Senators began submitting questions as the next phase of President Trump's impeachment trial opened Wednesday. Officials will have 16 hours over two days to ask questions that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will read aloud from index cards. Impeachment managers and the president's defense team will then have the chance to answer.
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), on behalf of herself and colleagues Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), asked a question about how, if the president had mixed public and private motives for withholding aid to Ukraine, should the Senate consider that fact?
Patrick Philbin, one of the president's defense attorneys, said a mixed-motive does not matter as the charge is not impeachable. He said the House's case rests upon proving the that president's request for investigations was solely for personal reasons and once there is a "legitimate public interest," the managers' case "fails."
Though GOP leadership is still trying to whip enough Senators to block witnesses, public sentiment seems to be shifting. A new Quinnipiac University poll yesterday found 75 percent of registered voters say witnesses should be allowed to testify, including 49 percent of Republicans.
"I don't think we should [feel pressure to hear witnesses], I think we should get this over with," Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C. 11th District) told Cheddar just before the start of today's session.
As questions roll in, it appears Senators are looking to clarify conflicting stories that have been argued back and forth. Both sides can be seen whispering and passing notes while scrambling to come up with quick answers.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif. 28th District), leading the House Managers, clarified to Senators that the House did ask John Bolton to testify, but were refused. "When we subpoenaed Dr. Kupperman, he sued us, took us to court. When we raised a subpoena with John Bolton's counsel, the answer was ‘You serve us with a subpoena and we'll sue you too,’" Schiff said. Charles Kupperman was a former national security advisor to the president and Bolton's deputy.
Emily Hoeven, newsletter editor at CalMatters, joins Cheddar News to discuss California Governor Gavin Newsom's gun law modeled after Texas's abortion law.
Chuck Rocha, host of 'Nuestro' podcast and opinion contributor at The New York Times, joins Cheddar News to discuss why Democrats are losing Hispanic voters.
More businesses are requiring workers to return to the office, but there is concern that many employees in the middle class, especially women and people of color, need remote work options for reasons including childcare and financial security. Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, joined Cheddar to discuss why office mandates could be detrimental to the middle class. She noted that while companies claim a return to offices would help foster more collaboration and efficiency, reports show that they are successfully able to do their jobs from home.
The U.S. postal service has confirmed that it secretly developed and tested a blockchain-based mobile voting system ahead of the 2020 election. Susan Greenhalgh, senior advisor on election security, Free Speech for People, joins Cheddar News to discuss the cybersecurity complications of a mobile voting system.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to allow the controversial Texas abortion law to remain in effect, banning abortion at six weeks and allowing any private citizen to sue a person or doctor aiding or abetting someone seeking an abortion. Outraged at this decision, California Governor Gavin Newsom is working to draft a proposal in line with the law as it relates to guns. Shawn Hubler, California correspondent at the New York Times, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Even as tech giant Google implements a vaccination mandate, charging its employees to declare their vaccine status within a time frame or risk dismissal, the federal government is tangled up in the court system trying to impose one of its own. Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Harry Nelson, founder and managing partner of Nelson Hardiman LLP, joined Cheddar to debate the ethics, efficacy, and legality surrounding the issue. While Cohn noted that she thinks the federal mandate might be legally sound, her organization is also concerned with a separate question of privacy. "At EFF what we're most interested in is the digital surveillance that's going along with some of these attempts to try to track and confirm whether people are vaccinated or not," she said.
