[Lemon:] The final impeachment vote set for Wednesday afternoon after a 51 out of 53 Republican senators voted today to block witness testimony in the trial. Let's bring in Democratic Senator of Maryland now. Senator, thank you. Busy, busy times. I'm so glad that you're here. So, let's talk. Why do you think your colleagues ultimately voted against having new witnesses and documents in this trial?
[Sen. Ben Cardin:] Don, this is very disappointing. The Senate under the Republican leadership has failed to carry out its constitutional responsibilities to conduct a trial. It's in the Constitution that we're required to have a trial for the articles of the impeachment. But you have to have witnesses and documents and now the Republicans have blocked the opportunity for witnesses and documents to be made available in the Senate trial. So, this is a pretty sad day. Why did they do this? It's really hard to understand. You would think it's just common sense tells you this is a matter of basic fairness, it's not a matter of whether you decide to vote for or against the impeachment. It's a matter of conducting a trial in a fair way and they have failed in that test.
[Lemon:] You know, I've been saying that it seems like new information comes out every single day. It's coming out every day. Would you like to see the House pick this back up?
[Cardin:] Well, whether the House picks it up or not the information is going to come out. We're seeing as you're right, every day. There's another bit of information that's coming out. We know that the information ultimately will get out. And then those who voted to deny the Senate the opportunity to have the information before our votes are going to be in a pretty difficult position. The House can try to do what it can on oversight with the president but recognize the president will provide no help whatsoever. We had it was a blanket defiance in the impeachment proceedings. I think the House can expect a blanket defiance by this president in any effort they have when they preside.
[Lemon:] Well, listen, the being the majority leader in the Senate is pretty powerful. Right? And being the leader of the House, the House speaker is pretty powerful as well. And I'm going to ask you, you know, get to this at end of the question. But I'm asking because sources are telling CNN that the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke by phone with the president tonight before introducing this resolution that would extend that final vote until Wednesday. The president apparently signed off. So, here's the question. What does it say about our system that the president is actually signing off on his own impeachment trial decisions?
[Cardin:] Well, I don't know if that's true or not. But we do know that
[Lemon:] If it is true. That's the reporting. That's the sources are telling
[Cnn. Cardin:] We do know we do know that Mitch McConnell was working with the president's lawyers and setting up the ground rules for the trial. He acknowledged that. He wasn't talking to the House managers. He was only talking to the president's lawyers. They coordinated everything with the president's lawyers. That's outrageous. We took an oath to be impartial in this proceeding. How are you impartial when you only talk to one party? It's not up to the president on how the Senate conducts its trial. It's up to the Senate. The majority leader should be representing the Senate not the president of the United States.
[Lemon:] Right. John Cornyn who is a Republican senator said that Democrats are trying to embarrass the president by delaying acquittal until after his State of the Union. Is that true? Is that what you're trying to do?
[Cardin:] Not in the least. What we wanted to have was a fair process. And we were not part of a process that was developed. We're not happy by how this thing is being handled next week. We would have preferred to have the debate in open session with the chief justice presiding and to give each of us an opportunity to debate the production of more documents. We didn't have a chance to debate that before the vote were place
[Lemon:] Well let me ask you this.
[Cardin:] among their selves.
[Lemon:] Then why are you postponing? Why signing off? Why not just they made their bed they lay in it. Why give the opportunity to have them speak to the American people to try to sort of assuage their own guilt about how they voted or to, for some reason to explain to them. Why not just move on?
[Cardin:] That really wasn't our choice. The majority leader has set up an opportunity which called morning business during the regular business of the United States Senate. It's not during the impeachment trial.
[Lemon:] So'what do you think of that?
[Cardin:] Well, you know, first of all, I don't object to members trying to explain their votes on this important thing as part of the record. That's perfectly fine. My objection is that we didn't have chance among ourselves to try to convince each other of our position. Debate the issues. That's what the Senate is supposed to be doing. We should be debating before the votes. But quite frankly the members had their minds made up and it had everything to do with the influence this president has and it's just wrong to conduct a trial without witnesses.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Cardin:] And I'm extremely disappointed.
[Lemon:] Well, I'm just
[Cardin:] I think what happens next week will not correct the mistakes that were made in process.
[Lemon:] OK. So that was my point.
[Cardin:] This process does not pay us the constitutional
[Lemon:] Well, that was my point. And listen, I've to run because, and Laura Coates brings up a point. Brought up a good point earlier.
[Cardin:] Sure.
[Lemon:] You are going to wait six days so you can explain yourself to the American people but you couldn't wait one more day after that to hear from witnesses. I don't know if that actually makes sense.
[Cardin:] Yes.
[Lemon:] Thank you, Senator. I appreciate your time.
[Cardin:] It doesn't.
[Lemon:] All right. Thank you, sir.
[Cardin:] Thanks, Don.
[Lemon:] So, thank you for joining us. I know it's been a long day for him so we appreciate him joining us. With today's vote has the Republican Party given the president absolute power? John Kasich is here. We're going to talk about that, next.