cause. their own attorney general doesn't agree with their theory of the case. but again we don't have to rely on alan dershowitz' opinion or my opinion or the consensus of constitutional scholars everywhere, we can rely on our common sense. because the conclusion that a president can abuse his power by corruptly entering into a quid pro quo to get a foreign intelligence service or foreign government, a foreign leader to do their political dirty work help them cheat in the election, our common sense tell us that not be compatible with the office of the presidency f. we say it is, if we say it's beyond the reach of the impeachment power or engage in this and say because you put it under the rubric of abuse of power, even though that was the framers' core offense and you didn't put it under some other rubric, we won't even consider it if we're

going to engage in that kind of legal work it leaves the country completely unprotected. from a president who would abuse his power in this way. that cannot be what the framers had in mind. the constitution is not a suicide pact. it does not require us to surrender our common sense. our common sense as well as our morality tells us that the president was wrong when a president sacrifices the national security interests of the country, it's not only wrong but dangerous when a president says as we saw just a moment ago over and over again, he will continue to do it, it is dangerous. the framers provided a remedy and we urge you to use it. >> mr. chief justice. >> senator from indiana. >> send a question on my behalf and senator barrasso for

president's counsel. >> thank you. >> the question from senator braun and barrasso for the counsel for the president. the house managers have said the country must be saved from this president and he does not have the best interest of the american people and their families in mind. do you wish to respond to that claim? >> mr. chief justice, members of the senate. while the house managers are coming before you and accusing the president of doing things in

their words, solely for personal and political gain and claiming that he is not doing things in the best interest of the american people, the american people are telling you just the opposite. the president's approval rating while we are sitting here in the middle of these impeachment proceedings have hit an all-time high. a recent poll shows that the american people are the happiest they have been with the direction of the country in 15 years. whether it's the economy, security, military preparedness, safer streets or safer neighborhoods, they're all way up. we, the american people are happier. and yet the house managers tell you that the president needs to be removed because he's an immediate threat to our country. listen to the words that they

just said. we, we the american people, cannot decide who should be our president because as they tell us, these are their words, quote, we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. do you really, really believe that? do you really think so little of the american people, we don't. we trust the american people to decide who should be our president. candidly, it's crazy to think otherwise. so what's really going on. what's really going on is that he is a threat to them and he is an immediate legitimate threat to them, he's an immediate legitimate threat to their candidates because the election is only eight months away. let's talk about some of the things that president has done. we replaced nafta with the

historic mca. we've killed a terrorist soleimani. we secured 738 billioned to rebuild the military. more than seven million jobs created since the election. illegal border crossings are down 78% since may and 100 miles of the wall have been built. the unemployment rate is lowest in 50 years. more americans, nearly 160 million are employed than never before. the african american unemployment, hispanic american unemployment, the asian american unemployment has lowest rate ever recorded. women's unemployment recently hit the lowest rate in more than 65 years. every u.s. metropolitan area say per capita growth in 2018. real wages have gone up by 8% for low income workers. real median household income now the highest level ever recorded. 40 million fewer people live in households receiving government

assistance. we signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history. since then over $1 trillion has poured back into the u.s. $650,000 single mothers have been lifted out of poverty. we secured largest ever increase for child care funding helping more than 800,000 low income families access high quality affordable care. we passed as manager jeffries will recall, bipartisan criminal justice reform. prescription drugs have lowest price decrease -- largest decrease in over half a century. drug overdose deaths fell nationwide for the first time in nearly 30 years. gallup poll from just three days ago said that president trump's upbeat view of the nation's economy, military strength,

economic opportunity and overall quality of life will likely resonate with americans when he delivers the state of the union address to congress next week. if all that is solely in their words for his personal and political gain, not in the best interest of the american people, then i say, god bless him, keep doing it. keep doing it, keep doing it. maybe if the house managers stop opposing him in harassing everyone associating with him with the constant letters, the constant investigations, maybe we can even get more done. let's try something different now. join us. join us, one nation -- one nation, one people. enough is enough. stop all of this. thank you. >> mr. chief justice. >> senator from colorado. >> thank you i send a question to the desk for myself and

senator schatz and senator menendez. >> thank you. >> the question from senatorss is to the house managers. if the senate accepts the president's blanket assertion of privilege in the house impeachment inquiry, what are the consequences to the american people. highway will the senate insure that the future president or current president how will it affect the separation of powers. and in this context, could you address the president's counsel's claim that the president advisors are entitled to the same protections as whistle-blower.

