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Schumer, Eyeing Senate’s Top Job, Navigates Tricky Impeachment Terrain

Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, knows the Senate is unlikely to convict President Trump. So he is focusing on what constitutes a fair trial — and trying to put Republicans in a box.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, has little hope that the Republican-led Senate will find President Trump guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer had a pointed warning when John R. Bolton declared himself willing to testify in President Trump’s impeachment trial: Republicans who refused Democrats’ demands for witnesses and documents would be “participating in a cover-up.”

For Mr. Schumer, the voluble New York Democrat and minority leader, the resurfacing of Mr. Bolton, the former White House national security adviser, as a potential witness was a way to squeeze vulnerable Republicans like Senator Susan Collins of Maine to cross party lines and effectively give him control of the floor during a historic trial over whether to remove Mr. Trump. But Ms. Collins, who is a top Democratic target facing a tough re-election in November, quickly made it known she did not find Mr. Schumer’s tactics persuasive.

“I don’t think Chuck Schumer is very interested in my opinion,” she told reporters in the Capitol. “I don’t think he’s really very interested in doing anything but trying to defeat me by telling lies to the people of Maine. And you can quote me on that.”

Ms. Collins’s sharp retort illustrates Mr. Schumer’s core challenge as the Senate, likely this week, convenes only the third impeachment trial of a sitting president in American history. As leader of the opposition, he must hold together Senate Democrats (including five who are running for president) while securing the cooperation of some of the very same Republicans he is working to defeat.

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Senate Passes Sweeping $1 Trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

The Senate approved a $1 trillion package to improve and modernize the nation’s aging infrastructure through a bipartisan 69-to-30 vote. The legislation now must pass the House.

“It’s been a long and winding road, but we have persisted and now we have arrived. There were many logs in our path, detours along the way, but the American people will now see the most robust injection of funds into infrastructure in decades. In a few moments, the Senate will pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, dedicating over $1 trillion to strengthen every major category of our country’s physical infrastructure. Today, the Senate takes a decades overdue step to revitalize America’s infrastructure and give our workers, our businesses, our economy, the tools to succeed in the 21st century.” “There’s a joke around town that ‘infrastructure week’ has come and gone so many times that people are a little cynical when we talk about it. Well, today is ‘infrastructure day.’ We’re actually going to see what we’ve been talking about, which is the Senate on a bipartisan basis saying, you know what, it is time to fix our roads and bridges. We can do so in a responsible way, not by raising taxes on the American people, but by making important investments in long-term capital assets that will last for years. So it’s an investment in fixing up our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our railroads, our ports, our electrical grids, our broadband network — and expanding that— and more.” “On this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 30. The bill as amended is passed.”

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The Senate approved a $1 trillion package to improve and modernize the nation’s aging infrastructure through a bipartisan 69-to-30 vote. The legislation now must pass the House.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

For Mr. Schumer, who has spent three years as the Senate’s top Democrat in the shadow of his House counterpart, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump is both an opportunity and a risk.

It is no secret in the capital that the job Mr. Schumer really wants is that of Senate majority leader — a post he thought would be his with Hillary Clinton in the White House, before Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory unleashed a political earthquake. A schmoozer and a deal-maker, he is more suited to the politics of getting things done than to the partisan knife-fighting culture of Mr. Trump’s Washington.

“I think it’s very hard for him to be the leader of a resistance,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, a progressive strategist and aide for Mr. Schumer’s predecessor, Harry Reid. “The weekend that millions of women took to the streets to protest Trump, Schumer went to the Women’s March, and the next day had a press conference on the size of overhead bins on airplanes. The world was falling apart, but Chuck Schumer was still doing his Sunday press conferences.”

Over the past few weeks, as Ms. Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, engaged in a bitter standoff in recent weeks over the shape of the trial — the speaker refused to send the articles, while Mr. McConnell refused to commit to hearing any new evidence in the Senate — Mr. Schumer was still pushing daily for a deal with Republicans to hear from witnesses and secure more documents.

