Senators will soon begin the second marathon day of questioning in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, and as Republicans gain confidence that they can block a vote on witnesses, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told Cheddar he still thinks Democrats can prevail in tomorrow's expected vote.
Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters that the resolution senators voted on last week only included provisions through the question and answer session. If the vote to debate witnesses fails, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will attempt to call for a vote to acquit the president.
"The bottom line is our focus is on the vote on witnesses and documents," Schumer said. "The minority has rights, and we will exercise those rights."
Schumer told Cheddar that though it remains an "uphill fight" to get the needed Republicans to vote with the Democrats on witnesses and documents. "We think that truth can prevail, and we can get the four votes," he said
Speaking with reporters ahead of the start of Day 9 of the Senate trial, the minority leader highlighted questions from yesterday he believed helped the Democratic case for conviction. Schumer noted that Professor Alan Dershowitz's argument that, if it is the public interest, the president can act as he sees fit, "would unleash a monster ... would unleash a monarch."
Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) echoed Schumer, saying "we are witnessing the coronation of President Trump with McConnell holding his crown and the Republicans holding his train."
Republican lawyers have continued to advance a spate of arguments against conviction, chief among them the need for the Senate to return to regular business, which led Senator and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to say he was surprised Republicans could make the argument with a straight face.
"The only Senate business we know has been Mitch McConnell's passion to fill every federal vacancy with a lightly qualified, maybe even unqualified, person for a lifetime appointment," Durbin noted. In the last calendar year, the legislative body only heard 22 amendments on the floor of the Senate.
Republicans have also advanced arguments that the president would need to be accused of a criminal charge to make impeachment legitimate, while House Managers contend the nation's founders were thinking of corruption, like what they allege the president engaged in by pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations into political rivals when they provided a means for removing a president from office.
On his way out of the press conference, Schumer joked when asked if he took Professor Alan Dershowitz's class at Harvard University Law School, where he attended and Dershowitz remains a faculty member.
"No," Schumer said with a laugh. "That's why my arguments are cogent."
Dershowitz has faced harsh criticism from some constitutional scholars for his interpretation that the president's actions in the name of re-election are in the public interest.
