Trump releases statement on his acquittal

chad pergram who has been on this all day long what a roller coaster chad absolutely griff you know we thought this morning that we were gonna have a pretty quick verdict in this case and then they got caught up in this tangle over whether or not they were gonna have witnesses and then by 12 30 they were back on track to have the closing arguments those concluded just about a half hour ago and a verdict here the vote 57 to 43 with seven republican senators breaking with the rest of the party voting to convict probably the biggest surprise there is richard burr the republican senator from north carolina he is retiring next term and also you know bill cassidy who obviously went into play earlier this week the republican from louisiana cassidy voted early in the week to forge ahead he voted saying that the trial was in fact constitutional and he thought after the first day of arguments from the house democratic impeachment managers that they made a better case and so he was obviously in play now four times the senate has voted to determine the guilt or innocence of an american president in an impeachment trial in four times the senate has voted that that president was innocent of those charges of course you need a two-thirds vote to convict now we've just gotten a statement here that's come in just before the top of the hour from the former president and this is president trump says uh saying that this has been another phase in the greatest witch hunt in history but again so this is over the impeachment trial is over we're going to expect to hear from the house impeachment managers in a news conference a little bit later this afternoon we might hear from the president's defense council leading leaving the building but again we've had two impeachment trials in 12 months remarkable time here in washington griffin jillian chad we have been following obviously your coverage all day long and i've been texting with you you've been so helpful but for our viewers maybe picking up now can you just explain the the turmoil that in the unprecedented moves that we saw in the trial today you have a trial agreement a framework that sets up how the trial is supposed to go and once you finish the q a portion last night where senators were submitting questions to both sides then you had this opportunity for the senate to vote to have witnesses and it was generally thought that they wanted to get this trial wrapped up rather quickly what kind of surprised people when jamie raskin the lead impeachment manager from maryland came out and said we need to hear from jamie herrera butler the republican congresswoman from washington state you know she had been privy to some of the information from kevin mccarthy the house minority leader who had this screaming match on a telephone call with the president uh during the riot on one six you know basically saying you know can you get these guys to call it off here and so uh congressman raskin said let's put that into the record on zoom let's have her deposed and this is where you had mike van der veen the counsel for the the former president say if he's they're going to have one witness i need to hear a hundred witnesses i need to hear from vice president harris i need to hear from house speaker nancy pelosi and you can see how this would devolve off the tracks very quickly you could spend a month or more on this i mean you know the impeachment trial of andrew johnson stretched on for three months back in 1868 so what they were able to do very quickly after they opened up that door this was what we call a gateway vote here on capitol hill where they said we want to have witnesses but they worked out an agreement between both sides to say all right we're not going to depose jamie herrera butler what we're going to do is accept her statement into the record and that got everybody back on course and they concluded these arguments today you know it was rather dramatic where we thought that this might uh you know take up another month or two here on capitol hill and that's particularly of note because they're trying to finish the next coronavirus bill that is next in the queue legislatively here on capitol hill chad it's jillian i'm going to ask you to predict the future for us since you're doing everything today um i want to ask you about looking forward you know president trump is now cleared for the second time but in a sense the entire senate is cleared to go about their business now what's going to be the immediate legislative priority aside from the coronavirus relief legislation that president biden is pushing is it going to be confirming the rest of the nominees what do you see as the next big ticket item they certainly have to deal with the rest of the cabinet here i mean you had roger marshall the freshman republican senator from kansas on our air this morning saying look we need to confirm the agriculture secretary obviously that's very important to kansas uh and that this was the question this is why some democrats questioned whether it was appropriate to go down this impeachment road uh chuck schumer repeatedly said yes we can walk uh and chew gum at the same time you know confirm nominees in the morning and do this other business with the trial in the afternoon it's one thing to take up five days doing that on a week that the senate was not even scheduled to be in it's another thing to chew up months and months and months and probably what would have happened is the trial would have gone dark for a while because they would have had to have done these depositions and and taken statements off stage and then brought them back in but again the next big thing certainly is going to be the coronavirus bill legislatively uh you're probably going to hear a lot of chatter about if they can get the 15 minimum wage into this bill this is something that house speaker nancy pelosi said the other day it would be in but there are some parliamentary tests that they have to go through to see whether or not it's apropos to get through in the senate that remains to be seen and of course you have to have the votes to pass this bill we don't know if they have the votes there because you have people like kirsten cinema a moderate democrat from arizona and even joe manchin you know you don't know where they stand until you actually get that bill written so that is what's going to consume the traffic here on capitol hill for about the next three weeks to a month house speaker nancy pelosi said she would like to pass it by the end of february richard neal the chair of the ways and means committee he said the other day in massachusetts he thought maybe the second or third week of march and that's generally what i've been told up here on capitol hill but you know what jillian my crystal ball it's in the shop it has a bad fuse and they can't get the part in sorry well chad something that john roberts was talking about earlier today and this is important griff had this trial gone on for weeks and weeks or months and months more it's still unlikely that that would have changed any votes at the end of all of this right right and that's why where for a couple hours this morning we wondered was there something else that might come out from a further deeper inquisition into what was the president's disposition on one six what were the details of the phone call with kevin mccarthy what was he actually doing was there concern about uh vice president pence and the security of the nuclear football which has the nuclear codes here that travels with the vice president that was with him when he was here uh to preside uh along with the house speaker over the certification of the electoral college on january 6. those were questions that people wanted to get to the bottom of here chad don't head to the shop to pick up the crystal ball just yet we need you to stand by for a little bit more time thanks so much you're looking live now

Channel: Fox News

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Keywords: Trump impeachment, trump impeachment statement, impeachment, trump acquittal, breaking news, fox news breaking news, fox news breaking, breaking, trump acquitted, acquit, senate impeachment trial, trump statement impeachment, trump defense, trump defense team, trump releases statement, fox news trump, fox news, fox news channel, fox news network, fox news media

Id: VeATlFKDdS4

Length: 6min 59sec (419 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021