Mr. Schumer lost that round, when Mr. McConnell announced last week that he had the votes lined up to move ahead with the trial without committing to either. Now, the Democratic leader faces a more consequential set of tests once the trial gets underway. Mr. Schumer said he plans to force a series of votes on calling witnesses and hearing new evidence, pressuring Republicans to join the call for more information or be tagged as complicit in what Democrats have branded presidential obstruction.

There is some evidence the strategy is working: On Friday, Ms. Collins said she was working with a “fairly small group of Republicans” to ensure that witnesses could be called.

The Senate math is not in Mr. Schumer’s favor. With 47 senators caucusing with the Democrats (including two independents who routinely vote with them), he is still four shy of the 51 votes he would need to force subpoenas for witnesses and documents. While it appears that Ms. Collins and two other Republicans — Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah — might be persuaded to go along in voting to hear from Mr. Bolton and others, Mr. Schumer was hard pressed to name a fourth vote.

The Daily Poster

Listen to ‘The Daily’: Chuck Schumer on Impeachment, Witnesses and the Truth

The senate minority leader is making a moral case to Republicans with the power to shape the trial that they should break from their party line.
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Listen to ‘The Daily’: Chuck Schumer on Impeachment, Witnesses and the Truth

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Daniel Guillemette and Theo Balcomb; with help from Sydney Harper; and edited by Lisa Tobin and Paige Cowett

The senate minority leader is making a moral case to Republicans with the power to shape the trial that they should break from their party line.

michael barbaro

How are you?

sydney harper

Good, how are you? Good morning.

michael barbaro

It’s not too cold out.

sydney harper

I know it’s —

michael barbaro

So it’s a little before 9 a.m. We’re just outside the U.S. Capitol.

sydney harper

We’re here.

michael barbaro

To meet with staff of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and to talk to him about this moment in impeachment. And what it’s like to be the leader of the party out of power in the middle of the Senate trial of Donald Trump.

chuck schumer

Hi.

michael barbaro

Senator.

chuck schumer

How are you?

michael barbaro

I’m good. Good morning.

chuck schumer

Pleasure. Thanks for coming down. How do you want to do this?

michael barbaro

Do you mind if we just like —

chuck schumer

Whatever you want to do.

michael barbaro

Do you want to do this? We’ll do across from each other?

chuck schumer

That’s fine. Whatever you want. And if you don’t mind, I put my feet up. For my old basketball knees.

michael barbaro

So Senator, it is Tuesday morning.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

Over the weekend, as I’m sure you know, my colleagues reported that John Bolton, former national security adviser, is about to publish a book in which he directly corroborates the central accusation in the impeachment inquiry. That President Trump conditioned the military aid to Ukraine on the country’s willingness to furnish information on his political rivals —

chuck schumer

Right.

michael barbaro

— including Joe Biden. Meantime, you’re heading into day three of listening to the president’s defense lawyers make their case to the Senate in this trial. So in an impeachment trial, where it is more or less seen 100% clear that Republican colleagues of yours in the Senate would acquit the president, this seems like a pretty unexpected and damning development. Maybe even the most unexpected and damning development today. So does this change anything?

chuck schumer

I think it does some. Look, we have been saying all along, what we want is the truth. And that means, as Americans realize in any trial, you have facts. And the facts are determined by witnesses and documents.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

So our goal, we thought originally we would be able to negotiate with Mitch McConnell to have witnesses and documents. It seemed so logical. And what happened was, he went on Sean Hannity about a month ago and said he’s taking his total cues from Donald Trump.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

Donald Trump is not interested in the truth. He’s not interested in facts. And so we figured, how do we get at the truth? We looked at the four witnesses, who had the eyewitness view of the actual charge. Why was the aid withheld and who did it?

