Whether to call Bolton, other witnesses roils Trump’s trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is shifting to questions from senators, a pivotal juncture as Republicans lack the votes to block witnesses and face a potential setback in their hope of ending the trial with a quick acquittal.

After Trump’s defense team rested Tuesday with a plea to “end now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately told senators he doesn’t yet have the votes to brush back Democratic demands for witnesses now that revelations from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, have roiled the trial.

Bolton writes in a forthcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden. That assertion, if true, would undercut a key defense argument and go to the heart of one of the two articles of impeachment against the president.

“I think Bolton probably has something to offer us,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Not in Trump’s view. “Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this ‘nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated,” Trump tweeted shortly after midnight. “He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!”

The uncertainty about witnesses arises days before crucial votes on the issue. In a Senate split 53-47 in favor of Republicans, at least four GOP senators must join all Democrats to reach the 51 votes required to call witnesses, decide whom to call or do nearly anything else in the trial. Several Republicans apparently are ready to join Democrats in calling witnesses.

The two days set aside for questions, Wednesday and Thursday, also allow each side more time to win over any undecided senators pondering the witness issue. In the meantime, all will have the opportunity to grill both the House Democrats prosecuting the case and the president’s defense team.

Held to submitting written questions to be read by Chief Justice John Roberts, senators are expected to dig into the big themes of the trial — among them whether what Trump did or may have done rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” — as well as pointed and partisan attacks on each side’s case.

Trump faces charges from Democrats that he abused his power like no other president, jeopardizing U.S.-Ukraine relations by using the military aid as leverage while the vulnerable ally battled Russia. Democrats say Trump then obstructed their probe in a way that threatens the nation’s three-branch system of checks and balances.

The president’s legal team tried to lock up its case Tuesday and convince GOP senators that the president was right to ask Ukraine for investigations of Biden and his son Hunter and was well within his power to block the aid. They said he was not bound to abide by the congressional investigation.

Lindsey Graham to John Bolton: 'Hold a news conference'

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tuesday called on former national security adviser John Bolton to hold a press conference to expand on a New York Times bombshell report that claimed Bolton wrote in his upcoming book that President Trump explicitly tied $391 million in Ukrainian military aid to investigating the Bidens.
“John, you’ve kind of thrown the country into a ditch here,” Graham told Fox News' Martha MacCallum. “Just come forward and say what’s on your mind, hold a news conference and we’ll consider what you’ve got to say if you think it’s that important."
Graham said from his point of view, he believes he has all the evidence he needs in Trump's impeachment trial, which he said he was optimistic would wrap up with an acquittal before the State of the Union next Tuesday.
He added that even if what Bolton said Trump did was true it wouldn’t be an impeachable offense.
The White House’s plans for a speedy trial without witnesses were thrown into doubt this week after the Times' report, which renewed calls from Democrats to subpoena Bolton who has said he is willing to be a witness.
Some moderate Republicans have said they might be open to hearing his testimony in the wake of the report and House Speaker Mitch McConnell reportedly said he didn't have the votes as of Tuesday to dismiss calling witnesses.
Graham said he blames House Democrats for not pursuing a Bolton subpoena in the courts.
Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff explained Democrats decided not to go through the courts to compel Bolton’s testimony because he believes it would be used as a stall tactic.
“If you argue that, well, the House needed to go through endless months or even years of litigation before bringing about an impeachment, you effectively nullify the impeachment clause,” Schiff said earlier this month. “You allow the president of the United States — by delay, by playing rope-a-dope in the courts — to defeat the power of the impeachment clause.”
Graham added that he would be open to calling Joe and Hunter Biden and the whistleblower as witnesses.
“It’s a partisan, political exercise,” he said of Trump’s impeachment, “that needs to die this week.”
Fox News' Marisa Schultz contributed to this report. 

