i don't know what's going on with them but it should have been left alone. i was the democrat i would have left it alone but they couldn't resist. let's go more of your calls coming up tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time on the "washington journal." right now we will bring you it to the house managers news conference that they held after the vote to acquit was taking place 57-43. [inaudible conversations] >> hello everyone. i want to start by thanking the american people for engaging so seriously with this process.

and i want to thank the members of the senate and i want to thank the members of the house and i want to thank the terrific members of the house impeachment managers team. trump stormed our house with -- and we defended our house and he violated our constitution and we defended the constitution and they tried to trash our democracy and we revived it and we protected it. this was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in the history of the united states and we know that impeachment for reasons that we could explore at some other time off other time often becomes partisan but this was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment event in the history of the country. it was also the largest senate votes for a presidential impeachment, 57-43 and of course

the vote to impeach was 230 2-1 hundred 97 in the house so we have a clear and convincing majority of members of congress that the president actually incited violence insurrection against the union and against the congress. senator mitch mcconnell went to the floor essentially to say that we made our case on the facts, that he believed donald trump was practically and morally responsible for inciting the events of january 6. he described it as a disgraceful dereliction of duty, the desertion of his office and he made a series of statements that we didn't even make it, saying that this was not over yet by a long shot essentially and that there was the path of criminal prosecution for the former

president the disgraced and now twice impeached former president. so, the bottom line is that we convinced a big majority in the senate of our case. i am very proud of the exceptional hard work of these managers who worked through the night, many nights over several weeks to make this case to the senate and to the union. i just want to say one word about the whole thing about witnesses. we were able to get live under a test made the statement of our colleague congresswoman jamie herrera-beutler and get a stipulation in given into evidence today by asking for her as a witness. if you listen to mitch mcconnell and the republicans who are now hurriedly explaining

why they voted not to convict, all of them are hinging it on a legal argument, jurisdictional or some other legal argument that could never be overcome by any number of witnesses. we could have had 5000 witnesses and mitch mcconnell would be making the same speech because what he is asserting is that the senate never has jurisdiction over former president and for reasons i don't need to belabor because a big part of the trial was about this, we reject that completely. it's totally at odds with their history. the black case the belknap case the constitution original intent of the constitution the original understanding of the constitution in setting precedence and so on but in any event the point is that no number of witnesses demonstrating that donald trump continue to incite the insurrectionist even after the invasion of the capitol would condense them. they wouldn't be convinced.

they were hinging it on a matter of law which we thought we had settled back on tuesday of course when the senate elected to exercise jurisdiction and to reject that jurisdictional constitutional argument. but it is what it is great mitch mcconnell clearly feels that donald trump remains a huge problem for the republican party even if he's been disgraced and lies of the country and that is not my jurisdiction and i don't have anything to say about that. i think they will have to deal with the political dynamics within their own party. so, we did get, we did get donald trump to admit he is a former president now so that's good news. he's not asserting that somehow he is still president and they are recognizing in a de facto sense the legitimacy of this presidential election which of course president biden won by more than 7 million votes in by a margin of 306-232, 306-232 in

the electoral college. with that i will close my remarks and questions are open for any of us and i will share the podium with my distinguished colleagues. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> does somebody else want to take a shot at back? i thought i addressed that the does anybody else want to? >> we heard from the minority leader, mitch mcconnell, that we have proven the case. he said specifically the house managers have proven the facts of the case and before we

started yesterday, we knew when we rested we rested with overwhelming evidence as to the facts of this case. these jurors for this is to the crime. they knew specifically what was happening and then there were you know, we found additional information about herrera-beutler which we yesterday evening, we decided that we were going to go after her and we got it. we got that information. to further amplify what we had already proven they are in court. there is no other additional witnesses. we were -- were friendly to us but not there on the street. the body cameras of the capitol police officers. how much more resonance with that have given to them than the actual seeing it the day of the insurrection? individuals that others we would have liked to call like the president who we invited is in

fact the defendant and does not have to testify. other individuals who may have been there with the president were not friendly witness to us and would have required subpoenas and months of litigation. they are still litigating mcghan in impeachment one a year later and so we believe we have shown this president is a disgrace to our country. mitch mcconnell himself said that. we senators have decided to hang our hats on jurisdictional grounds which are not raised on evidence, which are not a stone the fact and they will have to be judged for that. we have done our duty for the american people. >> let me introduced speaker pelosi and i will come to you next. >> it had not been my intention to come to this press availability however tempting it

would be to sing the praises of our house managers. on behalf of not only of the house of representatives, on behalf of the american people and i have to save personally on behalf of my grandchildren you give great hope and inspiration from each and every one of you. i could not be prouder of your patriotic presentations, the clarity in which you presented and again the inspiration that you have been to so many people. so i thank you for that. it reminds me that when we recruit candidates to run for office and when we see them self precluding we always say well i could be the president of my university or the head of my department or are this or that so i have to think about whether i will run for congress. we always say we don't want anybody without options. that is why we are looking for

