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“I think the fact that the president hasn’t met with the leaders of the House and the Senate on a bipartisan basis until now is pretty telling,” he said. Cornyn, however, said how the meeting turns out is up to Biden and that Republicans are willing to cut a deal, although on a package costing only a fraction of what the White House has proposed. “If he’s willing to work with us, we’re willing to work with him, but so far it’s been ‘my way or the highway,’” he added. ADVERTISEMENT Biden and McConnell have only spoken twice since the Jan. 20 inauguration, aides note. Biden called McConnell in late March to talk about infrastructure, and the two leaders spoke in February about the situation in Myanmar. ....
ADVERTISEMENT No more than five or six Senate Republicans are expected to vote to convict the former president, who continues to have enormous power over his party. That is far less than the 17 needed to secure a conviction. Yet many Republican senators over the past few days have complimented the arguments of the prosecutors, and while Democrats are signaling unity on the trial, the GOP has been badly divided. If Democrats do win several Republican votes, it will be the most bipartisan presidential conviction vote in the nation’s history. The managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin Their strategy included the liberal use of harrowing video footage and victim testimony, and served up the emotional equivalent of a Mike Tyson gut punch, forcing senators to revisit the trauma of the day through never-before-seen security footage. ....
The last I heard was Saturday, but I m not sure that s going to be possible. I think it may be more like Sunday, Capito said. The trial was initially expected to last into early next week. The first version of the rules governing the proceeding paused the trial between Friday at 5 p.m. and Sunday afternoon, at the request of Trump s legal team in order to observe the Jewish Sabbath. That made Senate aides think a final vote wasn t likely to take place until Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the earliest. The Senate was previously scheduled to leave for a one-week recess that would start on Monday, Feb. 15. ....