Trump's defense did what it set out to do, Robert Ray says

Former federal prosecutor Robert Ray, a member of President Trump’s impeachment legal defense team, said the defense team did what they set out to do in their arguments that wrapped up Tuesday and said it is time to trust in the judgment of the senators.
“The task at hand is to have a trial to determine whether or not it’s appropriate to remove the president from office. Period. End of story,” he told Laura Ingraham. “Once you’ve made that argument…I think it’s time to sit down…and put your faith and trust in [the senators] and respect and abide by their wisdom.”
Ray said he thought they would know by Friday “after a very, very long day of debate” whether or not witnesses will be called. It was reported earlier that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he didn’t have the votes to block witnesses.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that in his upcoming book former national security adviser John Bolton said Trump explicitly conditioned $391 million in military aid to Ukraine to investigating the Bidens.
“I imagine for many senators how the questioning goes and the answers that are given over the next two days may have some bearing" on potential witnesses, Ray said. “It’s obviously their judgment to make.”
He added that during former President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment they “intently focused on the question: 'Why would we want to remove a president from office when there’s an election coming up' and as a result of that Ulysses Grant was elected president.”

GOP develops aggressive 'Plan B' in impeachment trial, as several Dems appear to support acquittal: source

With several Democrats openly floating the possibility they might vote to acquit President Trump, congressional Republicans are planning an aggressive "Plan B" strategy in the event some Republicans break off and demand additional witnesses in the president's impeachment trial, Fox News has learned.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., privately said early Tuesday that he wasn't sure there were enough Republican votes to block more witnesses, given that some moderates in the GOP's 53-47 Senate majority were wavering.  Any witness resolution would likely require four Republican defections in the Senate, because in the event of a 50-50 tie, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts is highly likely to abstain rather than assert his debatable power to cast a tiebreaking vote.
Late Tuesday night, a Senate leadership source told Fox News that Republicans were specifically assessing the viability of two alternative options.
One plan is to amend any resolution calling for a particular witness to also include a package of witnesses that assuredly wouldn't win enough support in the Senate. For example, if the Democrats seek to call former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Republicans might subpoena Hunter Biden over his lucrative board position in Ukraine, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over his inconsistent statements concerning his panel's contacts with the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment probe.
"After listening to the Dems’ 20+ hours of argument and the rebuttal arguments from @realDonaldTrump, I’ve got lots of questions for the Dems," tweeted Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday. "Like this one: Why did Schiff lie about his contact with the 'whistleblower'? More to come!"
The "package deal" proposal could afford moderate Republicans the political cover of supporting more witnesses in theory, while ultimately rejecting a witness package they deem flawed. Even if a witness package passed, the resolution could be written such that the witness phase of the trial ends immediately if a key witness, such as Hunter Biden, defies his subpoena.
The Federalist senior editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway observed that in the House impeachment proceedings, Democrats allowed themselves to call significantly more witnesses than they afforded to their Republican colleagues -- raising the possibility Republicans could reasonably insist on an equally favorable "ratio" in the Senate trial when putting together a prospective package of witnesses.
A lopsided ratio in favor of the GOP also could lead some Democrats to oppose a witness package.
Another option, the congressional leadership source told Fox News, is for the White House to assert executive privilege to block witnesses, including Bolton. The administration could head to court to obtain an emergency injunction against his testimony, citing national security concerns. Trump has said he is concerned about his former top advisor potentially spilling national security secrets, and the legal principle of executive privilege has long shielded executive branch deliberations from disclosure.
That might end up in a court battle, and could prove dicey if Bolton opts to go rogue and defy the White House's assertion of privilege as it makes its way through the courts.
Meanwhile, Politico reported on Tuesday that Democrats were apparently divided over whether to remove Trump from office on the charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power -- neither of which is a defined federal crime. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, Doug Jones, and Kyrsten Sinema were all weighing votes to acquit Trump on at least one of the two articles of impeachment, the outlet reported.
“I know it’s hard to believe that. But I really am [undecided]. But I have not made a final decision. Every day, I hear something, I think ‘this is compelling, that’s compelling,’” Manchin said. “Everyone’s struggling a little bit.”
That news came shortly after a disputed Los Angeles Times report that California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was considering a vote to acquit the president. Feinstein later said she was "misunderstood."
GOP senators were similarly all over the map on Tuesday as Trump’s defense team called Bolton’s new manuscript “inadmissible” and warned against opening the door to new wild-card information in the ongoing trial.
Trump told Bolton in August, according to an excerpt of Bolton's forthcoming book reviewed by The New York Times Times, "that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens." Republicans and liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz have countered that, even if true, the allegations do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
The White House has also argued that Bolton may have leaked the manuscript to improve sales of his book, which went live for pre-orders on Amazon just hours after the Times report broke.
"Why didn’t John Bolton complain about this “nonsense” a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated," Trump tweeted late Tuesday. "He said, not that it matters, NOTHING!"
And, Republicans have reiterated, it would be legitimate for Trump to probe the Bidens' possible corruption for public policy reasons, given that Joe Biden openly boasted about successfully removing the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company where his son Hunter obtained a lucrative board position with no relevant experience. Biden was overseeing Ukraine policy when his son got the job at the Ukrainian company, which raised red flags at the time in the Obama administration.