>> privileges are limited. we have voted to impeach the president for among other things, article 2 of the impeachment, total defiance of house subpoenas. the president announced in advance, i will denounce all the subpoenas. what does it mean? there's no information to congo. it means the claim of dictatorial power, congress has no information, it cannot act. if the president can -- now he can dispute certain specific claims, he can claim privilege, et cetera. but to defy categorically all y thatas, announce in advance congress has no por all only the exetive har.

that's why article 2 is impeaching him for abuse of congress. much less degree, richard nixon was impeached for abuse of congress for the same defiance of any attempt by the congress to investigate. but this is -- what are the consequences? the consequences if this is to be -- gets away with it, any subpoena you vote in the future. any information you want in the future from any future president, may be denied you with no excuses, announce ebb advance of the filing of subpoenas, eviscerate congress and establishes department, the executive department as total dictatorship, that's the consequence. i want to also talk about motives, motives are clear dictatorial. also take a point since i have the floor, to answer a question, comment and question that

senator collins and senator murkowski asked yesterday. they asked about the question of mixed motives. what if -- how do you define, deal with a deed with a president who may have a corrupt motive and fine motive and how do you deal with it. professor dershowitz said, you have to look at the -- you have to weigh the balance. nonsense. nonsense. we never in american law looked at decent motives if you can prove a corrupt motive. if i am offered a bribe and i t b heard in defenserrupt moti to say, i would have voted for the bill anyway, it was a good bill. you don't inquire into other motives. maybe you had good motives, but once the corrupt motives and corrupt act of was established there is no comparison. all of this is just nonsense, to

point away from the fact that the president has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, defenders don't even bother to defend they just come out with distractions. he's been proven beyond a reasonable to abuse his power by violating the law to withhold military aid from a foreign country, to extort that country and to helping his re-election campaign by slandering his opponent. corrupt, no question. violation of the law, no question. factually, no question. they don't even make real attempt to deny it. everything is distraction and one chief distraction is, once you prove a corrupt act, that's it. you never measure the degree of maybe had decent motives, too. professor dershowitz is talking about that in talking about the absolute power of the law or ny kd of law.absent from

>> thank you, mr. manager. >> mr. chief justice. >> senator from georgia. >> o'donnell: and we are watching, of course, day two of the question and answer session up on capitol hill by our count, two days there have been 116 questions asked, 23 just today let's bring in nancy cordes on capitol hill to break it all down. nancy? >> norah, one sure sign that the two sides are really firmly entrenched in their attempts at this point is the fact that so many democratic questions are about former national security advisor john bolton. and whether he should be brought in to testify. so many of the republican questions are about joe biden and hunter biden. and their role in all of this. in fact there was one really interesting point in today's question and answer session where a democrat asked about the

source of funding for rudy guiliani's efforts. the fact that he works as the president's personal attorney, but apparently, according to the questioner, isn't paid by the president of the united states. they wanted to know, who is paying him instead. and the president's counsel didn't answer that, but they pivoted to talking about hunter biden and how he got paid by a ukrainian energy company while his father was serving as one of the point people in the u.s. government, as vice president. dealing with ukraine and ukrainian corruption. so, democrats clearly want the focus to be on the lack of witnesses that is reflected by the questions and the answers. the republicans want the focus to shift away from the president, if at all possible, and to shine on the bidens instead. >> o'donnell: and some ways given that it looks like now that republicans may have the vote to block witnesses and bring a speedy end to this trial, perhaps by tomorrow

night, the burden of proof spin ways on democrats today to make their case, i felt like schiff was really trying to push this argument, if you don't stop the president now, he'll continue in this monarch type of behavior, that he'll continue to invite foreign interference that was really the danger that spin ways to use the word that was used earlier that adam schiff trying to convince senators with. >> reporter: absolutely. and beyond that, if you don't force this white house to hand over documents, to allow witness testimony, that you set a precedent that a future white house can follow any time congress wants to look into their activities, which is that they can simply fall until congress gives up. i put that question to a republican senator earlier today, mike rounds, if you don't bring in witnesses that this isn't a message to the white house that stonewalling works.

and he argued, no, it sends a message to the house that they should have tried harder to bring individuals like john bolton in to testify before they held their vote sent all of this over to the senate. you can see there is a stark and clearly unmoveable divide on this point it doesn't seem like anything is going to change before tomorrow. so you're right, in the absence of some major revelation from one of the few senate republicans who are still undecided on this point, we are unlikely to see a senate republican vote in favor of witness testimony. that vote will be very narrow. >> o'donnell: senator schumer of course democratic leader talking about there might be some other options for democrats to try to force some movement on witnesses or force a vote by the chief justice? what is their strategy? >> reporter: so, normally when a vote ends up tied in the senate as it looks like this one could

