Friday, January 31, 2020

January 31, 2020

By Noah Weiland

Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. Senate Republicans cleared the biggest hurdle yet today. The final one comes Wednesday.

What happened today

The Senate voted this evening to block consideration of new witnesses and evidence in the impeachment trial, all but securing President Trump’s acquittal. The motion failed 49 to 51, with Senators Susan Collins and Mitt Romney joining all 47 Democrats. (See how each senator voted.)
Leaders from both parties settled on a schedule for the remainder of the trial, with a plan to bring it to a close on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the House managers and Mr. Trump’s lawyers made their final pleas, debating for several hours whether to consider hearing from witnesses.
Hours before the vote, we got more John Bolton news: In his unpublished manuscript, Mr. Bolton wrote that Mr. Trump asked him to get involved in the Ukraine pressure campaign last May, well before Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s president for help investigating his political rivals.
In an Oval Office meeting surrounded by top advisers, Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, to ensure that Mr. Zelensky would meet with Rudy Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought.

Read our full story on the day, some key takeaways, and an analysis of how Mr. Trump’s control of Senate Republicans is nearly complete.

Continue reading the main story

What comes next

The Senate will return at 11 a.m. Eastern on Monday for a few hours of closing arguments, and senators will have a chance to give floor speeches on Tuesday. The final vote, on whether to remove Mr. Trump from office, will take place at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Senate Republicans had previously homed in on concluding the trial Saturday, and many of them wanted to take acquittal votes today. Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said Republicans “wanted to rush through an acquittal vote tonight,” but Democrats wanted “ample time for every member to speak.”

People close to Mr. Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the president was unhappy about the prospect of giving Tuesday’s State of the Union address before he was acquitted, and that he was mystified as to why Senator Mitch McConnell could not force an end to the trial before then.

How Four Republicans explained their votes

Several Republican senators released statements defending their decisions to vote against considering new witnesses. The comments were striking for their willingness to admit Mr. Trump’s wrongdoing, while still dismissing the case Democrats had built against him. A number of them alluded to a vote the Senate would have taken to ban Mr. Trump from future office.

Continue reading the main story

The statements also revealed how intertwined the vote on witnesses and the ultimate acquittal were. The senators referred to Mr. Trump’s exoneration as an inevitable conclusion, arguing that even accepting the facts of the Democratic case could not sway them to change their final votes. Therefore, they said, there was no reason to take the intermediary step of hearing from people like Mr. Bolton.

Here’s a look at what they said.

Marco Rubio of Florida released a 1,000-word account of his rationale. He wrote that “just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.” And he framed Mr. Trump’s potential removal with the language of insurgency: “Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate — as nothing short of a coup d’état?”

Rob Portman of Ohio said in a statement today that “some of the president’s actions in this case — including asking a foreign country to investigate a potential political opponent and the delay of aid to Ukraine — were wrong and inappropriate.” But, Mr. Portman said, Democrats built a “flawed” and rushed case that witnesses would have prolonged by weeks.

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the final holdout this morning among the moderates, released a brief statement that avoided addressing Mr. Trump’s behavior. Instead, she criticized the style of the proceedings. “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout,” she wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said in a statement last night that Mr. Trump did what Democrats accused him of, and that those actions were “inappropriate.” He said that “there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.” (Ben Sasse of Nebraska said that “Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us.”)

Lamar Alexander’s decision

My colleague Carl Hulse interviewed Mr. Alexander in a small private office on the third floor of the Capitol this afternoon. There, the outgoing senator offered more detail on how he thought about his “no” vote on witnesses. Why call them, Mr. Alexander asked, “if you are persuaded that he did it.”

I called Carl to ask about what Mr. Alexander’s decision can tell us about how Republicans came together to effectively end the trial.

Carl, I was struck by the political-cultural argument behind his vote. He said removing Mr. Trump from office would “pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there.” Why did he frame his decision that way?

He thought it would just be too disruptive, that even if you add up all this conduct, it just isn’t of the level for which you’d remove a president at such a volatile moment.

He thought that this close to the election, doing something so drastic as pushing the president out of office would have sparked what would basically be a rebellion. People wouldn’t have accepted the election, he thought. He talked to me about what would happen to the primary ballots Mr. Trump’s name is on already.

What does he think the “cultural fires” are?

He thinks of it as the divide between urban and coastal America and the rest of the country, and that people outside of the coasts would go crazy if Mr. Trump was thrown out. The president is the embodiment of the Republican Party and its position now. Conservatives identify their conservatism with Mr. Trump. Senate Republicans challenge him at their own risk.

