What folks don't seem to get is that the senate trial already started. It's just playing out on Fox News not on the Senate floor

You need 17 R senators. That's the game. That was always the game. And they're not going to listen to House managers, they're going to listen to constituents and their information chamber. Because that's how this works, and how it was always going to work.

The vote splits not on who believes what about which facts. It splits along the ideological line in the GOP itself between the establishment and the group who want to ride the lunatic fringe to power.

A quick trial would have given the establishment the opportunity to change the facts on the ground before Fox et al muddied the water. But every day makes that harder, because Fox is serving up lunatic fringe talking points, not establishment messaging.

All these bUt mcCoNnELl takes miss that he's been shouting as loudly as he can manage through press leaks he *wants* the fast trial to cut the lunatic fringe loose, but can't commit to it because he, like Pelosi on the other side, counts votes before committing to things publicly

The problem of course is that counting to 17 now is about six million times harder than it would have been a week ago, because the urgency has evaporated and DT has had three weeks of uninterrupted defense on TV.