flag of the united states of america and to the republic contained in that constitution of the united states. so we take that oath. when we members of congress or other members, we take an oath to protect and defend that constitution of the united states. the president of the united states takes an oath to preserve to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. an oath that he has blatantly violated. and for this reason he was impeached by the house of representatives. for this reason we thought it would be helpful to have not only the strong case for impeachment and removal that was put forth in this house, but to know that more was to come. and we didn't make it come because we said we're going to wait until after christmas to send this over. they would like to have had us

sent it over on christmas eve so they could dismiss it. perhaps they don't realize dismissal is cover-up. that has been one of their trains of thought. dismissal is cover up. i was so disappointed the other day, friday, thursday when the leader of the united states senate rather than striking the institution on which he serves became subservient and signed on to a resolution that would dismiss charges. dismiss. dismissal is cover up. so in the course of the time since we passed the resolution and not because of the time, on -- we passed it december 18. on december 20th, new e-mails shows 91 minutes after trump's phone call with the ukrainian president, a top office of

budget and asked to hold off on sending aid. december 29, revelations emerged asking mulvaney's role in the delay of aid. the effort by lawyers in the administration to justify the delay. and the alarm that -- in the administration that that delay caused within the administration. on january 2, unredacted pentagon e-mails which the house subpoenaed and the president blocked raised serious concerns of officials about the legality of the president's hold on the aid to ukraine. january 6, john bolton said he would comply with the subpoena compelling his testimony. his lawyers stated he had new relevant information. january 13, reports emerged that the russian government hacked the ukrainian gas company

burisma as part of their effort to influence the u.s. election in support of trump. yesterday house committee, mr. nadler, mr. schiff, mr. angle and congresswoman maloney released new evidence pursuant to a house subpoena from lev parnas photographed with the republican leader and rudy guliani that further proves the president was a central player in the scheme to pressure ukraine for his own benefit in the 2020 election. the senate leader and the president are afraid of more facts coming to light. that's why the leader signed that dismissal resolution. a dismissal is a cover up. the american people will fully understand the senate's move to begin the trial without witnesses and documents as a pure political cover-up. whatever the outcome, the

american people want a fair trial. fair to the president, fair to the american people. the american people to serve the truth. the constitution requires a trial. a fair trial. the gop senate -- the american people -- let me make this brief. the hou forward with the vote to transmit the articles and appoint managers. as speaker, i'm proud to point outstanding american patriots to serve in the impeachment panel. chairman schiff, chairman nadler, chair woman zoe lofton. this is her third impeachment. he was in the nixon impeachment, as a member of the judiciary committee in the clinton and now as a house manager. madam chair, our caucus, hakeem jeffries, a serious respected

litigator, mel demings member of the police force for 27 years and the first woman and african american police chief of orlando. she knows her way around the courtroom. jason crow from colorado. an army ranger, served our country in the military in iraq and afghanistan and now in the congress of the united states. he too a respected litigator. sylvia garcia of texas. a judge of a big capacity in texas. we're very honored that you have taken the responsibility, all of you, the bring the articles of impeachment over to the united states senate with the case for the constitution. a case for the constitution. so back to the children. back to the children. we don't want this president or

any president to ever violate the constitution. it is very, very important that we see that that constitution is central to who we are as a country. our system of government. our system of government. our constitution. so valued, so respected, hopefully so honored by everyone that takes an oath of office to support and defend it. we see the russians now hacking and ukraine just came out yesterday, the day before. just reminds me of -- most americans would think that voters in america should decide who our president is, not vladimir putin and russia deciding who our president is.

i'm very concerned that in all of this, whether withholding funds for the ukrainians, the ukrainian government to fight the russians, undermining our commitment to nato, whether it's -- again, making decisions of what happens in syria, vis a vis turkey, favoring the russians that all roads lead to russia. all roads lead to putin. well, some in the administration may think that is okay. i don't. but we do insist and wonder why this president and some in this congress will not come to the defense of our electoral system by allowing that to happen, denying that it's happening, placing the blame elsewhere. this is a serious as it gets for any of us. only the vote to declare war

would be something more serious than this. we take it very seriously. it's not personal. it's not political. it's not partisan. it's patriotic. so again, i think our distinguished managers for their courage, their dedication for being willing to spend the time to do the job to honor the oath that we take. and honor the pledge that our children take, allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands. with that, i urge a yes vote and yield back the balance of my time. >> all time for debate has ex-spired. pursuant to house resolution 67, the question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the resolution. all in favor say aye, opposed no. the keys have it. the resolution is adopted.