Nevertheless, several Republicans have indicated they would be interested in hearing what Bolton has to say, at least in some capacity, and they left the door open on Hunter Biden.
Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, for his part, raised questions even as he denied widespread reports saying that he wanted to call more witnesses. Cassidy insisted that he wanted to wait until the end of the written question period of the trial to decide on witnesses.
That less-than-strenuous denial led Sean Davis, the co-founder of The Federalist, to argue that Cassidy was issuing a "Romney-esque non-denial," especially for a Republican in a deep-red, pro-Trump state.
Meanwhile, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., called for Bolton’s unpublished manuscript to be made available for senators to read in a classified Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) to understand what Bolton was alleging. His proposal got an ally in influential Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who called the idea a “reasonable solution.”
Some senators suggested that Bolton just spill the beans in a news conference on the sidelines of the impeachment trial -- a proposal that could lead to legal questions concerning both executive privilege and classified information.
Bolton's manuscript is currently in a "pre-publication review" at the National Security Council, which functions as the White House's national security forum. Such a review is standard for any former government official who held security clearances and publicly writes or speaks publicly about their official work.
The review focuses on ferreting out any classified or sensitive material in advance of publication and could take from days to months.
“The Wall Street Journal has called for John to just come forward -- just tell the public what you know,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said. “I think that actually [would] be a smart thing. I’d encourage John to do that without involving the trial.”
Separately, Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, who delivered a spirited constitutional defense of the president on Monday night in the impeachment trial, took aim at Elizabeth Warren after she said she couldn't follow Dershowitz's argument.
"He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent and that we should not be using the president's intent as part of understanding impeachment," Warren said Monday. "Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That's the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it."
Dershowitz replied on Twitter that Warren, who formerly taught at Harvard Law School, "doesn't understand the law" and had "willfully mischaracterized" his argument.
“If Warren knew anything about criminal law she would understand the distinction between motives – which are not elements of crime—and intent, which is. It’s the responsibility of presidential candidates to have a better understanding of the law,” Dershowitz said.
On Monday, flatly turned toward House impeachment managers and declared they had picked "dangerous" and "wrong" charges against the president -- noting that neither "abuse of power" nor "obstruction of Congress" was remotely close to an impeachable offense as the framers had intended.
In a dramatic primetime moment, the liberal constitutional law scholar reiterated that although he voted for Hillary Clinton, he could not find constitutional justification for the impeachment of a president for non-criminal conduct, or conduct that was not at least "akin" to defined criminal conduct.
"I'm sorry, House managers, you just picked the wrong criteria. You picked the most dangerous possible criteria to serve as a precedent for how we supervise and oversee future presidents," Dershowitz told the House Democrats, including head House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
He said that "all future presidents who serve with opposing legislative majorities" now face the "realistic threat" of enduring "vague charges of abuse or obstruction," and added that a "long list" of presidents have previously been accused of "abuse of power" in various contexts without being formally impeached.
The list included George Washington, who refused to turn over documents related to the Jay Treaty; John Adams, who signed and enforced the so-called "Alien and Sedition Acts"; Thomas Jefferson, who flat-out purchased Louisiana without any kind of congressional authorization whatosever; John Tyler, who notoriously used and abused the veto power; James Polk, who allegedly disregarded the Constitution and usurped the role of Congress; and Abraham Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and others would also probably face impeachment using the Democrats' rules, Dershowitz said.
"Abuse of power," he argued, has been a "promiscuously deployed" and "vague" term throughout history. It should remain a merely "political weapon" fit for "campaign rhetoric," Dershowitz said, as it has no standard definition nor meaningful constitutional relevance.
Dershowitz then said he was "nonpartisan" in his application of the Constitution, and would make the same arguments against such an "unconstitutional impeachment" if Hillary Clinton were on trial -- passing what he called the "shoe on the other foot" test.
"Purely non-criminal conduct such as abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are outside the range of impeachable offenses," Dershowitz said.
Trump's lawyers wrapped up their opening arguments early on Tuesday. Starting on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans will alternate in posing their questions to the House Democratic impeachment managers and Trump's legal team. Questions will be in writing, submitted to Roberts and read aloud. Senators do not pose the questions themselves. They must sign the questions, which may come from a group of senators or an individual senator.
Fox News is told to expect between 10 and 12 questions per side before a recess. There is no time clock as to how long counsel for both sides has to respond, but Roberts said Tuesday that based on the 1999 impeachment trial precedent, both sides should  try to limit their responses to five minutes.
At the same time, Roberts noted according to the Congressional Record from 1999, everyone laughed at that suggestion. Senators laughed on the floor again Tuesday when Roberts hinted at the unofficial time restriction. There can be no challenge of given answers by counsel for either side.
After written questions are over, the Senate will consider whether to hear additional documents and evidence. A final vote on the two articles of impeachment will follow, with a highly improbable two-thirds vote needed to convict and remove the president.
If, as expected, the Senate does not meet that threshold, Trump will have been formally acquitted.
Fox News' Marisa Schultz, Chad Pergram, and Fox Business' Hillary Vaughn, contributed to this report.

