-As House managers in the Senate impeachment trial
seek to prove that the President
Is a criminal who's unfit for office,
the President is providing more evidence
that he's a criminal who's unfit for office.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
You might recall that earlier this week,
after a tense exchange
Between House managers and President Trump's defense team,
Chief Justice John Roberts,
who's presiding over the impeachment trial,
warned both sides to observe the decorum
accorded to such an august body as the United States Senate.
-I think it is appropriate at this point
for me to admonish both the House managers
and the President's counsel, in equal terms,
to remember that they are addressing
the world's greatest deliberative body.
-The world's greatest deliberative body?
Are you serious? There's better deliberation
between the hosts of "The Voice."
[ Laughter ]
This is a place where a sitting senator
once brought out a giant poster
of Ronald Reagan holding a machine gun,
riding a velociraptor to mock the Green New Deal
and where another senator, James Inhofe,
infamously held up a snowball
to try to prove that global warming isn't real.
It is not a great deliberative body.
It's more like show-and-tell hour at the senior center.
[ Laughter ]
Also, the Senate isn't a deliberative body,
because it doesn't deliberate. It does nothing.
It's where legislation passed by the House goes to die.
Democrats have passed hundreds of bills
on everything from the minimum wage
to prescription drugs to equal pay to voting rights,
and Mitch McConnell has ignored all of it.
In his office, he separates his trash
into three different cans,
for evidence against the President,
legislation passed by the House, and plastic.
[ Laughter ]
And in this trial... [ Cheers and applause ]
In this trial right now, we are very much seeing
at least some of the Senators live down to
the very low expectations they've set for themselves.
For example, former senator and MSNBC contributor
Claire McCaskill expressed some concern
that members of the Senate might not be able to stay awake
through the trial and listen to the evidence
for long, uninterrupted periods.
-For Senators, this is hard,
because they're used to moving constantly,
they're used to talking constantly.
They are not used to listening for long periods of time.
-I love how the hardest thing to ask a senator to do
is just shut the [Bleep] up for one lousy day.
[ Laughter ]
Just sit down and shut up. It's not hard.
It's irritating, but it's not hard.
Also, you know who else is used to talking and moving
and has difficulty listening for long periods of time?
Children. We talk about senators
the way pre-K teachers talk about story time.
"Well, they're used to moving and talking,
so we only made it halfway through
'Clifford Commits a Crime.'" [ Laughter ]
But it's true.
Senators apparently are having a tough time doing their jobs,
because there have reportedly been stretches of the trial
where senators have been caught napping
or missing from their desks. And the A.P. reported today
that almost immediately, bored and weary senators
started openly flouting some basic guidelines.
At a chamber that prizes decorum,
when one of the freshman House prosecutors stood to speak,
many of the senator jurors bolted for the cloakrooms,
where their phones are stored.
Oh, my God, they're like parents at a school play
when someone else's kid is onstage.
"Okay, Tyler's part is done, so I'm gonna go
warm up the car for three hours."
Also read the first part of that sentence again.
How can you be bored almost immediately?
This is a historic Senate impeachment trial,
not a French New Wave film.
And by the way, we get it, Truffaut --
life is hard and death inevitable.
Would it kill you to throw in
a guy getting hit in the nuts with a soccer ball just once?
In fact, at one point, one of the House managers
prosecuting the case against Trump,
Jason Crow, a combat veteran, was laying out in damning detail
just how egregious Trump's crime was,
when he noticed that Senators were leaving the chamber,
and commented on that fact. -There is a process
for making sure that U.S. aid money
makes it to the right place, to the right people.
And, Mr. Chief justice,
I do see a lot of members moving and taking a break.
Would we like to take a break at this time?
I have another probably 15 minutes.
-That's insane.
I mean, in the middle of laying out damning evidence
against the President of the United States,
in the middle of an historic Senate impeachment trial,
and he had to stop to ask if the members needed a break.
Can you imagine an episode of "Law & Order"
where the jury just walks out
during Sam's Waterston's big speech?
His eyebrows would raise right off his head.
[ Laughter ]
[ Slide whistle plays ]
And not only... [ Cheers and applause ]
Not only have senators been napping, fidgeting,
and leaving the room as evidence of the President's crime
is laid out before them,
some of them are even whining about the amenities.
For example, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy
complained to the A.P.,
there's coffee, but it's miserable coffee.
Oh, I'm sorry, is the coffee at the Senate impeachment trial
not gourmet enough for you? Should we have George Clooney
stop by and bring you an espresso machine?
[ Cheers and applause ] And you know who I bet
definitely doesn't care about the quality of the coffee?
Bernie Sanders. "I drink black coffee
out of a tin cup like an old prospector,
and that's it." [ Laughter and applause ]
"I don't even rinse."
The Republicans can't be bothered
to pay attention to the evidence,
and neither, it seems, can Trump's own defense team.
If you've been watching the trial in detail,
you might have noticed the stark difference
between the table where the Democratic House prosecutors
have been sitting and the table where
Trump's defense team has been sitting.
-You see the counsel table,
that the impeachment managers' table on the left.
That's got all the paper on it.
The much cleaner counsel table on the right
is the White House defense counsel for the President.
You can tell a little bit about the difference in approach
from the two sides simply from looking
at their work environment. -It's true, the Democrats' table
looks like it has actual evidence on it.