In your interview with Mr. Alexander, he said:

“Whatever you think of his behavior, with the terrific economy, with conservative judges, with fewer regulations, you add in there an inappropriate call with the president of Ukraine, and you decide if your prefer him or Elizabeth Warren.”

He’s presenting the impeachment case as a kind of one-off incident, the July 25 call between Mr. Trump and Ukraine’s president, amid the glory of a conservative political agenda.

Ukraine was just one part of Mr. Trump’s record, he’s thinking. They have to weigh it against what Mr. Trump would say are his biggest accomplishments. Mr. Alexander thinks if you do that and you’re a Republican, you’ll still vote for Mr. Trump. To him, Ukraine is part of an overall record that people can consider in ten short months.

What else we’re following

Chief Justice John Roberts dodged a scenario that could have called (at least in the minds of Democrats) for some kind of intervention: a 50-50 tie on the witness vote. He said at the trial today that “it would be inappropriate for me, an unelected official from a different branch of government, to assert the power to change that result so that the motion would succeed.”
Politico has an account of how the four deciding votes in the Senate — Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Romney, Ms. Collins and Mr. Alexander — ended up splitting on the issue of hearing from witnesses. They were in constant contact during the trial, texting and calling one another regularly.
My colleague Eric Lipton spent the day at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and wrote a memorable account of its anti-impeachment mood. Robert Hyde, a long-shot Republican congressional candidate who was suspected of having put the former American ambassador to Ukraine under surveillance, was sitting at the bar eating a chopped wedge salad. “There is no treason, no bribery,” he said. “No abuse of power.”
That former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who was the target of a conspiracy-riddled smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani and whose abrupt recall led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment, has retired from the State Department.

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Thursday, January 30, 2020

Your Friday Briefing

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Friday, Jan 31, 2020 | View in browser

Good morning.

We’re covering the potential for a quick end to the impeachment trial, Britain’s impending withdrawal from the European Union, and a Times investigation into chain pharmacies.

By Chris Stanford

Senator Lamar Alexander said that this year's election, not the Senate, should determine whether President Trump remains in office. Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

President Trump’s acquittal appears likely

The impeachment trial may end as soon as today, after a key Republican senator said he would vote against considering new evidence.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee had been among a handful of Republicans who were seen as undecided on allowing more witnesses and documents in the trial. But on Thursday he said that while Mr. Trump had acted inappropriately, his dealings with Ukraine were not impeachable offenses.

What’s next: A vote on whether to allow new evidence is expected today. If it fails, Republican leaders could move the trial to final deliberations and a speedy up-or-down vote on each article of impeachment.

Catch up: On Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, declined to read aloud a question from Senator Rand Paul that included the name of a person widely thought to be the C.I.A. whistle-blower whose complaint prompted the impeachment inquiry. Here are six takeaways from the question-and-answer session.

News analysis: Alan Dershowitz, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, said his arguments that presidents have virtually unfettered power when seeking re-election were mischaracterized. But Mr. Trump himself has promoted an expansive view of executive power that didn’t start with Ukraine, our Washington correspondent writes.

A nearly deserted shopping center in Beijing on Thursday. Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

U.S. advises Americans to avoid China amid coronavirus

Chinese health officials reported today that nearly 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the worldwide total to nearly 10,000. The vast majority are in China, where it has killed at least 213 people. Here are the latest updates.

The State Department issued its highest alert on Thursday as it advised Americans to avoid traveling to China. The World Health Organization also declared the outbreak a global emergency after clear evidence emerged of human-to-human transmission of the virus in countries other than China, including the U.S.

The details: Our maps track the spread of the virus.

Related: Facebook said it was taking steps to prevent the spread of misinformation related to the virus. That includes claims related to false cures or prevention methods — like a claim that drinking bleach cures the coronavirus — and those that create confusion about health resources, the company said.

What’s next: The virus is a serious public health concern, but the risk to most people outside China remains low. We looked at six factors that will determine whether the virus can be contained.

Waving British and European Union flags at an event in Brussels on Thursday. Francisco Seco/Associated Press

Britain’s Brexit shrug

After years of anguished debate, the country formally leaves the European Union tonight, and our London bureau chief reports that the prevailing emotion is “a characteristically British reflex: Get on with it.”

While it’s the official end of a 47-year partnership, little will change immediately, as Britain will abide by European Union regulations for the rest of 2020 while the two sides conduct trade talks. Here are the latest updates.

The details: Because the European Union dictates Britain’s departure, Brexit will be official at the stroke of midnight in Brussels, which is 11 p.m. in London. (That’s 6 p.m. Eastern.)