the gentleman from georgia. >> recorded vote. >> does the gentleman ask for the yays and nays? >> yays and nays. >> the gentleman asks for a vote. those will rise. a sufficient number having risen, the yays and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device and pursuant to clause 9, this 15 minute vote will be followed by a five-minute vote on speaker's approval of the journal if ordered. this will be a 15-minute vote. >> you're watching the house floor where house members are voting on sending those articles of impeachment against president trump to the senate. the stakes could not be higher. if they do this and they're in the majority and looks like they will pull this through, they have named seven managers, among them the house intel chief and

others and if this happens today, it then goes to the senate for a trial. that is majority republican, as you know supporting the president. if something were to happen there, however, that we are not anticipating based on the vote count and the party support of the president, then a removal could happen. so they will either vote to remove or vote to a quit the president of what the house says it found. the house speaker moments ago continues to say the. is forever impeach. the removal part will come next. bret baier anchor of "special report" for fox news channel. so we have a few minutes while this vote ensued. no surprises anticipated. the speaker had the magic minutes which meant kevin mccarthy and the leader of the republicans and nancy pelosi says it could go on. >> what is important is this

moment is historic. it is a moment in which our country has not seen since 1998. there's only been three total impeachments. nancy pelosi is correct, that impeachment will be forever. however, when she finished her speech on the floor, you'll notice kevin mccarthy and speaker pelosi talked about the founders and what they said about impeachment. she said it was not partisan, it was not political. republicans would argue yes, it was political by how the process played out in the house and definitively we can say it was partisan. it went along party lines. federalist 65, hamilton saying, that impeachable violations are by definition political. goes on to write in many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions and will enlist all the animosities,

partialities, influence and interest on one side or the other and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. as we get ready to see these articles walked over, literally walked across the capitol to the u.s. senate, keep in mind that both sides are citing the founders and the founders were very clear that they didn't want a ruler like a king but didn't want a partisan process in impeachment. >> you know, bret, i brought up the magic minutes. we thought we would hear from more people. we heard from a couple of the representatives on either side of the aisle. but it was mccarthy and pelosi making their arguments as you pointed out. she had a part of it that sort of was a throwback to our founders that talked about listen, children, these are the meanings of things. she was talking to the children.

she even said that. what did she wait waiting a month? when she explains that to children, who is she talking to? who is her audience? >> she and the speaker and her supporters say what they achieved was pressure. they achieved this moment where john bolton came out publicly and said he would be willing to be a witness if he received a subpoena. however, that was truly before the holding of the articles. she said these new documents came out. fair enough. they did during that time. but had the impeachment process continued in the house, they would have continued and come out and been on the record in the house prosecution, which is what the house is in this process. it's a grand jury essentially. they make the indictment, the prosecutors deliver the case and the senate trial is supposed to

be in front of the senate with what the house has found and determined. in this case the democrats are arguing that new evidence needs to be put forward and new witnesses need to come forward in the senate. we'll see if that happens. that's the debate that starts once the trial begins. opening arguments happen and then they make the vote whether to include witnesses or not. >> the children part, i mean, she really broke it down. she said in a couple of instances that my children -- she went on to explain how the constitution works. was it necessary, is it a calculation from what we know of the polling and how people have reacted, bret, that it would be helpful to break it down for the viewing public? did democrats not to get it across? did they need to take it that basic? >> she's trying to rise to the moment and try to say this is an

open and shut case from their point of view as it heads over to the senate and how important it is she says for the country to understand why they're doing this. republicans would argue why they're doing this and how they have done this should also be instructing. you heard kevin mccarthy say take this, let's learn from this mistake he called it as how this has gone. the fear on the republican side and really some scholars is that this then becomes the norm. a first term incumbent president from a different party in the house could be subject to impeachment based on what they consider to be abuse of power. >> bret baier, great to have you with us. sit by. i'm about to bring in your colleague, chris wallace, anchor of "fox news sunday." chris, always good to see you as well. you know, i know this process and what is next is a ceremony

later today. what happens? >> well, they basically take the documents and they, you know -- in this electronic world in which we live in where information can be traveled across the country, across the world in a millisecond, they're literally going to take the documents, put them in a wooden box and walk them across the capitol from the house side through the rotunda to the senate side where they will be taken by a senate official, brought to the front and the articles of impeachment will be read so anybody who likes ceremony is going to have plenty -- what really struck me just now, harris, is this split screen there on the one hand, we had it here on fox, where on the one hand you had the president of the united states signing an important trade deal with china, phase one as he calls it, trying

