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Don Lemon Tonight

Senate Votes On Democrats' Amendments. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired January 21, 2020 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

(PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT HEARING)

[22:05:00]

(PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT HEARING)

[22:10:00]

(PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT HEARING)

[22:15:00]

(PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT HEARING)

[22:20:00]

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: All right. So, they're going to take the vote now. You're watching the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. I'm Don Lemon.

The debate running late into the night, they didn't expect this. They are voting now on a Democratic amendment to subpoena Pentagon records and documents. So far, the Republicans senators have been voting all night strictly along party lines against every request for more evidence, every request to subpoena witnesses and documents.

And so, it's going to take a while to vote. We're going to get back to it when they get back to it. I have assembled a team of experts here.

We have Frank Bruni, we have Max Boot, we have Laura Coates, and we have John Dean. So, let's get to it. John, I want to get to you first because you've been involved in impeachment of course with Nixon. Nixon, he resigned before the actual -- as the impeachment papers were being drawn up.

Listen, they didn't expect it to go this way. This is a surprise. We don't know they're going to vote. But we don't know how long this is going to go on. We saw Chuck Schumer. We saw Mitch McConnell go at it. Mitch McConnell wanted to -- he said, listen, we can do all of this later.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is going on because the minority leader and the majority leader are not communicating. And they refuse to cooperate with each other. They're pulling surprises on each other. So, Schumer said I'm not going to agree to stack all these together

and I'm going to keep the voting going, just because you won't play fair.

[22:25:00]

LEMON: Yes. Laura, I want to ask you because the Supreme Court has oral arguments tomorrow at 10 a.m. And if this -- I mean, this is getting late. The chief justice is presiding over this tonight. Does he have to be there tomorrow, because this is really late night for him and it's going to be a really early morning? Do we know?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think you have to be there still. But remember, it's the last day for a while. He has no oral arguments for a couple, I think until February 24th after tomorrow's session. So, he may have just kind of suck it up because this is an impeachment after all. And he hasn't had to do a lot of rulings because of all 53- 47 sort of votes are taking place.

But what you're seeing about this, these late nights all about perhaps a retaliatory strategy in part of somebody like Chuck Schumer to say, you want to streamline and facilitate the ability to end all this? You could have done this in the administration by giving us documents long ago. So, perhaps the way to expedite this entire thing would be, and in fact, to allow us to have some semblance of a transparent and public trial.

LEMON: Listen, and no one broke ranks. Everything has been 53-47. But let me ask you, ask you this, Frank. There were some surprises though from Mitch McConnell. Because House evidence will be, they voted to bring that in. I think he was surprised by some of that.

They're going late into the night. And then instead of two days because we were sitting here saying wait a minute, why, yesterday going why two days? Why, you know, one in the morning?

Here we are. At 10.26 Eastern Time and they're still going tonight. And then so there's a three-day concession now instead of two days. There were some surprises for him tonight.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right. And the reporting suggests that that three days instead of two is partly under pressure from some Republican moderates. That sounds if you're not thinking about it like a kind of random what does it matter. But if you have eight-hour days versus 12-hour days it means that more of the stuff will happen at an hour at the television hour when people might actually tune in.

I think that we're seeing today though, is also really interesting beyond just the sort of retaliatory we're not going to do this quickly. They're kind of getting into evidence, the stuff they're arguing, would you please allow this in.

So, you just heard if you're watching, Adam Schiff say to the senators, they don't want you to know that these notes exist. Well, now the senators know those notes exist because Adam Schiff just mentioned that. (CROSSTALK)

LEMON: You just took my question to Max.

BRUNI: Yes. I'm sorry.

LEMON: That's all right.

BRUNI: But they're just saying, I mean, they're going on a great length. You can watch and say why are they doing it. They're doing it because if they never get any of this stuff in at least they've mentioned and described it all to the senators right now.

LEMON: Yes. The producers will let us know, we'll let us know when they get close to the vote. We pretty much know how it's going to go here. But the evidence thing by the way was a rule changed. But still, you know, I think that there were some surprises that didn't go quite as planned.

But maybe there was, maybe, you know, Mitch McConnell said I'll give them the very least and then, you know, and then we can go a little bit larger here. All right. We're going to get back and listen in because they've now voted. There it is. Again, 53-47 along party lines. Let's go back to it.

(PRESIDENT TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT HEARING)