Another angle: Anti-Brexit “remainers” are struggling to maintain a movement that may not get a chance to reverse Brexit for a generation.

The risks posed by chain pharmacies

In letters to state regulatory boards and in interviews with The Times, pharmacists at companies like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens described understaffed, chaotic workplaces and said it had become difficult to perform their jobs safely, putting the public at risk of medication errors.

The last comprehensive study of medication errors was over a decade ago: The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2006 that such mistakes harmed at least 1.5 million Americans each year.

Quotable: “I am a danger to the public working for CVS,” one pharmacist wrote in an anonymous letter to the Texas State Board of Pharmacy in April.

Response: The companies said in statements that patient safety was of utmost concern, with staffing set to ensure accurate dispensing. They also said that technology like e-prescribing had increased safety and efficiency, and denied that pharmacists were under extreme pressure or faced reprisals.

Related: Patients can’t control what happens behind the pharmacy counter, but they can watch for errors. Here are some steps you can take.

If you have 8 minutes, this is worth it

Brad Pitt and the beauty trap

Justin Metz

William Bradley Pitt was born in 1963. But Brad Pitt sprang forth in a 13-second scene in the 1991 film “Thelma & Louise” in which the camera panned from his chest to his face, an ode to masculine beauty.

Ever since, his acting skills have been undervalued — by the academy, fans, journalists and casting directors alike, our film critic Manohla Dargis writes.

Here’s what else is happening

What Iowans have to say: The Times polled 584 Democrats who are likely to caucus on Monday and found a divide on whether to support a candidate they most agree with or one they feel has the best chance of beating President Trump. Here’s what they told us.

New York tax plan: The city’s property tax system, long considered inequitable, could face an overhaul under a plan from a mayoral commission.

Deficiency in Kobe Bryant crash: The pilot who flew the former N.B.A. star and seven others through deteriorating weather was certified to fly in poor visibility. But the company he worked for — like many others in Southern California — was not.

NASA/OIB/Jeremy Harbeck

Snapshot: Above, the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, where scientists have recorded unusually warm water beneath the ice. The Florida-size glacier plays an important role in holding back ice that, if melted, would raise the world’s oceans nearly four feet over centuries.

News quiz: Did you follow the headlines this week? Test yourself.

Modern Love: In this week’s column, a woman writes about romance on a cruise ship.

Late-night comedy: Jimmy Kimmel discussed the Republican argument that allowing new evidence at the impeachment trial would delay the Senate’s other business: “As if they’ve done any business. Blockbuster Video has done more business than the Senate in the last three years.”

What we’re reading: This essay in Cleveland Magazine. Stephen Hiltner, an editor on the Travel desk, writes: “Dave Lucas, Ohio’s poet laureate, ruminates on the beauty and the mystery of Lake Erie’s annual freeze.”

Now, a break from the news

Con Poulos. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Cook: Pasta with sausage, peppers and broccoli riffs on a classic Italian combination.

Read: A collection by the poet Robert Hass is among 10 books we recommend this week.

Go: A show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York traces the history and cultural heritage of kingdoms on the Sahara’s rim.

Smarter Living: When giving money to environmental organizations, here’s how to make your donation count.

And now for the Back Story on …

The ethics of watching the Super Bowl

On Sunday, around 100 million people are expected to tune in for the Super Bowl. But with growing concern over the violence of football, what are the ethics of watching the biggest U.S. sporting event of the year? Our culture critics have their take, and here’s what Ken Belson, who has been reporting on the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, told Remy Tumin of the Briefings team.

What keeps fans coming back?

It’s an event that transcends the sport. The N.F.L. has been brilliant in turning it into a spectacle, and there’s nothing like it. That’s partly because of how the league has structured it — one final game, winner takes all, in a neutral city, on the first Sunday of February, every year. Other sports don’t have the same permanency.

You’ll be watching from the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. What can you see that viewers can’t?

Often when there’s an injury timeout, they go to commercial. I’ll be able to see doctors tending to players, including a neuro-trauma consultant who is on the sidelines (and wears a red hat). If the consultant gets involved, it means someone has had a concussion.

Patrick Chung of the New England Patriots after an injury in the 2019 Super Bowl in Atlanta. Richard Mackson/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

What would you say to fans who are having moral issues?

It’s a collision sport at heart, and if you don’t want see it, turn on something else. If you can’t reconcile that violence — and it is violence — then there are other sports. I think it’s O.K. to watch it and have misgivings. It’s human nature — you can both admire and be horrified by the same thing.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Chris

Thank you
Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford provided the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
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