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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll start today with a piece of audio that was maybe the newest and most revealing thing that the House impeachment managers revealed in their opening arguments. This is from a police radio as the mob is storming the Capitol and the dispatcher and the Capitol Police on the scene are realizing that the mob has breached the police line and cannot be held back.

Officer: Cruiser 50. We lost the line. We've lost the line. All MPD, pull back. All MPD, pull back up to the upper deck. All MPD, pull back to the upper deck ASAP. All MPD, come back to the upper deck. Upper deck.

Brian Lehrer: Capitol Police audio release for the first time in the impeachment trial opening arguments. We'll get a take on the proceedings now from Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst, and host of a daily impeachment podcast called Third Degree. He's a former federal prosecutor and New Jersey state prosecutor. Hi Elie, thanks a lot for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Elie Honig: So glad to be on with you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: We'll play some sound bites that you highlighted from yesterday in your podcast, but what were you feeling when you heard the panic in that officer's voice saying we lost the line.

Elie Honig: I have to tell you, Brian, listening to that clip and viewing a lot of the new evidence from yesterday, I was torn in two respects. On the one hand, I was thinking, well, all of this is stuff that we kind of knew already. We knew that the officers were under heavy attack. We knew that they were out there. We knew they were in an incredibly dangerous situation, and we knew that Members of Congress and their staffs were in danger. Intellectually, to me, it was like, well, there's nothing really new here, but boy, the emotional, the visceral reaction was remarkable.

To hear that recording that you just played really drives it home and that matters. That matters whether you're doing a criminal prosecution at a trial like I used to do, when you're doing an impeachment trial. No, it's not a criminal trial, there's a lot of important differences, but you have to appeal to your audience, and here the audience is, I guess technically, the Senate, but really the American public, and watching those videos yesterday, watching just how close the mob came to Mitt Romney, to the vice-president, to other Members of Congress, getting to see and hear what those police officers experienced firsthand was really to me extraordinarily compelling.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, to the point that Elie was just making, any reactions to or any questions about the impeachment proceedings so far or those to come, in light of the fact that you probably know the basic outlines of this story already, 646-435-7280. I'm curious listeners, are you focused on this impeachment in the same way that you might've been on the abuse of power Ukraine impeachment last year? Is everybody just viewing this from their usual corners or is anyone coming away differently moved after day one, or anything you want to say or ask Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst and host of the impeachment podcast Third Degree, 646-435-7280.

Kind of the overarching question is being that you probably know or think you know the basic outlines of what happened on January 6th and Donald Trump's behavior during and leading up to it, what are you watching for? How is this striking you? How much are you paying attention? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Elie, you made clear in your podcast how impressive you thought day one of the impeachment managers' presentation one was overall. "A clinic for law students on how advocacy works," you said. Do you want to give us the basics of why you were so impressed?

Elie Honig: Yes, a clinic, not just for law students but any student or really even anyone in any profession. The presentation that we saw yesterday was a couple of things. It was focused, it was clear, and it was concise. I watched all day and look, I tend to be fairly critical of these kinds of things. I did it for a living as a prosecutor, I guess I do it now for a living in the media. I never once found myself thinking, wait, what's the point of this? What's this representative talking about? Why is this relevant? At all moments, you knew exactly what they were saying and why it fit into the bigger picture. That was one aspect of it.

Another aspect, I thought they expertly blended the speaking aspect, the standing behind the lectern aspect, with the visual aspect. With the way that they presented the visual evidence and they blended it in, it made it more interesting, more engaging, really more easy to understand and to follow. I'll give you a couple of examples. There were several times where they put timelines up on the screen and they would say, "While Donald Trump was tweeting this, here's what was happening in the Capitol," and you got to see them side by side, and it helped to make connections in the viewer's head.

Also, they had these graphics where they were showing these horrible scenes happening inside the Capitol, and they had a map of the inside of the Capitol building with a red dot where that video was happening. You could go, "Oh my goodness, that was two steps away from the Senate Chamber." I thought that was really impressive.