The Trump team's table looks like
a bus boy just cleaned it off.
I guess it's not surprising,
given that Trump's desk is also always so clean.
I mean, look at that. He looks like a tourist
taking a photo on the set of "The West Wing."
[ Laughter and applause ]
"Is this -- Is this the same phone Martin Sheen used?
This is so cool." [ Laughter ]
And even when they do have papers,
Trump's defense team usually doesn't seem prepared
to actually use them. I mean, the last time
a lawyer showed up to Congress to defend Trump,
he was literally lugging his documents around
in a grocery-store tote bag.
Remember that guy from the House hearing, Steve Castor?
He was either a lawyer or a guy the Republicans randomly picked
from the frozen aisle at Whole Foods.
"Quick, can you come defend the President from impeachment?"
"Alright, I guess. Just let me finish
filling my tote bag with these Amy's burritos."
[ Laughter ]
In fact, Trump's team is apparently so unwilling
to listen to the actual arguments Democrats are making,
that at one point, Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow
went off on an angry tirade
about something he misheard during the trial.
Basically, one of the House prosecutors
made a reference to FOIA lawsuits to obtain documents.
"FOIA" is just an acronym for "Freedom of Information Act."
If you're in politics or law
or are really just a person who reads the news,
you've probably heard that term before.
But Sekulow thought she said the words "lawyer lawsuits,"
which makes no sense at all, and then he went off about it.
-The President's lawyers may suggest
that the House should have sought these materials
in court or awaited further lawsuits
under the Freedom of Information Act --
AKA, FOIA lawsuits.
-And by the way...
lawyer lawsuits?
[ Laughter ]
Lawyer lawsuits?
We're talking about the impeachment
of a President of the United States, duly elected.
And the members, the managers,
are complaining about lawyer lawsuits?
[ Laughter ]
The Constitution allows lawyer lawsuits.
[ Laughter ] It's disrespecting
the Constitution of the United States
to even say that in this chamber --
lawyer lawsuits.
-She didn't say it, because it's not a thing!
Also, if it was a thing, why would you be insulted by it?
Lawyer lawsuits is just a redundant way to describe a job,
like "bus-driver bus driving."
[ Laughter and applause ]
"What the [Bleep] did you say?!"
[ Laughter ]
Seriously! How have you never heard...
[ Cheers and applause ]
Have you never heard the term "FOIA lawsuits" before?
You're supposed to be a lawyer?
Did they also pick you out of line at Whole Foods?
"Alright, who else here
wants to defend the President from impeachment?
You get a $10 coupon for an espresso."
And Sekulow isn't the only Trump defender
who doesn't seem to know how the law works.
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro lashed out on Twitter
in the middle of the trial as House manager Adam Schiff
was presenting his case, writing, "Prosecutor Adam Schiff
says Donald Trump is not innocent.
Way to go, Democrats.
No presumption of innocence. No constitutional guarantees.
Welcome to America under Democrat rule."
Have you never seen a trial before?
Prosecutors are supposed to argue
that the defendant is guilty. That's how it works.
They don't walk out and say,
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
today we're gonna figure out some stuff together,
and however it breaks is good with me."
[ Laughter ]
How do you not know that?
Your show is literally called "Justice with Judge Jeanine."
Are you actually a judge,
or did you just pick that name because you love alliteration?
I mean, in that case, you could have also gone with
"Janky Jeanine's Jibber-jabber Junction."
[ Laughter and applause ]
You know, while this was going on,
Trump is at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
where he confirmed
that he was watching the impeachment proceedings.
And in the process, he actually confessed
to one of the articles of impeachment,
obstructing Congress. During a press conference,
Trump bragged that his side was winning the trial
because he was hiding all of the evidence
from House prosecutors. -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.
-He literally just confessed. [ Laughter ]
Again, the guy confesses more than a 15-year-old Catholic boy.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned
four times in the bathroom at home
and once in the bushes by cheerleader practice."
[ Laughter ] "Also, I'd love to wrap this up
so I can get home and sin again."
[ Laughter ]
Trump, of course, is only the third President in history
to face the prospect of being removed from office
by the Senate in an impeachment trial.
Now, you might expect a normal person in that position
to do everything possible
to prove that they're competent, sane, fit for office.
Instead, here's the sitting President
of the United States, amid historic reckoning
that will stain his name and presidency forever,
talking about how Tesla CEO Elon Musk is good at rockets.
-Tesla is now worth more than GM and Ford.
Do you have comments on Elon Musk?
-Well, you have to give him credit.
I spoke to him very recently, and he's also doing the rockets.
He likes rockets.
And he does good at rockets, too, by the way.
-Yeah, yeah, yes, he does. He does good at rockets.
[ Laughter ]
The presidency of Donald Trump is the closest we'll ever come
to finding out what it would be like if Tarzan worked at NASA.
"Ground control to Tarzan, What's your status?"
"Space cold for Tarzan, but Tarzan good at rockets."
[ Laughter ]
What we've seen once again this week is
that Trump and his lawyers have no defense
for his obviously corrupt behavior,
which is why their desks are empty
and their Republican allies are leaving the chamber
and ignoring the evidence.
Even if he's acquitted by the Senate,
Trump may very well spend the rest of his life in court,
dealing with legal challenges and indictments,
or as they're technically known...
-Lawyer lawsuits.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ "A Closer Look" theme plays ] [ Cheers and applause ]