to ease up the struggle between the two countries, but on the other screen, the house of representatives, a majority, strict party line vote of democrats voting to impeach this president, to set up a trial for his removal. we're going to see this over and over again it seems likely in the next few weeks where the president is going about his business, while the senate debates whether or not he should remain as president and is a better than even chance that when the president gives his state of the union speech to the joint session of congress in early february that the trial in the senate whether to remove him will still be going on as happened with bill clinton in 1999. >> what about reports that the president might want to listen to urging to push that date back. it's set for february 4 right now. would he consider doing that? >> i don't know whether he would consider doing that. there are some republicans in congress that have suggested

doing that. that it would be better for the president to be able to speak after they believe he will be acquitted and to be able to proclaim to the congress and to the country and to the world that he's been exonerated. but you know, as i say, bill clinton decided to go on with the business of the country even though the trial was going on. it's not a bad political move for a president who obviously is going to be campaigning against democrats to say, here's my agenda for the country. here's what i want to do in a second term. not to be -- in any way give way to the fact that the house has set in motion this senate trial. >> you know, we didn't miss it. it wasn't just the optics of the president signing this deal with china in phase one and talking trade and -- there was a long lead up. he had guests in the white house that he wanted to recognize.

some of the best known names in the american economy right now in terms of corporations and so on and so forth. it was that moment where he signed and nancy pelosi, the house speaker, was reading the seven managers that will take over the articles of impeachment, carry them over with those representatives from the house as you mentioned as well at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. we'll cover it live on fox. those two moments were on the screen at the same time, chris. >> in fact, the sign-in ceremony seems to go on for an unusually long period of time. i was wondering whether someone was -- this was just in my head. i have no reason to believe it was true -- was hoping that he would outlast the speaker pelosi's speech so he could continue and maybe we would put back full screen to his signing ceremony and the official business of his administration to kind of put an end stop, a

full stop on what the house is doing. i want to talk if i could briefly about the speaker pelosi's delay. the months delay in sending over the articles of impeachment. you can see it two ways. if the purpose was to force mitch mcconnell to bow to her will and agree to get more witnesses and documents, it was a total failure. no question about it. she didn't that. >> he told her it would be. no one doubted that he was going to bend. he told her it would be. >> but. here's my point. because of that, you had a month where the whole question of witnesses was debated at length and you got three or four republicans who are now on the record not necessarily saying they're going to vote for witnesses but saying they'll consider whether to vote for witnesses like mitt romney, lamar alexander, lisa murkowski and susan collins. so the bottom line may be if

you're talking about who won, there's no question that mitch mcconnell won. if you're saying is it more or less likely now that there is going to be a vote to call witnesses, it's more likely because of her delay. >> so interesting. our account on the show was up to six yesterday. that doesn't necessarily translate into a full vote though on the senate floor once the trial is over. that is only about the witnesses. a quick last word. i'm going to ask you to stand by. >> yeah, no. there's two points here. one it's a vote on witnesses. there's an increasing push by republicans saying look, let's have reciprocity here. if the democrats get to call a witness, john bolton, we call a witness, hunter biden. a mutually assured destruction. unless there's a huge piece of evidence that bolton or mulvaney

or somebody else delivers the basic view in washington, the conventional wisdom -- i think the smart money would be on the idea that they're not going to get anywhere near the 20 republican defections that they would need. so in the end, the president will not be removed from office. >> chris wallace, stay close by. we'll come back. i want to bring in martha maccallum, anchor of "the story." always good to have you on the program. in the midst of this live coverage, we're a few minutes away from this vote wrapping up. in your estimation, americans are watching this. you've been watching the polling. nothing moved the needle much on which side people were on for impeachment and removal of the president. stayed split just about the whole country. does this optic have an effect on that? >> you know, i think that if this drags on and if you do get a situation where we have witnesses coming back in to the senate to testify in this trial,

then it reopens that question of where people stand on this. obviously it's the independent voters, the people in the middle, the trump voters last time around who maybe are having second thoughts that could be influenced by that. i want to mention that 66% in the most recent polls said they would like to hear from john bolton. the other point worth making here, no one knows what john bolton will actually say. as brit hume and i discussed on my program, you know, generally a prosecution they know what is going to be said. there's a deposition and we've heard from other people, fiona hill and what others john bolton said to them. nobody know what's he will say or his impact. this is like a train lumbering down the tracks. everybody thinks they know the destination its going. it's rocking a little bit on both sides. i think this story is still to play out in very big ways.

