, I note,
was this lovely, lovely host,
and Senator McCain respected her so much.
And, so, when I saw her testify and saw the things
the president was saying about her,
much less the latest news we have now,
where there's people literally trying to,
at the very least, surveil on her.
and spy on her and who knows what else,
to me, it's a travesty.
This is a career public servant who has done nothing
but sacrifice for our country.
And so I hope we remember that that's what this is about.
It's about our country, people that have put their lives
on the line, whether in
the military or in the diplomatic corps.
And we need a president that puts our country first,
that doesn't put their private interests
or their partisan interests
in front of the interests of our country.
-You -- All that I agree with.
I think the real question is -- You know, it's been --
It's been basically a month since the article --
since the president was impeached.
And there was some talk about the hesitation to actually
send it to the Senate.
And in those 30 days, as with every 30 days
in the Trump presidency, so much more information has come out.
Now we're going into this trial
with this Yovanovitch information.
Do you think that will move or convince or change
the minds of any of your colleagues across the aisle?
-Well, I hope so.
And all we are asking for right now is four witnesses.
Richard Nixon allowed all the president's men to testify.
We're simply asking for people who have
firsthand knowledge -- John Bolton,
who actually has said he wants to testify,
Mick Mulvaney, who is the president's
acting Chief of Staff, who's the one that made
the front-line decision to hold up the aid
to this fledgling democracy, and then two others,
one of whom has sent these smoking-gun e-mails.
It is crazy that they won't allow them to testify.
And as I said last night at the debate,
if they're not going to allow these witnesses
that the president claims exonerates him,
they may as well give him a scepter and a crown
and let him be the king
And last time I checked, in America,
the president is not king.
The law is king.
-Yes, usually... [ Cheers and applause ]