Don Lemon Cartoons

China counts 106 virus deaths as US, others move to evacuate

BEIJING (AP) — China’s death toll from a new viral disease that is causing mounting global concern rose by 25 to at least 106 on Tuesday as the United States and other governments prepared to fly their citizens out of the locked-down city at center of the outbreak.

The total includes the first death in Beijing, the Chinese capital, and 24 more fatalities in Hubei province, where the first illnesses from the newly identified coronavirus occurred in December.

Asian stock markets tumbled for a second day, dragged down by worries about the virus’s global economic impact.

The U.S. Consulate in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where authorities cut off most access Jan. 22 in an effort to contain the disease, was preparing to fly its diplomats and some other Americans out of the city on Wednesday. Japan and South Korea said they would send planes to Wuhan this week to evacuate their citizens. France, Mongolia and other governments also planned evacuations.

China’s increasingly drastic containment efforts began with the suspension of plane, train and bus links to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people. That lockdown has expanded to 17 cities with more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease-control measures ever imposed.

China extended the Lunar New Year holiday by three days to Sunday to reduce the risk of infection by keeping offices and factories nationwide closed and the public at home. Authorities in Shanghai, a global business center and home to 25 million people, extended the holiday in that city by an additional week to Feb. 9.

U.S. health officials expanded their recommendation for people to avoid non-essential travel to any part of China, rather than just Wuhan and other areas most affected by the outbreak.

Mongolia closed its vast border with China and North Korea said it was strengthening quarantine measures. Hong Kong and Malaysia are barring visitors from Hubei. Chinese travel agencies were ordered to cancel group tours nationwide.

There were 1,771 new cases confirmed in China on Monday, raising the national total to 4,515, according to the National Health Commission. It said 976 people were in serious condition.

The government has sent 6,000 extra medical workers to Wuhan from across China, including 1,800 who were due to arrive Tuesday, a commission official, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference.