The last thing is, I think they struck just the right balance between the intellectual appeal, making a cogent, coherent, logical argument, but not in a robotic way. There's a fine line to me between being passionate and injecting some of your own self into what you're doing and becoming self-indulgent. I think that they hit that balance perfectly. A lot of them had little personal anecdotes about what they went through that day, or sometimes they mentioned a family member or some emotional thing, but it did not swamp the substance. I think if anything, it enhanced the substance. All of those are things I try to teach my students and I think we all can learn from in the presentation aspect.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Here's a clip you use from Congressman Jamie Raskin's presentation to show the use of metaphor.

Jamie Raskin: This case is much worse than someone who falsely shouts fire in a crowded theater. It's more like a case where the town fire chief, who's paid to put out fires, sends a mob, not to yell fire in a crowded theater, but to actually set the theater on fire.

Brian Lehrer: So, fire in a crowded theater, taking that metaphor to another level?

Elie Honig: Yes, I think it's actually a better use of the metaphor. Look, metaphors can be useful, but that one about yelling fire in a crowded theater becomes sort of this catch all for just anything first amendmenty, but it's really not an adequate way to describe what happened here. I think Jamie Raskin took that metaphor and he didn't over-exaggerate it. As you're listening to him spin his own thing about setting fire and going home and watching on TV, you're thinking, yes, that is applicable here. You have to be careful when you're doing that kind of thing, but it really worked. I think it really made this whole case, or at least the House impeachment managers' case, more understandable to the viewer.

Brian Lehrer: As you described it in your podcast, they laid out three main arguments. One of them was, it could have been much worse than it was. That is a perfect example I think of something that most people know, but one of the other things that was new along those lines was video of how close the angry mob came to Mitt Romney in particular, who they would likely have recognized and may well have been interested in harming or even killing. Big new moment?

Elie Honig: I thought it was, I really did. Look, you can see on that video, you see Romney, he's walking, you can see the crowd in the background of the video and officer Eugene Goodman, who's now become, rightly become I think an American hero, I don't care what your politics are, runs past, spins Romney around, and you see Romney run. He takes off for a guy of his age. He moves pretty good, but I mean you can see it. Mitt Romney was, I don't know 20, 50 steps away from that crowd. It's really terrifying when you think about it.

I think an interesting question is what would have happened? Would it have changed things? Would it have changed Donald Trump's outcome in this impeachment trial if, God forbid, the rioters had gotten their hands on, let's say, Mitt Romney or any elected official and done harm to them. Would that have changed things? I don't know. I've actually heard a difference of opinion. I think it would. I think if they ended up killing, God forbid, a Mitt Romney or anybody who was close to the mob, I don't see how Donald Trump survives. I know he has survived many, many things politically, but to me, that would be too much to bear, but not everyone agrees with that.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Congressman Eric Swalwell, one of the impeachment managers reinforcing that.

Eric Swalwell: As you were moving through that hallway, I paced it off. You were just 58 steps away from where the mob was amassing.

Brian Lehrer: That's one argument. It could have been so much worse than it was. They're focusing on the big picture, not just about January 6th, that's your message number two as you understand what their three big points are. They're focusing on the big picture, not just about January 6th, message number two, and you pull this clip of Congressman and House impeachment manager, Joe Neguse.

Joe Neguse: His false claims about election fraud, that was the drum beat being used to inspire, instigate, and ignite them.

Brian Lehrer: You saw clips like that as an inoculation against an argument that the Trump defense will likely make?

Elie Honig: Yes, I do Brian. A couple things, first of all, I think it is absolutely in the interest of the House managers here to make sure people understand the bigger picture that as Representative Neguse said, this was not just something that arose spontaneously on January 6th and got out of control, this was months in the making in the planning.

Because here's what I think we're going to see when Donald Trump's lawyers get their shot, probably starting tomorrow. They're going to try to isolate and put in a vacuum, not just the January 6th rally, but each individual statement that was made at the rally. They're going to say, okay, so Donald Trump said, fight like hell, what's wrong with that? That's nothing more than free speech. Is it aggressive political rhetoric, sure, but I guarantee you, they're going to have a video of a dozen Democrats over the years saying, we need to fight, we need to fight for this, we need to fight hard for that.

What I think that the House impeachment managers were doing is preemptively saying, but it's different. It's different to stand in front of a group at a normal political rally where you don't have this months' worth of buildup, of fomenting a lie, of fomenting anger, of promoting and applauding violence that you had, that preceded the January 6th rally.