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

We asked for them and the contemporaneous four sets of documents surrounding them.

michael barbaro

One of them was John Bolton.

chuck schumer

One of them was John Bolton. And for a month, we have been sort of relentless, focusing on getting witnesses and getting documents.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

Because we believe the American people — they may be very polarized when it comes to whether to acquit or convict — but how could people resist witnesses and documents? Now, the American people, after we pushed and pushed and pushed this message just about every day —

michael barbaro

Witnesses, witnesses, witnesses.

chuck schumer

— witnesses, witnesses, witnesses, documents, documents, documents — are on our side. That’s rare.

michael barbaro

But only two senators have publicly said —

chuck schumer

That’s rare.

michael barbaro

— that they are on your side.

chuck schumer

Right, but the Republican senators know that their constituencies want witnesses and documents. Now on the other side, of course, is Trump. He will strong arm them. He will be nasty. He will be vindictive. And that’s, I think, one of the things that’s held them back. That’s what makes it so hard. But Bolton is far and away the most major revelation.

michael barbaro

Well let’s circle back to Bolton.

chuck schumer

O.K.

michael barbaro

What does that development with Bolton mean for you? Because I’m guessing that you’re getting at the fact that the power of the voters, that that might start to change the balance.

chuck schumer

And we saw yesterday, because the Bolton revelation was so devastating. And let me tell you the contrast. When Sekulow got up yesterday morning —

michael barbaro

One of the president’s lawyers.

chuck schumer

— after the revelation about Bolton was published in The New York Times, he said there are four mainstays to our case. And the third is there are no eyewitnesses to the account that the House managers had put forward. And there obviously is at least a newspaper report that there is one. It cries out, so why don’t you bring him forward and testify? And a number of Republicans, who had been silent until then, said maybe we need witnesses and documents.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

So do I think this is a done deal? Far from it. But do I think we have a chance now to get witnesses and documents? Yes.

michael barbaro

Senator, how are you talking to these Republican senators, these colleagues of yours?

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

I’m starting to imagine the conversations. Maybe you’re poking your head into the gym. Maybe it’s —

chuck schumer

How did you know that? That is where we do a lot of discussing.

michael barbaro

I know you have a morning routine.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

So help me understand. You’re standing next to the elliptical. Mitt Romney’s on it.

chuck schumer

Well I’m not going to any individual. I have conversations with Republicans, but I don’t talk about them publicly. But I would say this. For maybe a good chunk of the Republicans, appealing to their higher instincts — their better angels as Abraham Lincoln used to call it — is meaningless. Because there aren’t too many better angels around, there. But for a good number of Republicans, certainly more than four — considerably more than four — the idea that this is historic, the idea that this is so important to the nation, and the idea that we are a nation founded on truth. That the founding fathers believed that the truth would prevail and right would prevail, and history is upon them, and they’ll be remembered for this vote long after they’ve left the Senate, has some effect.

michael barbaro

So wait, are you making a moral case?

chuck schumer

Yeah, I’m making a case —

michael barbaro

Or not?

chuck schumer

— that truth should matter. This does not apply to every Republican, this “better angels” argument. But it applies to some. And those are the ones I try to talk to.

michael barbaro

And to the others do you make a more pragmatic, practical case?

chuck schumer

To the others? Look, we only need four. And we know there are about 25 we’ll never get. So you’ve got to focus on the people you can possibly get.

michael barbaro

And that leaves you a pool of roughly?

chuck schumer

Well look, there are about 12 Republicans who have never said we shouldn’t have witnesses and documents. They make other arguments. They’re mad about this, Jerry Nadler said that. But they have not made an argument that there shouldn’t be witnesses and documents. But look, is it an uphill fight? Yes. Are we making progress? Yes.

michael barbaro

So without naming names — I understand why you don’t want to do that — can you give me a little bit of a sense of how this conversation tends to go with the people who seem open to this? And what do they say to you?

