What will be the deciding factor in Senate impeachment trial? How badly do the senators wish to go home, theorized Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).
In an episode of the Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast titled “A Day in the Life” on Jan. 30, the Senator described to co-host Michael Knowles how the conditions of living and working in the Senate may force a final judgment over the weekend.
When Senators are eager to go home for the weekend, and “jet fumes are in the air,” suggested Cruz, “they’ll agree to damn near anything to get out of here.” He summarized that on Friday “if we have a vote no additional witnesses, I think you’ll see several Democratic motions,” and then, “I think we will move to the final judgment.”
Knowles asked, “You’re gonna get this vote tomorrow, I guess, on whether to call additional witnesses. If they vote ‘No,’ ‘No additional witnesses,’ what do the next two weeks look like?”
Cruz speculated that “[I]f we get 51 who say no additional witnesses, that we’ve heard enough, I expect that the Democrats will have kind of paroxysms of rage."
Cruz followed this by observing that one of the "wise strategies" Mitch McConnell has employed, "is to make this long and brutal and painful to all 100 senators." He added, "Mitch has told us a hundred times, ‘This is not going to be pleasant."
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Knowles reacted, “Because he wants the senators to want to end this.”
Cruz explained: “[T]ypically we fly out Thursday afternoons to get back home, and we’re in our home states Fridays through the weekends.” As a result, by Thursday “everything is at an impasse,” he added.
Cruz elaborated:
People want to get out. They’ve got a plane flight. And so the phrase is: ‘jet fumes are in the air,’ and when jet fumes are in the air, you've got a bunch of senators -- and some of them are in their 70s and 80s -- they’re looking to get out of here. And they’ll agree to damn near anything to get out of here.
So what will happen? Cruz theorized on Thursday: “I expect tomorrow’s likely to be a long night, but then I think we will move to the final judgment.”
Not sure about the exact timing, Cruz suggested that if the Senate concludes additional witnesses are not needed, he is “confident that by Monday this will be done.”
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