you to run, because you have options. that should be a reason for you not to run. so what we saw in that senate today was a cowardly group of republicans who apparently have no options because they were afraid to defend their jobs, respect the institution in which they serve. imagine that it would be vandalized in so many bad ways i won't even go into it here and that they would not respect that. that's the president of the senate. hang mike pence was the chant and they just dismiss that. why? because maybe they can't get another job. what is so important about any one of us? what is so important that the political survival of any one of

us, that is more important than our constitution that we take an oath to protect and defend? but wyatt came over was because of mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell, who in this distinguished group of house managers were gathered on january 15 to deliver the articles of impeachment, and were told could not be received because mitch mcconnell had shut down the senate. and he was going to keep it shut down until the inauguration. so for him to get up there and make this indictment against the president and then say i can't vote for it because it's after-the-fact. the fact that he established, the fact that he established that it could not be delivered before the inauguration and now

when you think about january 6, between january 6 and january 20 you are only talking about just under two weeks, a day under two weeks. so, the big lie, stop the steel, stop the steal was the momentum for getting these people there on the sixth. they honestly believed forward ever reason too much social media, whatever, watch social media of that movie, why they were thinking that was true that the election was not legitimate for whatever the reason the president told them. so that's the sixth and a week later we impeach in the house. thank you for those of you who participated right away jaime raskin ted liu and david cicilline. they had it written up and ready to go.

bipartisan late past the house and then two days later ready with the case to take to the senate. oh we can't receive it. so we receive it the next day. so for mitch mcconnell who created the situation where it could not have been heard before the 20th or even begun before the 20th in the senate today, all the things he said, oh my gosh about donald trump and how horrible he was and is and then say but, at the time the house chose to bring it over, no, we didn't choose, you chose not to receive it. i think that's really important and again it doesn't matter.

as jamie and others have told us, you can have it after a person is out of office so it's an elementary discussion. the senate rules in that way and president precedent on this so it didn't matter except it was not the reason that he voted the way he did. he was the excuse that he used. so that's why i think it's important because that's a very important speech. i thought chuck schumer's speech was remarkable in laying it all out. i think he was inspired by love you because you raise the level of all this that took place of patriotism and knowledge of our country, our history and what we owe our children. again we always say honoring the tradition of our founders, worthy of the sacrifice of the men and women in uniform and

expecting the aspiration of our children, they did all of that and the distinguished manager said earlier on this presidential weekend, our sense of patriotism is stirred and we are called upon in a stronger way. so i want to thank them. i want to thank the prosecutors thank you stacy thank you madeleine dean and joe neguse eric swalwell congresswoman to get congressman cicilline thank you ted lieu thank you joaquin castro and the manager on all of this. we couldn't be prouder. i've been hearing from my grandchildren who are very sad that it's done but by 15 votes the senate voted to convict the

bipartisan statement about what has happened. it would not at then so without that presentation so i thank you for that and i want to thank all of you as i leave madam speaker thank you for your comments and i was going to go next to scott. [inaudible] >> he's been hedged on that. remember when he talked about the president he said he didn't think this rose to the level. he was hedging all over the place. i don't know what it was for, donors or what but whatever it was it was a very disingenuous

speech and i say that regretfully because i always want to be able to work with the leadership of the other party. i think our country needs a strong republican party. it's very important for him to try to have it every which way but we will be going forward to make sure that this never happens again in terms of to investigate in evaluating what caused this both in terms of its motivation but also in terms of the majority that we have to have going forward recognizing how sought some of our officials can be. >> is there an option right now?

>> it lets everybody off the hook. it lets everybody off the hook. only cowardly senators who couldn't face up to what the president did and what was at stake for our country and now we have a chance for platform we don't send your people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the capitol. >> yes. [inaudible conversations] >> you know what, i don't want

to, we tried this case as aggressively as we could on the law and on the facts. we did everything that we could. we got from the president's lawyers exactly what we wanted which was the entering into the evidentiary record at the statement by our colleague congresswoman beutler. i was able to read it before the entire country and it became part of the case and it became an important part of our case. again we could have had 500 witnesses and it would not have overcome the kinds of arguments being made by mitch mcconnell and other republicans who were hanging their hats on the claim that it was somehow unconstitutional to try a former president or that the first amendment somehow gave him a right to incite violent insurrection against the union and they will have to live with those arguments that they made.