chuck schumer

Well, they listen. And I think they know — you know, when Adam Schiff said on the floor in that closing argument —

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

— Republicans’ eyes were riveted on Schiff. You know, when you hear the argument that you don’t like to hear, you’ll put your head down, you’ll look this way, you’ll chat with your neighbor. But in Schiff’s both closing moments, their eyes were riveted on him.

michael barbaro

Sounds like you were watching their eyes, their heads and their eyes.

chuck schumer

Oh yes, I do. I do. I watch that. And he said, “You know we’re right.” I think many of them know we’re right, but are afraid of the consequences. And our best recourse are two things. Truth and the public’s on our side — for witnesses and documents. If we had started out at the beginning and simply tried to get Republicans to vote to convict, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. But the strategy that we used — which I think is the right strategy ethically, morally, but also substantively — is witnesses and documents are much harder to resist. And then we’ll let the chips fall where they may, as I’ve said. And I said that to my Republican colleagues. That’s one thing I tell them all the time. I don’t know what these witnesses will say. I don’t know what these documents will reveal.

michael barbaro

It could go against you.

chuck schumer

Yes, it could be exculpatory of Trump. But we have an obligation to the Constitution, to the country, to what America has always stood for, to get the facts, get the truth.

michael barbaro

Do you accept the possibility that for many of the Republicans who are off the table, who cannot be convinced, that the reason they can’t be convinced is because they think they are going with their better angels, because they just don’t think this is an impeachable offense?

chuck schumer

Look, they’ve made that argument. And Dershowitz tried to make it last night.

michael barbaro

You’re referring to one of the president’s lawyers.

chuck schumer

Yes. To me, it’s hard to say this should not be something where removal is justified, that Trump wanted to cut off the aid to get investigations of Biden and of the 2016 elections. But some of them may think that, yes.

michael barbaro

So let’s say for a moment that you get this scenario that you’re pursuing. You get four Republicans to vote to hear witnesses, including John Bolton.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

Which would mean that his testimony would be given in the Senate. It would be admissible in the trial.

chuck schumer

Under oath.

michael barbaro

And this would be testimony not heard in the House. It would be brand new evidence. As you said, Dershowitz is making this argument that the president’s behavior, the central charge in this trial, is not behavior that rises to the level of impeachment.

chuck schumer

Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

michael barbaro

If the president’s lawyers don’t really dispute the basic facts of the case, and then Bolton comes and bolsters those facts, what’s to be gained from his testimony?

chuck schumer

We shall see. There may be some Republicans who feel that this is serious enough to merit removal from office. But if everyone agrees with these facts, right, an acquittal isn’t gonna mean much. Because most Americans would feel, I think, that cutting off aid, threatening a foreign country — where our national security is at stake — if our elections are subject to foreign interference, that’s a — When I was in high school, you read the Constitution and all that. And one of the things the founding fathers were most afraid of was foreign interference in our elections. It’s in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. And when I read it then, back in the ‘60s, I said, “What! That’s not gonna happen.” Well as usual, the founding fathers were a lot smarter than all of us. It’s serious stuff.

michael barbaro

So even if you get these four senators to come along with you —

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

— it sounds like what you’re saying is this is still about American sentiment, voter sentiment. It’s not that you think that if you hear from Bolton, suddenly that might lead 20 senators to vote —

chuck schumer

Look.

michael barbaro

— to convict the president. It’s that if Bolton testifies, you think it will only strengthen Americans’ belief that something bad and wrong has occurred here.

chuck schumer

Yes. Yes, I agree with that. But I’d make another point. Things keep coming out. New revelations keep coming out. And you never know what’s gonna happen. Is it an uphill fight when you have the power of Trump and the fear of Trump among the Republican senators and the fear of the Trump hard-core constituency? Absolutely. But do we have a moral obligation to make the fight as strong as we can? Yes. That’s what motivates me. Getting at the truth. And somehow, in ways that go beyond my knowledge, it usually ends up creating the right result. But who knows when and who knows how?