>> we have about 34 seconds calculated by the time remaining on the house as they vote to send the articles to the senate and also to name the seven managers among democrats that will be handling this. what we saw with the full impeachment vote, they lengthened out the time to give opportunity. so we'll watch the clock closely. we can talk. the seven managers, can we pop them on the screen? who among them do you think yeah, we could have figured that out? any surprises on this list? there they are. >> i think most of them are fairly predictable. a few people that thought or hoped that they would be on the list who are not on that list that have been very outspoken through the course of this process. eric swalwell comes to mind as one of those people discussed to be on the list. these people will be front and center when it goes through this process and remembered all time as participating in this. lofgren is on her third impeachment. she has a lot of experience through the nixon and clinton

impeachment processes. keep in mind also for the clinton impeachment, the rules were voted on in the senate 100-0. you had a partisan -- bipartisan buy-in to the process that we're not seeing here. that's what raised this respecter of political impeachment in an era of political impeachment that we may have entered into here. when history looks back, a truly divided and political impeachment process, which nancy pelosi wanted to avoid. that will be the strongest mark on everything we're watching play out here. >> just to let you know, the clock has run down. we're told they will leave the vote open because there's better than 100 people that still have to vote there among the house of representatives. you mentioned some of those managers, adam schiff, of course. congressman ran against former republican california representative james rogan in 2000 who is an impeachment

manager just like schiff will be in 1999 trial. schiff defeated rogan. then another note on lofgren. you brought her up, martha. she worked on the nixon impeachment as an aide in 1994. so you have people that as you said have strong ties to our very limited history with impeachment. because as bret pointed out, we haven't seen this that often in our young country. >> we haven't. my fear and i think the fear of others as well, victor davis hanson just wrote about this, we may see it more often. i think that one of the things that this has opened the possible gateway to is that political impeachment becomes a weapon of choice for the party that is not in power. i think that is something that we haven't seen in history before. i think it's something that is going to be under a lot of scrutiny on both sides of the aisle here. so you know, i think this is sad to watch play out today. nancy pelosi has said that.

i think people wonder whether or not she's leaping inside or happy. for the moment we're seeing. that to me is the part of this that is sad. that we've seen this really bipartisan -- or partisan process play out should be an overwhelming evidence and bipartisan buy-in to go down this road and that's not what we're seeing play out today. >> martha maccallum, "the story" at 7:00 p.m. on fox news channel. thanks very much. >> thank you, harris. >> i want to bring bret baier back, anchor of "special report" and chief political anchor of fox news. one of the things that speaker nancy pelosi said -- we're keeping our eye on the vote. there's still about 100 people to cast their vote. the clock will read zero but the time goes on. nancy pelosi talked about this evidence that has come through. some democrats have described it as bomb shell, slam dunk.

talk about that evidence and how it puts any pressure on the situation at all. >> this is transmitted by the house intelligence committee. this comes from lev parnas. the indicted associate of rudy guliani, the president's lawyer who he was dealing with on ukrainian issues. there are multiple communications, there are texts. there's a stack of documents. one of which is handwritten which it says the first item is on a note pad that says "get zelensky to announce the biden case will be investigated." there are things here that we had heard about, that it's different when you see it in a communication. there's something from rudy guliani it appears that says he's acting with the consent of the president. and there's a lot of coverage about what appears to be tracking ambassador's movement

throughout kiev. all of that i don't know it delivers the bomb shell shoe drop that changes the dynamics of the case. a lot of it was assumed or known through testimony tangentially, but it means more that it comes in this written form and it's being transmitted. it's not a part of what we heard in the hearings because it came after that. >> so can they bring that in to the senate trial and how does it come into play? >> that's the argument that the managers will make. that's why it was transmitted from the house intelligence committee. i think along with the witnesses that argument will be made to bring in this new evidence that has just come to them. >> she was one of the first people that we heard from when the hearings first started on the house side, ambassador

yovanovich. the word was put out watch your back. you're not going along. you're not tweeting for the president. you're not doing what the white house would want. she told the story. so bret, you said tracking her movement. she described it differently. yeah, they -- we know in colloquial terms, they were following her, shadowing her movements. what does that mean? does that back up anything that we've heard before? >> there's notes like her cell phone is on, her computer is off. she's outside the embassy. private security. deta detailed about tracking her, following her. that raises all kinds of alarm bells, this is the ambassador to the united states. clearly the president as republicans argued has the right to fire someone that is serving

at his pleasure. how this happened and how she described it and the fact that there's this other evidence raises more eyebrows, but is it an impeachable offense? we can't determine from what we've seen from these documents, nor have they been authenticated. we have to see how they play out in the trial and how these managers choose to bring them up. >> i'm going to cut in. the house has met the vote threshold. they have the number of votes to send them to the senate. then we've been told by the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell that he would want a trial to begin as early as tuesday of next week. you have the mlk holiday monday. that is the first day that everybody is back. next steps from this. >> once you get the actual walk over today at 5:00 p.m. and this is what is called an engrossing ceremony, a transmittal of the articles, but physically walked across the capitol from the