but we think that we overwhelmingly proved their case and i think mitch mcconnell showed that they knew we overwhelmingly proved our case and all that might have happened if we had bargained for 10 witnesses on our side and 10 witnesses on their site, the first person they said they wanted to bring up and to cross-examine his nancy pelosi. they would have turned the whole thing into a circus and we conducted it with salinity and legal seriousness and a quorum and you saw the conduct of the lawyers on the other side and you know what donald trump's track record is. we are going to allow them to turn it into a farce. [inaudible] the first time i saw the statement was yesterday. that statement was released

yesterday so you know what's interesting is the premise of this question is somehow that we failed to prove the facts of the case. i think in the eyes of the entire world in the country we overwhelmingly proved the facts of the case. senator mcconnell just conceded that. that wasn't the issue. you have to talk to the 43 senators who were basically saying no amount of facts would have made any difference to them because they didn't think the president was subject to the jurisdiction of the senate. that was the argument you just heard mitch mcconnell makes so forgive me for reacting strongly to that but that seems to me a completely bizarre conclusion to these events to say that somehow if we just had one more would witness mitch mcconnell would have come over to our side. yes.

[inaudible] i never spoke to anyone from the white house or to president biden or to the vice president and i made the call. if you want to blame somebody, you know yeah. well remember when you get into a situation like this look if we needed any witnesses to make our case then we would have gone all the way to get witnesses in a six-week trial or an eight week trial or whatever. we overwhelmingly proved our case. senator mcconnell the leader of the republican of the senate just conceded that. all of them are saying it. >> two things we had to do, right? we had to first have a motion for witnesses which we did when we were supposed to do it, which

was after the defense made their case. we made a motion to allow for witnesses and then after that we requested one witness. the republicans counsel for the president, the former president said he was going to bring 100 witnesses. we got the essence of what we wanted which was a statement of how this woman jamie herrera-beutler. i think what you are doing is making a lot out of it and dismissing the incredible evidence of habit, mayhem and what this president had done over at period of months to bring destruction to our democracy by talking about if you had two or three more witnesses what was going to happen. >> one thing i would add, remember there's a reason that the request for witnesses comes at the conclusion of the case. we had an opportunity to see the

former president's counsel and decided whether we needed to provide additional witnesses and don't forget our case was filled with dozens of witnesses presented by way of videos and statements and recordings and last night we learned about this new information and begot that testimony in the record before the jury without any risk associated with it. that's important to remember produces a congresswoman who repeats a telephone call between kevin mccarthy and the former president within which kevin mccarthy is pleading for help saying help us we are under attack to the president tried to blame another group and he said no mr. president these are your supporters and we are in danger here. he says well kevin maybe they care more about the election than you do. that came before the senate jury do the statement that mr. raskin red. we got the statement that we wanted.

>> the defendant president donald john trump was let off on a technicality and that's essentially what you heard mitch mcconnell say, that they let him off on what they perceive to be a procedural issue which was because of the constitutionality of the matter they couldn't proceed with substance. doctrinal interpretation both on the liberal side and the conservative side strongly disagrees with that assessment but they let him off on a technicality and you also heard mitch mcconnell go up there and say essentially that we overwhelmingly proved our case that substandard lee donald trump's guilty of inciting an insurrection. and i know for all of us it's been an honor to work and a solemn honor to work on this case and even though we didn't get 67 votes to suspend the most bipartisan vote for impeachment

and conviction ever, and we know that we spoke the truth on the senate floor. the american people by and large have agreed with us. one final remark, on all of this you know this episode from january 6 on has been very taxing on the american people. we ushered in a new era tanks things to donald trump of political violence, and so most of all my reaction to the decision of the majority of republican senators not to convict donald trump despite the overwhelming evidence is not only sadness but also apprehension for the nation because as i said during my remarks the defense counsel's main argument is that there is nothing wrong with what donald trump did and he could do it all over again, and as a nation we

just have to hope that isn't the case. >> already think we are going to close it up. i just want to remind everybody that this was the most bipartisan impeachment in the history of united states. it was the largest of vote in the u.s. senate, ever, to convict a president who has been impeached and it was the most bipartisan conviction vote in the senate that we have ever seen in a case of a presidential impeachment but there is one in the number to look out for it out for the listened carefully to what's being said now after the trial. there are 57 senators who voted to convict on the facts and the law. now add to that the number of senators who say they believe that donald trump was factually guilty but that the senate didn't have jurisdiction or there was some other constitutional issue. but just take the ones who say

we don't think that we could convict him because of this january exception. he was able to get away with it at the end of his term. if 10 or 15 or 20 of them say that, that means you've got a supermajority who are saying that the president actually is guilty of his crimes which we think we have overwhelmingly and convincingly demonstrated to the american people. thank you all very much. [inaudible conversations]

the senate voted to acquit acquit former president trump of inciting the attack on u.s. capitol in january 6 grade by a vote of 57-43 falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict. all democratic senators voted guilty along with seven republicans richard burr bill cassidy susan collins lisa murkowski mitt romney then sasse and pat toomey breading cased you missed any of today's trial proceedings we are going to show them now for you in their entirety. >> the senate will convene in the court of the impeachment and the chaplain dr. barry black will lead us in prayer. can is have order.