michael barbaro

I still struggle to see the political incentive for these Republicans to allow for a witness. Because —

chuck schumer

They’re gonna have to.

michael barbaro

— they’re in the political bind that you have described very well here.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

And allowing witnesses only seems to make the public case against the president worse.

chuck schumer

— except —

michael barbaro

But they won’t vote him out of office, so shouldn’t they just not allow Bolton to testify?

chuck schumer

Well they may. That’s why this is a difficult argument. But when they don’t allow witnesses, their constituencies know they stood with Trump to go against fairness and with a cover-up.

michael barbaro

But it’s a little bit of a snarl, because he has told —

chuck schumer

It is. If this were easy, we wouldn’t be sitting here.

michael barbaro

More after the break.

[music]

michael barbaro

So let’s talk about what may be more likely scenarios when it comes to these witnesses.

chuck schumer

O.K.

michael barbaro

There have been two other possibilities raised than this straightforward, four Republican senators vote to get any witness whatsoever.

chuck schumer

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Republicans are raising the prospect of what at least one of them is calling a witness swap.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

They will give you your desired witness, John Bolton. But in exchange they would like Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son, to testify.

chuck schumer

Yeah.

michael barbaro

In other words, if you’re going to embarrass us, we’re going to embarrass you. Would you agree to that?

chuck schumer

No.

michael barbaro

Period.

chuck schumer

Let me say this. Our position is the four witnesses we want, and the four sets of documents we want, are essential to getting at the truth.

michael barbaro

So all or nothing at all?

chuck schumer

Well, so let me say — and that’s our position. The Republicans, they have a majority, and they can vote for any witness they want. Why haven’t they? They could have voted for Hunter Biden right now. They don’t need our O.K.

michael barbaro

You’re saying they’re only bringing him up in the context of getting John Bolton?

chuck schumer

Well, I’m saying that bringing in a shiny object, a distraction like Hunter Biden, who has nothing to do with — our witnesses all were eyewitness at the scene, if you will. Hunter Biden was nowhere near the scene. Joe Biden was nowhere near the scene. It’s a distraction. It has nothing to do with the impeachment case, O.K.?

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

chuck schumer

And I think a good number of their senators realize it, and I think the American public realizes it. So they themselves haven’t rushed to call Hunter Biden.

michael barbaro

Why do you think they haven’t called Hunter Biden?

chuck schumer

For that reason. I think they realize it might backfire.

michael barbaro

That there would be nothing to see.

chuck schumer

And it sort of — you know, what did you use to learn in biology? Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

michael barbaro

Pardon?

chuck schumer

I don’t know what it — it means, forget it. It means, certain things measure up in different places. So I don’t know if it helps their case.

michael barbaro

So —

chuck schumer

And so far, I’m not sure the Republicans would want him.

michael barbaro

— so no witness swap. The other possibility that has been raised is instead of relying on Republicans, Democrats should appeal directly to the chief justice John Roberts —

chuck schumer

Right.

michael barbaro

— who presides over the Senate impeachment trial, and who has the discretionary power to subpoena witnesses.

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

Like John Bolton. Would you pursue that route, or would you encourage the House Democratic managers to pursue it to get Bolton on the stand?

chuck schumer

Well, we just don’t know where Justice Roberts will come down.

michael barbaro

And you won’t until you ask.

chuck schumer

And we won’t until we ask. But the rules right now are, he can be overruled by a majority of the Senate.

michael barbaro

Hm.

chuck schumer

So even if Chief Justice Roberts were to say, “Yes, Bolton is a relevant witness, we ought to have him,” they could vote it down.

michael barbaro

They’d be voting against the chief justice.

chuck schumer

That makes it so much harder, so we’ll have to see if he rules.

michael barbaro

Are you inclined to ask?