I think they're trying to say this is different. This is not the same as politician X of whatever party you want to say, standing up in front of a normal rally crowd and saying, "Let's fight for our right to, whatever. Let's fight for our right to privacy. Let's fight for our right to," pick your issue here. That's different than standing up in front of this crowd, given all the history behind Donald Trump's campaign really, to whip up and weaponize that crowd.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let's take some phone calls and then I want to throw at you, well, we'll also play a few more of the clips that you pulled to highlight from yesterday, but then I'm going to throw at you some arguments that I saw on conservative media last night making Trump's case against what the Democrats were producing yesterday and see what you think, but let's go first to Biba in Jersey City. Biba you're on WNYC with Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst and host of the podcast Third Degree. Hi, Biba.

Biba: Hello, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I know I've come after a while on your show. I've also been following this impeachment and you know, what really bothers me. I come from a military family, men in uniform and they lost a very courageous Capitol Police officer. Don't these congressmen and senators, isn't it an insult when they've lost somebody and those officers that showed so much courage, the one who defended Mitt Romney, for their sake, why are they opposing this impeachment?

That's American people, people who gave their lives, these offices. They were ready to give their lives for these senators and congressmen. This is what is troubling, that even after they lost that officer who died, even then, these congressmen and senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, they went and they protested about the Electoral College votes. It shows that they do support Trump despite all this, that they didn't think he did anything wrong. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Or they think so but they won't say so. Biba thank you for all of that. Elie, to one of Biba's points specifically, because she brings up Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. The third point that you framed that they were trying to make yesterday is that they argued that Trump demanded complete loyalty or would pressure you in various ways. You cite this clip of Congressman and House impeachment manager, Ted Lou, speaking in effect to Republicans in the Senate.

Ted Lou: Let me be very clear. The president wasn't just coming for one or two people or Democrats like me, he was coming for you, for Democratic and Republican senators. He was coming for all of us.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about that, Elie.

Elie Honig: One interesting thing I think the Democrats did yesterday that was really enlightening was they showed this pattern that Donald Trump has had, to an extent throughout his presidency, but they really focused on the summer of 2020 when it became clear that he was not on a good path for the election, when he started to come to grips with this idea that he was possibly going to lose that election. Essentially, what he did was turn to everybody who he had any interaction with and essentially make clear to them, I expect you not only to be loyal to me, but to maximize and perhaps exceed your legal authority to do whatever you can to make sure I win this election.

If anybody said, I'm not willing to go that far, he immediately turned on them, cast them out or worse. Everybody from his own Department of Justice, Bill Barr had been endlessly loyal to Donald Trump, but when Bill Barr finally got pushed to a point where he said, I'm not willing to go quite that far, that relationship completely collapsed. Obviously, Donald Trump has never been shy about picking fights with Democrats, but he also did it to Republicans. He did it to local officials. We all heard the tape where Donald Trump tried to lean on the Georgia Secretary of State, just a humble state level official, and the president of the United States is turning on him.

Then, ultimately, he did it to Members of Congress, Republican Members of Congress who he deemed not sufficiently helpful to his cause, whether it was Ben Sasse or Mitt Romney, all the way up to and including ultimately, his own vice-president. He turned on Mike Pence in those final days, including while the riot was going on, it really endangered Mike Pence. I think when you step back and you say, yes, this is all part of his obsession and his willingness to do anything to try to stop himself from losing power.

Brian Lehrer: Josh in Mawa, you're on WNYC. Hi Josh.

Josh: Hi. Thank you. I couldn't have- the tee up was amazing. I think the point I would make is that the House managers have cleverly made this all about power. What a president does with his power or doesn't do with his power, because the Republicans to date, McConnell and so forth, don't seem really to be all that concerned with democracy. They've been willing to blow through every norm with respect to democracy. This whole piece comes down to what the president did with power when he had the opportunity or didn't. I think it's a very well-played case in that respect.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Josh. All right. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, I'm going to play a clip of a House impeachment manager, who I think is going to emerge as a star from this without much of a national profile before, Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, who by way of Brooklyn has come to represent the Virgin Islands in the US House of Representatives. Did you even know there was a congressperson from the Virgin Islands? We're going to play a Stacey Plaskett clip and talk a little bit about her with Elie Honig, we'll take more of your calls, and we will anticipate some of what they're going to hear from the Republicans and how the Democrats might respond, and how this all may or may not change anything. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst, host of a daily impeachment podcast for the duration of this process called Third Degree. He's a former federal prosecutor and New Jersey state prosecutor. He'll have a book coming out in the summer, by the way, he mentioned Bill Barr a minute ago. It's called Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department. Elie, come back when the book is out and we'll dig into that. Here are a couple of tweets that are coming in from listeners. One says, "Hearing that the protest route was extended to the Capitol by Trump's people convinced me of his ultimate intentions." Were you aware of that fact?