house to the senate, then this starts this process about rules. again, senate majority leader mcconnell looking to start a trial tuesday. you have the swearing in of the managers as well as the supreme court justice, the chief, john roberts, who would preside over the trial. then once the rules are kind of agreed to and that may take several days, it starts in earnest. these opening statements start and mcconnell has said that they will go in to the weekends, translated saturdays, and then continues on until they're finished. the timing of it is a real big question with the politics of 2020 in the background. >> you're giving us good details. the senate will go into session for six days a week and likely stay until session daily. the trial is expected to begin tuesday, the first day would

include the squaring in of roberts as well as administering an oath to senators. so we already have a pretty good idea, bret, of how it will break down. i'm going to ask our team if i can bring you and chris wallace in together, anchor of "fox news sunday." he's standing by. i'm not sure if they can do that. but the reason i would want to try to do that is because i know you were watching this both from the perspective of being in washington d.c., which decidedly is a very different conversation among voters and among the public than we might hear on the east coast or i travel quite a bit in the middle part of the country, iowa a couple times recently. the conversations matter because this is a political situation. chris, i first want your response to that. >> well, i think a lot of it depends what comes out in the trial. one of the problems that we had with the judiciary committee got the case from the intelligence

committee is that intelligence committee under adam schiff that they had 30 hours of televised testimony a dozen witnesses and they had basically built the case as whatever strength you think it has against the president. they basically repeated that when it got to the house judicialry committee. i'd think in opening arguments and if it follows the clinton rule, the prosecution in effect, the house democratic managers will get 24 hours total to make their case. then -- and you know, we'll see people like schiff, nadler who we have seen before say things they've said before. and then interestingly enough, you'll get a different and a new view from the president's side, the defense, because you're going to hear for the first time from people like pat cipollone, the chief counsel to the president what i don't think anybody has heard on tv, he doesn't do it very often, very smart, very sharp litigator.

he will lead the president's defense and it will be interesting to hear the case that they make. then the big vote, the big vote is going to be -- they're basically going to be arguing evidence we have already heard before even though the lev parnas stuff is interesting it's not a game changer. the big vote is to hear from people like john bolton. we know that john bolton wasn't happy with the arrangement and the linkage between doing things and giving military aid to ukraine and investigating the bidens and burisma. hold on a second here. >> we want to watch this. let's watch. >> the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. all in favor say aye.

opposed no. the ayes have it. the journal is approved. >> it's official. the articles of impeachment are going to the senate. i have bret baier and chris wallace with me as this is happening. great we're on the screen at the same time. so bret, i just want to get an idea of how big a moment this is for the country and for the president of the united states. >> this is a moment in history. however this moment was expected. we did see one nay, one no vote from a democrat i'm assuming. that's the jersey democrat, van drew who will become a republican. i don't know that for sure. chad pergram will. we'll get that detail in just a moment. there were a few no votes. we saw a few of those before in some of these articles including tulsi gabbard that didn't vote for an article of impeachment. that was the historic one december 18. this is kind of pro forma.

when we see the move from the house to the senate, that's the official notification that the senate has this a and the trial begins. listen, for people that cover washington, this is one of the super bowl moments as far as an impeachment trial. 1998 is the last time this happened. you know, we just don't see this every day. the question is whether we're going to see it more often now. >> we're getting word that senator chuck schumer and other democrats will join him the next hour to respond to chris what you and i were talking about, the oppositional view of the president just getting work done, just going on and making history on his own by signing phase one of the agreement on trade with china. so you know, the president goes out, he does rallies. my previous question, how does this play in greater america? >> well, in the short term, i think that it isn't going to

change things a lot as you've seen in terms of these polls. very much tracks with -- with some exceptions in the swing states, tracks with approval of trump. if you like the president, then you're very upset with this. if you don't like the president, you're just fine with it. in the swing states like wisconsin, an important state in november of 2020, there appears to be support under water. it tracks with it. it's going to depends on whether or not there's new evidence. i wanted to add color if i could briefly, harris. i thought the only impeachment trial in my lifetime was the clinton one. even though i wasn't covering it as a reporter, my wife and i scored a couple of tickets and we sat in the public gallery to watch the impeachment. it was a piece of history. it happened with andrew johnson in the 1860s. every member of the senate has

to be there. they have to be in their seat. that doesn't usually happen. usually when the senate talks, there's five or ten members there and people walk in and out. every member has to be there in their seats and secondly none of them can talk. imagine, 100 senators, none can talk. i remember that i was sitting -- what are they doing the whole time? it drones on and on. i was sitting above the senator from wisconsin, herbert cole, a democrat who owned the milwaukee bucks basketball team. i looking down. he was studying something carefully. i realized he was reading sports illustrated while the impeachment trial was going on. the only other thing i would note is, this is an odd thing. the chief justice is now going to be the presiding officer, not the vice president, the chief justice will be the presiding officer. bill rehnquist, william rehnquist, he had his black robes but decided to to something special for the impeachment. so he had gold stripes put on

his sleeves like a judge in the hms opera. it was colorful. >> it was rich detail, yes. >> one clarification as i was sure was going to happen. chad pergram has the details. >> the democratic vote now. >> collin petersons from minnesota. he voted against the articles. you can see how critical minnesota is as a swing state but a democrat that voted against the articles of impeachment and now the resolution. representative justin amash voted present. there's the vote and it's not really, as i said, a surprise. what is a notable thing, the gop vote on the articles and the resolution really state together.