chuck schumer

I’ll just one other point, Michael, on this. It may be that Roberts just doesn’t want to get involved at all.

michael barbaro

Right, he’s a conservative figure. He doesn’t seem inclined to put his —

chuck schumer

Right, and he remembered —

michael barbaro

— thumb on the scale.

chuck schumer

— what Renquist did the Clinton trial. Here’s how he summed it up. He said, “I did nothing, and I did it very well.” He just wouldn’t opine. And he’d say, “I’m leaving it up to the Senate.” And Roberts could do that. So the House managers could say, “We want Bolton and we want you to rule.” And he’s saying, “I’m gonna leave that up to the Senate. I’m not ruling.”

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. You mentioned the Clinton impeachment trial, and I want to talk about that.

chuck schumer

Sure.

michael barbaro

You sat through it in an interesting way, both as a member of the House, and you ran for senate in the middle of it all. Became the senator from New York, and you ended up voting twice.

chuck schumer

No, three times.

michael barbaro

Three times.

chuck schumer

I’m a historical footnote.

michael barbaro

Judiciary —

chuck schumer

I’m the only one who ever voted three times.

michael barbaro

— House Judiciary, House, and Senate.

chuck schumer

Yeah.

michael barbaro

So does any — and you voted, in all those cases, against impeachment. So does any part of you, Senator, sympathize with Republicans who are resistant —

chuck schumer

Well —

michael barbaro

— to your overtures? Who may not be willing to vote for witnesses, who are not willing to vote to convict?

chuck schumer

Well I think the analogy is —

michael barbaro

Because you yourself did this.

chuck schumer

Yeah, but the analogy is different in just about every way. First and foremost, what Clinton did was a personal bad thing, but it didn’t affect the government. It wasn’t an abuse of power. It wasn’t — it didn’t go to the heart of what our democracy is all about. He had a human frailty, and that was that. O.K.

michael barbaro

Lied to a grand jury.

chuck schumer

Yeah, yep. Well, but again, over a frailty. It wasn’t governmental.

michael barbaro

I understand.

chuck schumer

O.K.

michael barbaro

But do you understand the conundrum?

chuck schumer

Second — yes, I do. But wait, let me just — second, he didn’t do what Trump is doing. He didn’t stonewall. He went before a grand jury himself, and he allowed all these witnesses to come forward. So there was a strong record before it got to the Senate. So that’s the second difference. And the third difference is, there was much more bipartisanship going on then. Mitch McConnell would not even entertain talking to us about witnesses and documents.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. There is a sense from you all, and I’ve heard you say it, that Republicans prejudged this case. And I bring that up, because you were in a somewhat unique situation, where you had come out and said —

chuck schumer

Yep.

michael barbaro

And I know this is, this case is not about you, but you’re in a unique position of being able to identify with —

chuck schumer

Yeah, well, I had to be first a grand juror, or a prosecutor, and then a juror. It’s a sort of anomalous position.

michael barbaro

Right, but you had made clear by the time the trial started that you would vote to acquit. You, as a Senate candidate —

chuck schumer

Yes.

michael barbaro

— you said I will be voting to acquit the president.

chuck schumer

Yeah, because I had seen the evidence as a House prosecutor.

michael barbaro

I just wonder, having been on both sides of this, having been accused of prejudging a trial, which you were —

chuck schumer

Mm-hm. But it’s a different — if any Republican was in the House the first time, when the House voted and now, it’s different. It’s not analogous.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm. In any way?

chuck schumer

No, it’s not.

