Majority leader remarks after Senate stops impeachment effort

because I'm also going to bring you back to join us on that, so I want to take you now to Chuck Schumer, who's having a press conference, let's hear what to do. We saw today. What we saw today was a microcosm. This

impeachment

from day one sanctified frivolous politics and we felt strongly that we had to set a precedent that

impeachment

should never be used to resolve political disagreements. I felt strongly that this is the first impeachment that I can remember. If you look at history, none of them were. done because there were political disagreements, if we allowed that to happen it would set a disastrous precedent for Congress, it could throw our system of checks and balances into cycles of chaos, any time the House wanted to simply shut down the Senate, they could send another impeachment resolution and it could create frivolous impeachment trial after impeachment trial, so I felt it was really important that the dangerous precedent not be the one that the Republicans talk about, but rather allowing impeachment to take the place of political disagreements, person after Cabinet person could be Subject to this, we cannot allow that to happen and I felt that that is what the Senate had to do to maintain its response and assume its responsibilities.

We're supposed to have debates about the issues, not political judgments about the issues we're not supposed to. saying that when you disagree with someone on a policy, suddenly that becomes a high crime and a misdemeanor that would demean the government; It's clear that Republicans are not interested in working with Democrats to fix the problems at the border, in fact, if they wanted to pass the bipartisan proposal. We meet and have a debate about politics. If Republicans, instead of spending so much time and energy on this meritless impeachment, worked with Democrats on border reform, then we could have gotten something done if House Republicans wanted to have a serious debate.

Regarding border security, we appreciate it, but everyone knows that what is happening at the border is terrible and must be fixed. That's not a secret. The president knows it. Secretary Mayorcas knows it. Both parties in Congress know this. That's exactly why we had a bipartisan bill to fix it. The Democrats worked. Hand in hand with Republicans for four months to craft the strongest border security bill in 30 years. A bill with dramatic updates to reformed asylum and parole. A bill that provided new tools to address the fenel crisis. A bill that provided new resources to border patrol agents if our Republican colleagues had allowed it to reach the Senate floor and the House hallway.

I'm sure it would have passed and gone to the president's desk, but we all know what happened Donald Trump told his Republican allies in Congress killed this border bill before we could even debate it. The former president explicitly took credit for that bill being rejected. energy in this meritless impeachment I worked with Democrats on border reform, we could have done something on this very serious issue. questions on this topic first, the implication of Senator Corin's parliamentary investigation at this point in the trial was that a future Republican Senate the Leed Republican Senate could use the precedent that you set today to dismiss an impeachment trial against a no, the parliamentary rule which the president said was the precedent set here not to use impeachment for political disagreements, whether with a president, a Cabinet secretary or anyone other than Concerns Republican

leader

s.

No, we have made it clear that political disagreements are not used for impeachment and I don't care who the president, the cabinet secretary or anyone else is. Okay, so you're listening to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Speaking live to reporters after

effort

s to impeach Alejandro Mayors again ended, he reiterated the point they just heard there that impeachment should never be used to resolve political disagreements, he reiterated it over and over again, he called for these

effort

s by Republicans. uh, no merit, but he also pointed out that the border is terrible and needs to be fixed and again he brought it back to that bipartisan bill that was never introduced in the house.

I want to bring our ABC News political director, Rick Klein, back here again, so that's cool. Rick, we have this split screen here, we have Chuck Schumer and Speaker Johnson here, essentially saying some of these talking points that we've heard over and over again for months here almost Politics as Usual and they keep coming back to places where they can't get okay, there's no chance that we'll see any kind of agreement on Saturday, uh, I, I think on the issue of government funding or I'm sorry, the issue of foreign aid funding, I think there's a chance of for some of these bills to pass.

There is still a long way to go in the Senate. I think about everything related to immigration. I'm referring to the possibility, as Senator Schumer said, that Republican senators would help negotiate this package that had many reforms and many additional resources. Very conservative in every way. package and the Republicans then in the House decided to never take it up and then in the Senate they failed it on their own and then what proceeded was the impeachment inquiry that was designed to highlight the border policies that President Biden has been pursuing, in particular , even if he had been removed from office if the secretary had been removed from office, uh, it wouldn't be clear if he could confirm anyone else for any of those policies to change and that's why you see these kinds of dueling accusations of precedence because I think there's an attempt to say yes, they can't agree with each other here, but it's important to note that there was a good faith effort on the part of Democrats and Republicans to try to actually work on legislation to resolve the border and it was sunk by the Republicans after former President Trump said he was against that package and President Johnson, I think he was a major party on that, so we moved quickly to this issue related to funding, part of which It is the problem that President Johnson knows well they have.