Elie Honig: I was not aware of that specific detail. He does say during the protest, we're going to walk down the Capitol. He even at one point says we can take this street or we can go this way. I like this way. Anyone who knows DC knows you can see it, it's an eye shot, but no, that was interesting. Another related detail that came out yesterday was that they changed the date that people around Trump, not necessarily Trump himself, but there was an effort to change the date that this rally was originally scheduled for after the inauguration date, I think January 22nd or 23rd, and they moved it up to January 6th.

By the way, that's important for people to understand. January 6th isn't a random day, it's not just happened to be some Wednesday in January. That is the lead by federal law, that is the date on which Congress counts the electoral votes. That's why this was all key to that. I think that's an important fact for the House managers' presentation.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener tweets, "Read that Josh Hawley chose not to watch the presentation yesterday. Why was he allowed to do that? Shouldn't every Senator have been required to hear evidence about the insurrection? Were other senators not in attendance?" Again, can you check that fact? Was he not in attendance? I know I heard something about him being really cache. Was he not even there?

Elie Honig: Well, I believe what you said is right, Brian, from what I understood from the reporting. He was physically there, but he was sifting through papers and not wrapped with attention. That's what I've seen.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let me play a clip of Congresswoman and House impeachment manager, Stacey Plaskett. She is from Brooklyn originally. She represents the US Virgin Islands, and she talks here about truth.

Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett: Truth is usually seen and rarely heard, truth is truth whether denied or not. The truth is President Trump had spent months calling his supporters to a march on a specific day, at a specific time, in specific places, to stop the certification.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about that clip and if you've been paying attention to her, talk about Stacey Plaskett. Help introduce us to this Member of Congress who's making a great impression.

Elie Honig: She is. She's such an interesting person with an interesting background. The thing that jumped out to me is that she was a Bronx Assistant District Attorney. I don't know how many people, what a leap, right, from being a Bronx ADA to being a United States congressperson representing the Virgin Islands. I tend to be partial towards, forget about politics or partisanship, former prosecutors, I always root for. I think you could see that she was a former prosecutor in the way she presented the case.

By the way I think people think, "Oh, prosecutors or former prosecutors, they must be super tough and angry and aggressive." No, the good ones are exactly what we saw from Representative Plaskett, which is measured and direct, and forceful when necessary. I thought her presentation was fascinating. I think the point she made there is such a basic one and such an important one which is, to say truth is truth, is self-evident, but she made the point and I think it was key to this specific case that seeing it is more powerful than hearing about it.

Because they have the luxury, the House managers, of the fact that virtually the entire case they need to make is on tape. The president's own words. There's no secret backroom conversations that Donald Trump had that are part of this impeachment trial. They may have occurred, but we don't know about them. Everything that they're using against Donald Trump is something he said on camera or he tweeted out.

What happened in the Capitol, it's all on, not all, but enough of it is on video that we understand just how horrible it was. That makes for a much more powerful case presentation, for example than having to call a witness who says, well, I had a secret conversation where I overheard Donald Trump saying XYZ. Then you get into sort of your areas of argument, but when it's on tape, it should be straightforward and I think that's what she's trying to say.

Brian Lehrer: For people who didn't know that there is a representative from the Virgin Islands, do they get a vote?

Elie Honig: I think not. I believe they're non-vote, the same way I know for example, Washington DC has had, I think they're technically called delegates. I heard her referred to as a delegate yesterday, Eleanor Holmes Norton is the long-time Washington DC Representative who is non-voting.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and that one, of course, is crazy and source of much debate, that's why people, one of the reasons people want to make Washington DC a state, so it's elected Member or Members of Congress can actually vote and represent their constituents. Maybe someday someone will make that case about Representatives from the Virgin Islands and other US territories or possessions or whatever the exact right word is there.