there were no gop defections. that is what president trump has touted in a lot of these events around the country. >> all right. bret baier, chris wallace, thank you. now it is official. the vote has happened in the house. the articles of impeachment against president trump to make the case that the house impeached him to see if they can remove him in the senate now goes forth. covering it here live for you. stay tuned to fox news channel and this fox broadcast station for continuing coverage of impeachment. i'm harrislk new york. and with that, we give a chance for our broadcast networks to go back to the regularly scheduled program. we continue on here at fox news channel with the breaking news. martha maccallum, we have the pressure of bringing her back now. we can talk about next steps. we have the engrossment ceremony as they physically walk them over, the articles of impeachment from one chamber to

the next on the hill. next steps after that. this goes six days a week, monday through saturday. >> it's going to keep us busy, harris. i thought it was an interesting choice of words. nancy pelosi said they would march them over to the senate. so you know, it's quite a moment. it is historic as you all have just been discussing when they do that at 5:00 p.m. it's called an engrossment process. i'm not sure that's a word or term that most people in the country have heard with regards to this process. congressional rules as chad pergram knows are deep and have some vocabulary that most folks are not familiar with. one thing i would mention with regard to what happens on the senate side here is this question of the vote for witnesses that we were discussing before. because a lot of this and a lot of the politics is about the senate. of course, democrats would love to win the senate in 2020. that is why these votes will be

so closely watched. you have some of these senators, murkowski, collins, cory gardner, martha mcsally in arizona, have very difficult votes to take here. but it may be that mitch mcconnell had encouraged a deal that those that need to vote that, who really need that vote on their record will take it without tripping the 51 vote wire, which would allow that to happen. he will see -- >> caucus the impeachment vote. >> provide cover for these folks that might need that vote. when you get to the big vote that requires 2/3s, that appears unless we see something remarkable and unexpected to be somewhat predictable. >> caucusing the vote. >> yeah. >> interesting. so i looked it up. you probably knew this, martha. i didn't. engrossment is that final version of any legal document like a status or mortgage agreement. so the engrossment ceremony at

5:00 p.m. eastern. we'll have i've live -- >> that's when you call it. a closure on the house. let's go do the engrossment ceremony. >> you're the cool kids. okay. let's talk about where the country is. that is my main thing. i've been to iowa three times in the last seven months. when you sit and look at how fast we're getting to february 3. we just had a democratic debate last night. much of it was an argument between elizabeth warren and bernie sanders who is in the hot seat as he's done up the polls. amy klobuchar was said to have had a good night. you look at the conversation going on politically across the country, how tuned in do you think if a mainly republican senate votes to not a quit the president and remove him? we would never anticipate that. they haven't indicated that. >> i saw a poll yesterday of the most important topics to voters. it was something like 18, 19%,

health care. number 2, jobs and economy. immigration, guns, all of the items that you would expect. i think when people go to the polls in november, short of something really remarkable happening in the coming weeks here, this is not going to be what is top of mind. i'm sure, you know, you probably can attest in your time in iowa, it is not the topic that is on everyone's mind across the country. people are dug in here. i've heard -- i was on the radio with brian kilmeade this morning. one of the callers defending president trump and saying that he's been railroaded. on the other side, you have people looking at this lev parnas document and saying see, we know the president was connected to this and it's ugly. both sides continue to sort of dig in their heels on their arguments. there's not a lot of movement with the american people. >> you know, iran had not come to the point where the protesters were making news on a daily basis as they are now.

so in a time that i was in iowa, it was healthcare, the economy, in the center of the country. this trade agreement that the president was signing simultaneously to the speaker of the house reading the names of the managers and putting forth a resolution on sending over the articles of impeachment to the senate. physically signing as that happened. that was something that people in iowa were talking about. what is the economy going to look like if we can get a deal with china? we're seeing that play out at the same time. martha maccallum, i'll be watching at 7:00 p.m. >> see you later. >> i want to bring in -- we keep hearing everybody say his name. chad pergram. keeping us all honest on the facts and the details. so tell me about the democrats that voted no today. i know one. a couple have become independents. >> this was my mistake here. i'm sorry. the vote was 228 to 193.