[music]

michael barbaro

So Senator, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you what an acquittal will mean for 2020.

chuck schumer

You just can’t tell. And that’s not what guides me. What guides me is getting at the truth. And things in a broad sense, in almost a biblical theological sense, things will work out.

michael barbaro

Why doesn’t that guide you? You’re the Senate minority leader. You’re the top Democrat in this body, 2020. Why doesn’t that guide you, thinking about 2020?

chuck schumer

Well no, you asked me —

michael barboro

Which — can that guide you?

chuck schumer

— I don’t know how this impeachment trial will affect the election one way or the other. But I knew you had to do the right thing. That’s what I’m saying. Obviously, I want to fight to win the election. You know, this will have some effect on it. We’ll see. I always believe truth prevails. But so will health care, so will infrastructure, so will college, so will democracy, so will criminal justice, so will immigration reform. And those matter to me. Those matter to me a lot.

michael barbaro

You hope it will be one of the things —

chuck schumer

Yeah.

michael barbaro

— that influence you. Because you’ve said throughout this conversation, you —

chuck schumer

Well, you know, again, I can’t — I always believe truth will prevail, one way or the other, yeah.

michael barbaro

Senator, thank you.

chuck schumer

Right.

michael barbaro

We always appreciate your time.

chuck schumer

Likewise.

michael barbaro

Cheers.

chuck schumer

Cheers. [CHUCKLING]

michael barbaro

During their final day of oral arguments on Tuesday, lawyers for President Trump discouraged senators from voting to call Bolton as a witness.

archived recording (jay sekulow)

Are you gonna stop? Are you gonna allow proceedings on impeachment to go from a New York Times report about someone that says what they hear is in a manuscript? Is that where we are? I don’t think so. I hope not.

michael barbaro

Hours later, after the lawyers had concluded their presentation, jority Leader Mitch McConnell called a meeting of Republican senators to make his own case against calling witnesses like Bolton. During that gathering, McConnell warned that he was unsure whether he had enough votes to prevent such a witness, because so many Senate Republicans remain publicly uncommitted on the question. The vote on whether to hear witnesses in the trial is now expected on Friday. We’ll be right back.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (donald trump)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Today, Israel takes a big step towards peace. Young people across the Middle East are ready for a more hopeful future, and governments throughout the region are realizing that terrorism and Islamic extremism are everyone’s common enemy.

michael barbaro

During a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited blueprint for a two-state plan for Middle East peace, a plan that gives Israel much of what it has sought for decades and offers Palestinians a conditional path to statehood over several years. The plan would formalize Israeli control over large and controversial settlements and grant limited autonomy to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, if their leadership undertakes political reforms and renounces violence. But Palestinian leaders rejected the plan before it was even released, saying that it clearly favors Israel. And the number of coronavirus infections has skyrocketed by almost 60% between Monday and Tuesday to nearly 5,000, and was expected to rapidly rise again by Wednesday morning. In Germany and Japan, officials reported the first cases of transmission there, meaning that they must not only identify and quarantine sick patients traveling from China, but limit the spread of the disease among their own populations.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

“There are people vulnerable politically. There are people who have a conscience,” he said in an interview. “There are people who are retiring. There are people who might have some beef. Who knows? I will tell you this: I talk to Republicans all the time, and they’re upset by this president.”

In the end, Mr. Schumer knows there is almost no chance the Republican-led Senate will convict Mr. Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, a move that would take two-thirds of senators, or 67. But the focus on what constitutes a fair trial, he argued, will either succeed in unearthing new information about Mr. Trump, or at least help Democrats pick up seats in 2020.

“It’s a win-win,” he said, describing his strategy, though he quickly corrected himself, settling on “no lose” as a better frame. If Republicans block new evidence, Democrats will deem the trial “illegitimate and a sham,” he said, adding, “Pursuing witnesses and documents makes us better off, no matter the outcome.”

The position is at odds with the one Mr. Schumer took almost exactly 21 years ago, when he opposed calling witnesses during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. (Mr. Schumer likes to recount his status as, in his own words, a “historical footnote”: the only member of Congress to have voted three times against Mr. Clinton’s impeachment — twice as a House member in 1998, first in the Judiciary Committee and then on the floor, and again after winning election to the Senate.)