end up tomorrow. three republicans voting yes on witnesses all the other republicans voting no, you'd end up amazingly with a 50-50 tie. typically in the senate when that happens the vice president breaks the tie. but not when you're in the middle of impeachment proceedings. in that case, the motion, if it's a tie, fails. unless the chief justice himself decides to step in and cast the tie-breaking vote. i can tell from you talking to a number of democratic senators today, they don't believe that he's going to do that, republicans don't either. they don't think he would put his thumb on the scale in that way. they think that the motion would end up failing. but there's a possibility he could step in then democrats could offer motions after that vote but still they think give them a shot at trying to get more documents, trying to get more witnesses. but the reality is that the only sure fire way for them to do that is find a fourth republican

who supports calling witnesses to testify. right now that fourth republican is illusive. >> o'donnell: nancy, as always, thank you so. ben tracy is at the white house, ben, it seems like just yesterday or the day before the white house was reportedly a defcon 2 concerned about witnesses, whether are they today? >> we can tell you the alert level has been lowered a bit here at the white house. they are no longer on defcon 2, there is now cautious optimism that they're going to get through this without having witnesses and perhaps getting an acquittal by the end of the weekend that's what people here at the white house are focused on. they are not going too far into this thing that we think we have this in the bag. but i can tell you there is already talk here among some senior aides about whether or not there will be some democrats that would vote to acquit looking at people like doug jones in alabama. or joe manchin in west virginia. that is the thought process here, that is a big change from

48 hours ago when there was panic setting in when mitch mcconnell announced, i don't have the votes to block the witnesses. but the white house has been in very close contact with the majority leader, they have largely left this in his hands, saying he will figure out way to do the arm twisting we're told president not getting on the phone and calling people like susan collins. because they feel arm twisting like that might actually backfire. >> o'donnell: all right, ben tracy at the white house. bring in our panel, john dickerson, and "60 minutes" correspondent, margaret brennan, moderator of "face the nation." robby mook who managed hillary clinton's presidential campaign and political analyst, reince prebusiness who was president trump's first chief of staff. welcome august. the last ditch effort by the ten nvld extend this trial, this inquiry into the president.

>> one of the key debates, wdoee election. president lawyers have said, let the voters decide. house managers said, no, what is at issue is the safety and durability of the election. and at some point they are going to have to make their last case on witnesses and say, you must do the fair thing. then start trying to shape the field for the election. which is to say what does this mean about, if they're not going to be able to win in impeachment, what then does all the information you've heard mean with respect to donald trump reelection. >> o'donnell: the house may row open its investigation. >> they left that door wide open, chairman schiff has similar things including the house may look to subpoena john bolton if the senate does not. i thought it was interesting to hear from jerry nadler on the floor, go back to where we started this with those questions from senators collins and murkowski about, what if essentially corrupt overlaps with other intentions, how do you pick and choose, he was arguing, well, you can't. if there some one is corrupt the

other. another thing i'd point out that as we sit here, i don't think that it is a mistake that this senate trial dovetails with the arrival of the secretary of state in ukraine, just now. secretary of state, mike pompeoe president, this has been rescheduled a few times. his message that the u.s. stands strongly besides ukraine agains. iserting t was rescheduled for today of all days. and another round of visit for him tomorrow. >> o'donnell: with what intent of rescheduling? >> secretary much state has said that this is just happening right now because it had been rescheduled previously. >> o'donnell: the aid is released. our relationship is -- >> exactly. >> o'donnell: no harm no foul. >> i am going to silt across from the president of ukraine. meanwhile there's still no u.s. ambassador to ukraine, no envoy working on the conflict and questions that have been injected into all of this that are being debated in the senate in terms of throwing into

question, u.s. support for ukraine against russia. so secretary pompeo ask kind of intention nally or not trying to send the message that no harm no foul. >> o'donnell: you have run the republican national committee president trump chief of staff, you've been in the room where many things happened in the past, not necessarily nefarious, decisions made. you heard chairman schiff say, if the senate does not move to remove the president from office that they don't move to call witnesses, this is normalization of lawlessness, that the president will continue this behavior. >> well, the problem here is that the evidence that the democrats put together, it doesn't stack up. i'm also an attorney, been an attorney for 2 years. a lot of times cases are bungled at the investigation level. the democrats didn't subpoena any witnesses, they didn't

they both sides have really smart lawyers that don't agree with each other on almost any point. and i think that when you want to yank a president out of the white house and remove that person from the ballot, you better have every single thing tied down and have overwhelming bipartisan support. so far we've had bipartisan support for not agreeing to impeachment. my guess is that we're going to have bipartisan support for an acquittal in the senate. r that point,. >> o'donnell: we put up the three senators there who could vote with republicans for acquittal. that would allow the white house to say, this was a bipartisan acquittal. is that the worst nightmare for democrats? >> well, short term, look, i'm sure the president is not only going to say this is bipartisan he's going to say it was overwhelming reprieve, i've never done anything wrong, they tried to come after me, i never did anything, it was a hoax.