justin amash now an independent voted yes. he voted for this. he often votes muscle memory when i said that. he voted yes. we had collin peter sen, a conservative democrat, voting no. you have to remember and understand something about collin peter son's district. it's a rural district in the western edge of the state. the president carried that district by 35 points. politics being local that is important. jeff van drew, a democrat in december, he voted no. he's now a republican. and jared golden, a freshman democrat from maine who split his votes on the impeachment articles in december. he voted yes to send this across to the senate. we have that engrossment ceremony later this afternoon. here's something else to talk about that's important. we have two freshmen that are going to be on this impeachment manager team. you have jason crow, a freshman

democrat that flipped a district in colorado and also sylvia garcia from texas. we talk about the impeachment trials. you know there was an impeachment of 2010 of a federal judge. you know who nancy pelosi asked to lead that rather low-profile impeachment process? adam schiff. the chair of the intelligence committee. again, same process in the senate. again, just didn't get a lot of press. we don't do this often. they were about to deal with another impeachment with another federal judge and he resigned, samuel kent. >> obviously we're talking about democrats because it's just left the house and they're in the majority. i want to talk about the republicans in the senate and whether or not senator mitch mcconnell, majority leader there, who has previously said no, he wouldn't allow this to have this very strong advocates for the president of the united

states like jim jordan, doug collins come over from the house to make the case inside the senate. he said no. but when you look at the list of who those seven are now as managers, would a different calculation be made on the senate side for having those big voices in the house? >> it's possible. you heard me talk about this before. in hockey, you have last change where the home team gets to look at the visitors first and see who they put out on the ice. they said we want this wing or forward out there. in this case, president trump have last change. they can look at the impeachment managers that house speaker nancy pelosi has enlisted to do this process and they can say, do we need jim jordan or somebody else. that will be investor important if it goes to that. that would be different in compared to what we've usually seen with other impeachment trials, even the lower ones -- >> a lot is different. nancy pelosi hanging on to the

articles of impeachment, clutching them and not sending them to the senate. that was different. caucus chair hakeem jeffries was new york was one that was different. just in terms of that big personality and the things that he said about the president. chad pergram, you have to get back there on the hill. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> i want to scoot to the legality of this, the case itself. andy mccarthy, former assistant u.s. attorney, former federal prosecutor, fox news contributor. andy, next steps and ceremony. the building of the case begins now. what is happening for republicans, what is happening for democrats? >> well, the building of the case should have happened already, harris. that's one of the big problems that we have here. i've heard your discussion with my colleagues about the fact that there's more information that is coming over even as the articles of impeachment come over.

there's a promise of yet more information to come in the coming days. what strikes me is a federal judge in a normal trial would not put up with this. what you would tell the prosecutor and the house democrats in the position of the house of the prosecutors is you get back to me when you're ready to try this case. one thing we're not going to have is an active grand jury investigation outside the parameters of the trial while the trial is going on. there could be nothing more prejudicial of having a fair trial than trying to conduct a trial where there's all of this noise outside the trial from the house coming as evidence keeps getting thrown over. so what they have obviously done here is they have handed the senate these very unripe allegations and they're hoping that they can put pressure on mcconnell through the senate democrats to continue the grand jury investigation during the

trial in the senate. if i were mcconnell, i wouldn't put up with it. what i would tell them, look, we will hold these two articles of impeachment in advance for a certain amount of time while you try to finish your investigation. it's without prejudice to, you know, proceeding on these articles or if you want additional articles, fine. but what we're not going to have -- we're conducting a trial and you're throwing new evidence -- >> let me hit a pause there. you said two things. that they have handed over unrile allegations. what you're saying nothing new. nancy pelosi says no, no, no. those lev parnas allegations or letters, notes having to do with the president, guliani and others, they're fresh and new. i'm curious, can they come into play here.

senator mitch mcconnell said no, i'm not going to let you bring it in and have a side show. >> they can bring them in. they can do whatever they want to do. nobody can tell the senate how to conduct an impeachment trial. that said, if you don't want a circus here and you want a fair proceeding, what you have to have is one trial. think about this. how long is this going to go on? if they continue to throw evidence and new information and maybe new articles of impeachment over, the work of the united states is not getting done while this trial is on. nothing else will be happening besides this trial. the work of the supreme court -- >> the president will be going on. we saw him today. he's signing a trade agreement with china. so this is a political process. democrats will have to figure out how they can and always tell me on this program walk and chew game at the same time. lev parnas. how does he fit in especially if he's offering to temperature.