Mr. Schumer argued that there was no contradiction. Unlike the witnesses he is seeking against Mr. Trump — including Mr. Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff — the Clinton witnesses had already testified, so there was not necessarily anything new to be learned from them. By contrast, Mr. Trump directed a blanket stonewall of the House impeachment inquiry, refusing to provide any documents or allow White House officials to testify.

Republicans, however, howl that he is being hypocritical. They say Mr. Schumer is engaged in a transparent bid to play politics with the most sacred of senatorial duties. As to whether he will get four Republicans on board on key questions of how the trial should unfold, Senator John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican known for his folksy quips, said: “When donkeys fly.”

But Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said Mr. Schumer had “played the hand he has very well.”

“There’s a reason President Trump and Mitch McConnell are deathly afraid of having key witnesses, because it can change the dynamics of a trial,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “And the flip side of that is that if Republicans vote to block key witnesses and evidence, it will expose the trial as a fraud.”

At 69, Mr. Schumer has spent his entire adult life in politics. The son of a Brooklyn exterminator and a homemaker, he caught the politics bug in 1968 as a Harvard undergraduate campaigning for Eugene McCarthy, and disappointed his parents by running for the New York State Assembly at 23, fresh out of Harvard Law. (At his mother’s insistence, he took the bar exam, but he never practiced.)

He won that race and every race since, winning election to the House in 1980, the Senate in 1998 after a hard-fought campaign in which his opponent, the incumbent Republican senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, memorably called him “a putzhead” — a Yiddish insult that was a bridge too far for New York voters.

With his familiar Brooklyn accent and half-moon glasses perched on the downslope of his nose, Mr. Schumer has long been an upbeat, if publicity-hungry, figure in the Capitol, giving rise to the well-worn joke that there is no place in Washington more dangerous than between him and a camera.

Naturally gregarious, Mr. Schumer loves legislating — he once briefly contemplated running for governor but decided against it — and retail politics. He visits each of New York’s 62 counties once a year, can tick off Long Island high schools by name and knows the best place in Buffalo for a “beef on weck” sandwich.

There is a little bit of Senator Pothole in him. His political modus operandi is as follows: Fix someone’s problem (any problem, doesn’t matter what, so long as it helps the middle class), and then hold a Sunday morning news conference in New York to talk about it. He has done all this while raising millions of dollars from his hometown industry — Wall Street — prompting criticism that he is a corporate politician, out of step with the rising Democratic left.

To say he is a hands-on leader would be an understatement; when his 96-year-old father was rushed to the hospital with an acute attack of gallstones a few Saturdays ago, Mr. Schumer was dialing up colleagues on his flip phone to give them advice about Sunday morning talk show appearances. But his close friends say he never had a grand plan to rise up the ranks.

“There was no long term strategy: I’m going to wait X years in the House and then I’m going to the Senate,” said Carol Kellermann, who has known Mr. Schumer for 50 years, since their days at Harvard, and later was his chief of staff. Still, she added, “I think he wishes that he would be the majority leader. That would be a capstone of all the legislative work he has done.”

Mr. Trump’s election in 2016 left the ordinarily cheery Mr. Schumer moping around his Brooklyn apartment. But the New York senator, who is Jewish, said he soon had “an epiphany, a message from the heavens, if you will, because I believe in God.”

“Chuck, stop moping,” he said he told himself. “Had Hillary been president and you in the majority, the job would have been easier, more fun, and you would have gotten good things done, which is why you’re here. But with Trump as president and you as minority leader, your job is much more important.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg is a Washington Correspondent covering health policy. In more than two decades at The Times, she has also covered the White House, Congress and national politics. Previously, at The Los Angeles Times, she shared in two Pulitzer Prizes won by that newspaper’s Metro staff. More about Sheryl Gay Stolberg

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Dislodging Trump Is Unlikely, So Schumer Squeezes the G.O.P.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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