look, long term, you were talking about the election. i don't think this is going to be a big part of the election. i think the election is going to be litigated over economic reality, over big questions like leadership, commander in chief, so on and so forth. my guess is ironically, it's the president who is going to wanted to fixate on this when it's done. and actually not the democrats. i think the democrats are going to want to move on. >> o'donnell: if joe biden is standing on that debate stage, you don't think some of these allegations about hunter biden are going come out? >> i think the president will want to talk about this plenty. democrats will want to move on and talk about people's economic reality. has the country gotten better. do you want this man's finger on the button. >> gee, we wastethpont stuff. if that is their argument for the fall, they're basically spaying, we spent all this time. they're helping the presidenn impeachment, we heard eric

herschmann make the case, we could be dealing with the business of the country. >> o'donnell: let me bring inane she cordes she is on capitol hill has spoken with senators jones and senator manchin, where do you get the y're leading? >> well, both senators who i spoke to today and yesterday are very worked up about this idea of witnesses. they say that it is very important to them to hear from john bolton, joe manchin would be happy to hear from hunter biden which makes him sort of a lone crusader in his caucus. but they both said that the decision and the vote on witnesses will have an impact on their final vote about whether to remove or acquit the president. jones in particular said the fact that the president is working so hard to prevent these witnesses from testifying is a signal of his guilt. under article 2 obstruction of

congress. and so i do think that these two votes, one about witnesses and one about acquittal or removal are linked in the minds of these two senators. kristen sinema of arizona, she did support witnesses on the front end of this trial, whether she will vote to remove or -- at the end of the day remains to be seen. >> o'donnell: we should note -- thank you, nancy. on the hill, foo, we should note we're days away from the iowa caucuses, of course then on february 3rd president's state of the union on february 4th. and many americans who live in battleground states have already received absentee ballots the voting is in some ways already underway, which bolsters the white house argument, look, you're trying to interfere in an election already that is going to -- let the voters make the decision about how this ultimately, that's one of their strongest arguments ultimately.

people's decision. >> let us not forget the whole reason we're in this situation because president was trying to interfere in the election. he was trying to get research on his opponent. and obviously we heard his comments early in the year, it's perfectly fine if foreign pleaders are intervene ink our reflexes. there's a rich irony there. i think the president, gosh, if this thing over before that state of the union, he is going to go out there, it's all going to be trump reprieve, i'm the greatest, strongest person in the world. >> o'donnell: the president today in michigan, a state that he won by, i know you know every vote, one of the votes that of course 10,704 votes this is his fifth visit to the state of michigan. the president a charging ahead in his re-election effort. >> in my view, the problem democrats have is the president is going to come out of here with an acquittal. he's going to get it. and unfortunately for the democrats or fortunately for us, the people out there in michigan

and wisconsin, iowa, they're not really paying attention to this. i think it was david axelrod that said he went to a democrat-focus group, first 80 minutes impeachment didn't even come up. so i think that the only i think casualty here is going to be joe biden. because ultimately the president is going to come out of this, his approval rating is going up. you have now joe biden if he doesn't win iowa, is going to have a problem in new hampshire, going to have a problem in nevada and the democrats are going to be on their way to potentially a contested convention. >> john bolton is the other casualty. his reputation has been melted by his former republican friends. when his book comes out it will be the last piece of business for the president's defenders to basically bury him so that this doesn't come up again. >> the white house is trying to block that. >> that is one of the shoes you were talking about yet to drop. >> what happens when -- after leaving the house usually

there's don't come outed of that too well off. >> o'donnell: this is john made argument yesterday there's closet with a bunch of shoes in it that the bolton book one of the potential shoes that could fall, that is what is the danger for some republicans they vote to acquit the president, that something else comes. that's difficult to predict. >> sure. >> he is an exciting president. he does provide opportunity. >> but that's why the power of what is in the record that was created by schiff in the record is very thin. >> o'donnell: no doubt the continued focus on the president and his actions as commander in chief will continue. our coverage will continue on our 24 hour streaming network, cbsn, watch at cbsnews.com or our cbs news app. mon your local news on this cbs station of course we'll have a full wrap up for you on the cbs evening news, plus the breaking

news about the world health organization declaring the corona virus an emergency. this has been cbs special report i'm norah o'donnell, cbs news, washington. >> ridge: quinn. if you're here about the fashion showdown, i'm not sure i got an answer for you, which-- >> quinn: i am not here to talk about work. i wanna talk about your precious logan. >> eric: i spoke to quinn. >> brooke: and? >> eric: she knows how much you and ridge mean to me and how important it is for me that your marriage be supported. >> brooke: i bet she wasn't so thrilled to hear that. >> eric: no.