Sen. Lindsey Graham sought to reassure Donald Trump about the fate of his Senate impeachment trial after his lawyers widely panned day one performance.
“I think his team will do better, can do better,” Graham told reporters, summarizing his conversation with Trump, according to the Hill. “I reinforced to the president, the case is over. It’s just a matter of getting the final verdict now.”
Asked if Trump was frustrated with his lawyers Graham said, “well, not, no not particularly. We mostly talked about the vote and I said we had 44 people saying it’s not constitutional.”
CNN reported early on Wednesday that Trump was almost screaming at the television, while watching Castor struggled to get at the heart of his defense team’s argument.
After hearing from both sides on Tuesday, Sen. Bill Cassidy voted to say that the trial is constitutional after supporting a motion by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to dismiss the trial as unconstitutional, two weeks earlier.
Cassidy said the Trump team’s arguments were “disorganized, random, had nothing—they talked about many things but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand.”
A bipartisan majority in the Senate said the trial is constitutional on a 56-44 vote. Six Republican senators—-Romney, Collins, Murkowski, Sasse, Toomey and Cassidy– joined all fifty Democrats.
But, Graham predicted that not all senators who voted to say the trial is constitutional will vote to convict Trump in the end.
“I think the vote for not guilty will probably grow beyond 44. I respect Bill. He’s a really good senator. He’s done a great job up here,” Graham said. “People are emotional about President Trump. I’m sure Bill will be fine. He will vote his conscience at the end of the day. Let’s just see how he votes when it’s all said and done,” he added.
