Live from Nashville, Tennessee Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.– Leahy and Carmichael discussed who wold vote for witnesses in the Senate trial and what the consequences would be.
During the second hour, Carmichael gave his take on how Lisa Murkowski would vote “no” on more witnesses evidenced on the confidence shown in McConnell and CNN’s comments about Democrats not having the votes. He concluded that John Roberts would not be a deciding factor should there be a 50-50 vote because he does not want to be caught in the middle.
Leahy: Big news last night. The last day of questions and answers in the impeachment farce–I mean impeachment trial going on. (Chuckles) I think I got it right the first time. Lamar Alexander weighed in and said in I think a very statesmanlike press release: No witnesses.
Carmichael: My sense of it is that it looks like the vote will either be 51-49 against having more witnesses. Or 50-50.
Leahy: So I want to elaborate on this. We have confirmed that both Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah have said they want witnesses. Now I understand Collins. She’s up for reelection in a pretty purple/blue Maine. And she’s probably the best Republican we could get up there and so I think McConnell gave her a pass. Mitt Romney, I don’t think this is principled I think this is personal. But nonetheless, he’s a senator and he’s voting for more witnesses.
Carmichael: Right.
Leahy: That leaves Lisa Murkowski who’s going to make an announcement today. If she says no witnesses, then we go right to an acquittal vote at some point today.
Carmichael: I don’t know if it’s today.
Leahy: Today or tomorrow.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: OK. You had a definitive view on this. I’m not sure if I do, but let’s talk about this. So let’s say she says no. 50-50. And she wants witnesses. What happens then?
Carmichael: Nothing.
Leahy: Tell me.
Carmichael: 50-50 is not a vote to move forward.
Leahy: Let me try this. Democrat Joe Manchin has signaled in a statement that, well we hope there’s an adult in the room, and we hope that adult is John Roberts. He’s telling us that if it’s 50-50 the Democrats will argue on the floor of the Senate that chief justice John Roberts who according to Article 1, Section 3. Clause 6 presides over an impeachment trial. They will say, you should break the tie.
Carmichael: Well that may be. But he doesn’t have the vote. He’s not in the Senate. He’s in the Senate chamber.
Leahy: Well, let me play devil’s advocate here. They’re going to argue this. When the vice president presides according to Article 1. Section 3. Clause 4 of the Constitution, in the event of a tie, he gets to vote and clears the chief justice he’s going to be presiding.
Carmichael: I don’t believe that John Roberts, the way that he thinks in terms of the judicial role. I don’t believe that he would take it upon himself to cast a vote of that importance. I think he would say if you in the Senate can’t resolve the issue, I’m not going to resolve it for you.
Leahy: What level of confidence do you have in that statement you just made? 100 percent? 50 percent?
Carmichael: It’s impossible to have 100 percent until after I know the answer.
Leahy: Really. That’s the best way to predict that.
Carmichael: That’s a little bit like just as an aside, that’s about somebody who says I’m against the death penalty, but I am for somebody being able to shoot somebody in self-defense.
Leahy: OK.
Carmichael: Because it is impossible to know in self-defense if the other person was 100 percent going to kill you if you didn’t act. That’s just an aside on somebody saying they’re 100 percent sure. You can only be 100 percent sure of what happened.
And then you actually better have the video to prove it. Because 100 percent is a lot. Now, I don’t think that Roberts would take it upon himself. I think the Democrats will then yell and scream. And that’s if Murkowski does it. I don’t think she will.
Leahy: OK. Let’s talk about that. Again, we don’t know. We’re just guessing and speculating.
Carmichael: There’s no particular reason from a political standpoint for Murkowski to do it.
Leahy: Well she’s not up until 2022.
Carmichael: Exactly.
Leahy: Alaska leans more Republican than Maine.
Carmichael: There’s no reason for her.
Leahy: Let me play devil’s advocate here. Our listeners are trying to figure out what’s going to happen tonight or tomorrow. We don’t know. We’re guessing. I’m guessing. Here’s my view on this Crom. She would have voted against confirming Brett Kavanaugh. She ended up abstaining. She was paired with the senator from Montana, Daines, who couldn’t make it, he would have voted yes. But his daughter was getting married and chose that over coming to vote.
Carmichael: So it was a vote she would have done but it wouldn’t have mattered had Daines voted, correct?
Leahy: Had Daines voted, her vote wouldn’t have mattered, correct.
Carmichael: I can’t remember the last time Murkowski was the deciding vote against what the other Republicans voted in favor of.
Leahy: So we’ll know what she does.
Carmichael: We’ll know when we reconvene on Monday. We’ll know.
Leahy: And I’ll be in Iowa. And you’ll be here.
Carmichael: That’s right.
Leahy: We’ll know how it turns out. I think you’re right in this regard. Lisa Murkowski does not want to be the person who creates a potential, I’m going to call a potential constitutional conflict. I’m not going to call it a crisis. But a conflict in which the Chief Justice would be forced to make that decision that you talked about.
Carmichael: Right.
Leahy: My guess is, I think you have a higher level of confidence that the Chief Justice would abstain from voting than I do. I would say though that I think it’s more than 50 percent likelihood that he would abstain. But not much more. And you would say it’s probably a lot more.
Carmichael: It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to get there.
Leahy: Really?
Carmichael: Well no. Murkowski is going to vote to not call witnesses. I have a higher degree of confidence on that than I do on Roberts.
Leahy: Really?
Carmichael: Yeah. Because CNN is saying that the Democrats don’t have the votes. And if CNN is saying it, then they likely know.
Leahy: We are reading tea leaves here a little bit. But I will give a point in your argument.
Carmichael: By the way, CNN is very unhappy in reporting what they now believe will be the outcome of that vote.
Leahy: Well, here’s one piece of evidence that would support your view of it, Crom. Mitch McConnell is a vote counter. And he said that he has great confidence that he’s got the votes. This would indicate reading that tea leaf, he thinks Murkowski has already told him she’s going to vote for no witnesses. Because otherwise, I don’t think he would proceed with that level of confidence.
Carmichael: That’s what I’m saying. Roberts won’t be put in the position of having to make the decision of whether or not he should act as the deciding vote. And the reason I say that is he wouldn’t even read the name of the purported whistleblower from a question that was asked. And the person in the question was not identified…
Leahy: Exactly.
Carmichael: As the whistleblower. So he really doesn’t want to get into the middle of things.
Leahy: Well that would be a wise course of action on his part.
Listen the full second hour:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Lisa Murkoswski” by Lisa Murkoswski.