With a very slim

majority

, you've had to carve up these pieces to allow for individual votes on things like Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and a consequence of that is that you can't really make deals along the way, as President John said just now. . is in a very precarious spot as is the legislation around the border which is effectively dead and the situation around funding for Ukraine and Israel is changing as the week comes to a close midweek. a close right and certainly it's also up to me to see how they proceed on that fifth bill here with a lot of GOP wishes, essentially asking for a GOP wish list there, Rick Klein, thank you very much.

I want to bring ABC News Jo O. "Brien, for us, who are live there on Capitol Hill, you saw Speaker Johnson speak as well. I think right now a lot of people, Jay, including yourself, are wondering what his job is like on Jeopardy right now and he even said he's willing to take a personal risk here, Jay, if we move forward, if they can move forward with some of these spending bills and the big question is, will the Democrats come to him and save him? if they get that point right and we've heard from several hard-line Republicans who say that for some of them this was the final straw for the Campbells' trust in Mike Taylor Green and Thomas Massie.

Among the most vocal and there are other hardliners who say that, although they may not believe that this is the time for Mike Johnson to go, some are being koi about their thoughts about not completely disagreeing and the word that many use as disappointed by Johnson's actions here, so the question facing Mike Johnson is whether this will pass this package of four foreign aid bills that include aid to Ukraine as well as Israel's aid to Taiwan and That fourth bill that's a grab bag of GOP policy priorities if it gets over the finish line on Saturday, what does that mean for Mike Johnson?

Does Marjorie Taylor get the green going? his motion to quash the one he already tabled against Johnson and ensure he gets a vote and gain support among some hardliners who are again disappointed is the word they often use lack of confidence is the other word some have used after Johnson made this proposal Johnson was asked if he thinks he is risking his position as spokesman to get this aid to Ukraine over the finish line because it is the aid to Ukraine that the hardliners disagree with. said Kaa, he is saying to do what he believes is the right thing Ka. and it will also be very interesting to see Donald Trump's reaction to all of this, Jo O Brien, our thanks to you, as always, there at the Capitol.

I want to bring in our new ABC chief White House correspondent, now Selena Wang, who is live there at the White House and Selena, I know we're getting some response here from the White House to what just happened in terms of the stopping efforts to impeach Alejandro Mayorcas, but also when President Johnson spoke, uh, Selena, he said again that he believes Alejandra Mayorcas is the least effective and most dangerous cabinet secretary in history, but he also pointed the finger directly to the president saying he could take executive action to close the border as well, so clearly, the fight is not over, no, it's over.

Not Kana, and I think what we're seeing today is kind of a microcosm of the general election talking points that you're seeing from both Republicans and Democrats, but look, the White House feels vindicated right now, They've been saying it for months. This is a baseless trick, he was going to be dead when he got to the Senate. They are happy that this will end quickly. They are releasing a statement saying to say once and for all that this baseless stunt is over, taking the legal argument that this. It was unconstitutional from the beginning that you can't, as you heard Chuck Schumer say, call it a political disagreement.

Crimes and serious misdemeanors and Kaa. I also want to point out that you heard Speaker Johnson earlier talk about the disaster that is the border. It's now, but DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, says they've deported more legal immigrants than the previous administration and detained more criminals and arrested more drug traffickers in the last two years than in the previous five years combined, and Kaa what You heard Schumer talk about that there really is that key line of the president's message and his campaign, which is that they were behind that bipartisan border security measure that had been approved by the Senate and that had the reforms toughest border security measures in decades that are being blamed on the House.

Republicans are under pressure from Trump to end that, and that's his proof that those House Republicans aren't actually trying to fix the problem properly. He noted that both Democrats and Republicans have been working together for four months on that bipartisan bill they didn't introduce. the house and called it the strongest border bill we've seen in years, including asylum protection parole and resources for border patrol, so we'll continue to cover this, Selena Jay Rick, our thanks to all of you.