I will say that we're going to try to get her on the show. Representative or Delegate Plaskett may represent the Virgin Islands today, but Brooklyn wants you back. The Bronx wants you back at least for a conversation on your New York radio station. Okay. Let's go to another call. Vicky in Tudor City, you're on WNYC. Hi Vicky.

Vicky: Oh, good morning. The two things I want to say are, first of all, when I see the mob enter the Capitol and all of the violence that's taking place, I'm literally each time moved to tears. This is my country. I can't believe these people are doing this in those places, those hallowed halls. Secondly, there were reports in the newspapers, the local newspapers to DC, that there were arrests for people who had guns without permits or people who shouldn't be carrying guns.

That's just part of this miraculous luck that these guns didn't enter the Capitol because these people could have all been the victims of a mass shooting. They wouldn't have the ability to not vote for impeachment. They'd be dead, they'd all be dead like in a mass shooting. It galls me that they can still stand for this president who nearly had them killed.

Brian Lehrer: Vicky, thank you very much. Similar to her, maybe tweet from a listener coming in, says, "I know all this but I've watched for confirmation." You think that's what a lot of people are doing one way or another?

Elie Honig: It could be. Look, I think a lot of people come into this seeing it one way or another, and a couple of callers have now raised this point about how could anyone stand for this? How can anyone stand for this? I think here's what we're going to hear from Trump's lawyers when they take over tomorrow. They're going to get up very much on their high horses and say, we agree what happened in the Capitol was an offense. It was a desecration of our sacred institution and it was horrible.

What they're going to argue is you can't pin that on Donald Trump. They're going to argue and I think the evidence largely belies this, but they're going to argue it's not his fault, essentially. He did not foresee this happening. He did not want this to happen and that's where his conduct during and after the rally I think really contradicts that. Nobody's going to get up-- It would be a completely self-destructive approach to get up and say, "Oh, it's not so bad. What's everyone's so worried about what happened in the Capitol?" They're going to lean into that the other way. They're going to say we agree, it's horrible. It's a nightmare, but you can't put it on Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: You lead me right into some of the pro-Trump analysis that I saw from some of the guests on Fox yesterday. Let me throw three of their main arguments at you. Number one is the House managers are trying to make a case that Trump is guilty of incitement, not because he ever explicitly asked anyone to break into the Capitol, but because some of those people interpreted him that way. He's not responsible for their interpretation of him using political language. What do you think about?

Elie Honig: Yes, that will be, I believe, impeachment defense 1a from Trump's lawyers. Okay, first of all, a person does not have to stand up at a podium and say, "I hereby incite you to insurrection," in order to incite insurrection. We are allowed, we as the American public, we as whether it's a jury in a criminal case or we as a our representatives in Congress who will be deciding this case. It is okay to use common sense and this is why the Democrats have been focusing on the big picture.

They talk about all the coded language, over the years, all the times with Donald Trump gave a little wink and a nod to violence being perpetrated on his behalf, on Donald Trump's effort to whip this crowd, essentially, into a frenzy, to call them there specifically on the date the votes are being counted, and then to set them off.

Also, let's remember, this isn't the same as standing in front of any crowd. This is a crowd that had just heard Rudy Giuliani get behind the mic and shriek trial by combat. This crowd had just heard representative Mo Brooks say it's time to kick and take names. Also, the crowd itself was a crowd that was, as the caller just said, was armed. A lot of them had zip ties, stun guns. This was a crowd that had, we now know, many or several people who were part of these extremist groups, Proud Boys and others. The crowd was waving Confederate flags. There was people in the crowd wearing anti-Semitic clothing, referencing the Holocaust and Auschwitz and that kind of thing.

This is not going to give an address at the local YMCA. I think that's going to be the fundamental conflict here. Democrats are going to say it was obvious what he meant. Donald Trump knew his followers understood his language and he knew that they would do exactly what they ended up doing, and the response is going to be, but he never said anything that bad explicitly and they got out of control and went beyond what he could have foreseen.