>> yeah, what is obviously happening here, i think, is he wants to testify because he sees that as his way out of prosecution in the southern district of new york where he's facing that federal indictment. the thing is, he can't testify unless he gets immunity because his testimony in the congressional proceeding would convict him in the criminal trial. the southern district of new york doesn't have any motive to let him testify in the impeachment proceeding. their priority is the case. in normal circumstances he would have to plead guilty and sign a cooperation agreement before full blown cooperation started. he's trying to use the impeachment as leverage in his plea negotiations. >> thanks, andy. he's on the legal side. i want to bring in the former press secretary for george w. bush, ari fleischer and a fox news contributor. so i do want to mention in a few minutes, you and i are going to the top of the hour and senator

chuck schumer and a few democrats are set to react to the trade agreement phase one that the president just signed today while all of the articles of impeachment resolution vote was going on. your reaction to this. >> well, harris, i think we have wasted the nation's time. part one is concluded. waste of the nation's time part two will begin and i hope it's over with soon. what separated this from every impeachment this is not serious. everybody knows the outcome. there's no doubt. what made this a different issue where washington is riveted to this and the rest of america isn't is a lack of a crime. if there was something that rose to the level of a crime, people would stop what they're doing and pay attention to impeachment. it's not happening. >> this new evidence -- >> everybody knows this. >> this new evidence with parnas, you know, one of the cohorts, the associates that

have been talked with who says he has letters and documents that show that rudy guliani, the president's attorney, things were untoward there with ukraine and the president had full knowledge and consent. >> i don't think the underlying facts are in dispute. it was part of the phone call. the president called the president of ukraine and asked him to investigate joe biden. doesn't surprise me that he had agents, rudy guliani or anybody else in the united states government or outside the government try to do his bidding on this. i've said all along, it was inappropriate. i never thought it was a crime. so if there's documents that come out showing what the president said on the phone call to president zelensky indeed occurred, why is that news or why is that a surprise? so i think what you have here is one party, the party never wanted president trump to be in office in the first place that will seize on anything they can as new evidence, stop the trial, have a longer trial. none of it is resonating with the american people outside the base of the two parties, the group of americans that have the

vested interest in fighting for trump or fighting against trump. for most americans, this is a terrible distortion of a serious impeachment process, which should be reserved for people to stop what they're doing and say was a crime committed. should people in washington remove the president over undoing an election. none of that is the case here. >> so ari, what are next steps that you would advise the president of the united states based on the his that that we've seen with recent and relatively history in the last 25 years or so, impeachment and the president's ability to have same taken use breaking news? >> his lawyers better be sharp and ready. this is president trump's first chance that we've heard for his lawyers to poke holes in allegations to provide defenses directly from the white house to confront congressman schiff. to confront jerry nadler. that is number 1. that will play out on the senate floor. i'm going to want to watch that.

number 2, the president, my advice is to keep doing his day job, to keep signing agreements, signing laws. i heard somebody say today the house has passed more impeachments than laws. these -- the house passed more indictments than laws. that is a pretty serious charge. you know, the president sticks to governing, that's his best contrast with this. i'm sure the president will also weigh-in on twitter on a regular basis and continue to call it a hoax. there's nothing wrong with that. >> he called it that at the >> harris: he called at that at the signing today. >> that's what i mean. we will continue to hear that. there is a lot of good in this country. there are a lot of policies that are good, and a lot of facts where the president is leading. that's what you should focus on. >> harris: really quickly, because it is political, and it is also a tv fest, if you will. who can grab the media. the democrats want the

president on the big screen at the impeachment trial. that is not a joke. several media outlets are reporting it. politico is one of them. i'm looking at it right now. what is that about? >> the washington industry, journalism, politicians, people like me, abundance, we have an invested interest in rubbing this thing up so that we can talk about it and watchi've been people will rev it down, and it will be the lowest rated tv show if you can imagine. if people think they are going to dedicate to their time to watching the paint dry. harris, i want to go back to something that i said earlier. chris collins, the republican from georgia made the case that democrats have issued more subpoenas than past laws. >> harris: it is interesting. i have a little different media take on the big screen. the president has the ability to capture people's attention and hold it. democrats want that sort of watch for the senate trial,

perhaps that's why they would want him there. i'm going to have to let you go. breaking news all this hour. and i'm glad that you were here for it. ari fleischer. thank you. i am harris. "the daily briefing" starts right now. >> fox news alert, and impeachment will be in the senate hands, house lawmakers voting to send the articles of impeachment along with the impeachment managers across the capital ped hello, everyone. i am dana perino. and this is "the daily briefing." ♪ >> the president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security. he jeopardized the of our election, tried to use the appropriations process as his private atm machine to grant or withhold funds granted by congress in order to put his personal and political advantage. >> dana: as the house gets ready to turn impeachment over