Brian Lehrer: Another argument they made, the charge of course is incitement of insurrection. They said insurrection would be an inappropriate word for what happened at the Capitol, therefore, an inappropriate charge against Trump. It was a criminal riot, but an insurrection is more of an organized attempt, like with an army, of overthrowing a government, broadly paraphrasing this argument that I heard from one of the pro-Trump lawyers. Insurrection, no, your reaction.

Elie Honig: That's an interesting one. I hadn't heard that one yet. That's creative. I'm not buying that because look at the timing. Again, as I said before, January 6th was not a date they chose because the weather was going to be nice in Washington DC. They chose January 6th because that is the statutory date, the legal date on which the votes are counted. They even timed the rally itself to the actual counting of the votes.

Look, you see people going into that building going where-- they're looking for the ballots, they're looking for representatives. No, this is not the same as if he had incited or if he went, let's use another Washington DC example. If the the Wizard, the basketball team, was playing and he incited a riot there. No, this is politics-specific, this is Congress-specific, this is counting of the electoral votes, which is the final step in the transfer of power-specific.

Brian Lehrer: Their argument number three, and there may be others, but these are the ones that jumped out at me in this one Fox segment that I saw with a couple of lawyers making Trump's case. Number three, when the Democrats argue that Trump didn't do much to restrain the rioters once the break-in began and therefore he's guilty of incitement, "Well, that might be negligence," one of them said, "But negligence is not incitement." Your reaction.

Elie Honig: Two things. First of all, I would argue the president has more of a duty than an average person. The president takes an oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed to uphold the constitution. If you see the constitution being trampled on and people interfering with this core constitutional function, then it's not okay as a president to say, "I don't have an affirmative duty to do anything. I'm just going to let it be." That is impeachable. We could argue about whether that's criminal, but that sure as heck is impeachable.

The second thing is the real or another relevant aspect of his reaction after the fact is that it sheds light on what his intent was all along. Because all the evidence I've seen shows that Donald Trump was anywhere between indifferent at best and gleeful at worst for him about what had happened. I've not seen a single piece of evidence suggesting that in the immediate aftermath of this attack, he was horrified or upset about what had happened.

Look at his tweet, and I've said this several times, to me, the most compelling single piece of evidence in this case about what Donald Trump meant and intended and wanted was the tweet that he sent at 6:01 PM that day, a couple of hours after the insurrection had ended, the riot had ended, where he calls the people who had just done that, who had just torn the Capitol apart with death resulting, he called them great patriots. He said, "Remember this day forever." Does that sound like somebody who's horrified or upset or offended by what they saw, or does that sound like somebody who's quite pleased at what he just saw?

I think it's obviously the latter. To me, that shows that this is what he hoped they would do, this is what he wanted them to do, and this is what he intended them to do.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. You said in your podcast today that if yesterday wasn't a game-changer, you don't know what would be.

Elie Honig: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that's a form of prosecutor's view when in the political context, in which this is actually happening, nothing would be a game-changer and nothing will.

Elie Honig: Yes, that's it 100%. That's exactly how I followed that comment. I am constantly having to divorce myself from my prosecutorial instinct where when you're trying a case as a prosecutor, your jury is 12 civilians and they know nothing about this case and they've been vetted to an extent permitted by our jury selection process for impartiality. If there's any potential partiality, I've seen people get thrown off juries because, "Oh, my uncle's a cop. I tend to lean towards cops." You're out. This is not that. This is 100 jurors, all of whom are explicitly partisan. Every one of whom has a D or an R next to his or her name. It's a different being altogether.

I understand that ultimately, politics and any individual senator's political fortunes will rule the day. I do wonder though, if we get to a point, especially for some of those who may still be on the fence, where it becomes more politically advantageous, even for Republicans to say, "No, I'm just done with this. I'm out. I'm not okay with what Trump did," as opposed to having his back. Everyone, obviously, depending on what state they're from and what their own ideology is, is making different determinations along those lines.

Brian Lehrer: Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst and host of a daily impeachment podcast while this goes on called Third Degree, former federal prosecutor, and New Jersey state prosecutor. He'll have a book coming out this summer about William Barr called Hatchet Man. Elie, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Elie Honig: Thanks, Brian. Had a good time with you.

 

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