A baby boy was delivered by surgery in Wuhan after his 27-year-old mother was hospitalized as a “highly suspected” virus case, state TV reported. The mother, who has a fever and cough, was 37 weeks pregnant, or two weeks less than a standard full term.

Doctors wore protective masks and clothing for the delivery Friday at Union Hospital.

“It was unlikely for her to be able to give natural birth,” said the hospital’s deputy director of obstetrics, Zhao Yin. “After the baby was born, the mother would suffer less pressure in her lungs and she could get better treatment.”

Also Tuesday, the Education Ministry canceled English proficiency and other tests for students to apply to foreign universities. The ministry said the new semester for public schools and universities following Lunar New Year was postponed until further notice.

The Hong Kong government announced some government offices would remain closed until at least Monday and non-essential public employees were allowed to work from home.

Chinese financial markets were closed for the holiday, but stock indexes in Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney all declined.

Beijing’s official response has “vastly improved” since the 2002-03 SARS outbreak, which also originated in China, but “fears of a global contagion are not put to bed,” said Vishnu Varathan at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.

Airlines, resorts and other companies that rely on travel and tourism suffered steep losses. Prices of gold and bonds rose as traders moved money into safe haven holdings.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange, one of the world’s busiest, announced it was postponing the resumption of trading after the holiday by three days to Monday.

Scientists are concerned about the new virus because it is closely related to other diseases including SARS, which killed nearly 800 people.

So far, the new coronavirus doesn’t seem to spread as easily among people as SARS or influenza. Most of the cases that spread between people were of family members and health workers who had contact with patients. That suggests the new virus isn’t well adapted to infect people.

China has reported eight cases in Hong Kong and five in Macao, and more than 45 cases have been confirmed elsewhere in the world. Almost all involve mainland Chinese tourists or people who visited Wuhan.

On Tuesday, Taiwan said two 70-year-old tourists from Wuhan had been confirmed to have the disease, raising its total to seven cases. Thailand reported six members of a family from Hubei were new cases, raising its total to 14.

Germany confirmed its first case late Monday. Infections also have been confirmed in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, France, Canada, Australia and Sri Lanka.

The five American cases — two in southern California and one each in Washington state, Chicago and Arizona — are people who had recently arrived from central China. Health officials said they had no evidence the virus was spreading in the United States and they believe the risk to Americans remains low.

During the SARS outbreak, Chinese authorities were criticized for reacting slowly and failing to disclose information. The government has responded more aggressively to the latest outbreak.

Wuhan is building two hospitals, one with 1,500 beds and another with 1,000, for the growing number of patients. The first is scheduled to be finished next week.

The coronavirus family includes the common cold but also more severe illnesses such as SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The new virus causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.

The virus is thought to have spread to people from wild animals sold at a Wuhan market. China on Sunday banned trade in wild animals and urged people to stop eating meat from them.

Longtime Bolton confidant: 'Heads should roll' if bombshell book manuscript was leaked from NSC

Former CIA analyst and ex-National Security Council staffer Fred Fleitz spoke out about his longtime friend, former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, telling "The Ingraham Angle" in an exclusive interview Monday that the ex-official should withdraw his forthcoming book until after the election.
Host Laura Ingraham noted Fleitz served under Bolton twice in government office and has known him for 30 years. She added that Bolton has appeared on her show multiple times.
"John is an old friend and I didn't take any pleasure in writing this piece today," Fleitz said of a column he published on FoxNews.com that called for Bolton to withdraw his manuscript.
He said he takes Bolton and his staff at their word that they did not leak the book's manuscript
The New York Times exclusively reported the manuscript included a claim that Trump explicitly linked a hold on Ukraine aid to an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden. Trump told Bolton in August, according to a transcript of Bolton's forthcoming book reviewed by the Times, "that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens."
Fleitz said presidents of both parties should be able to confide in their national security advisors and that the best confidants are the ones who give the officeholder peace of mind that their ideas and musings will not appear in the press or in books.
He reiterated that he believes Bolton didn't leak anything to the Times, but warned that if some rumored sourcing is true, the people involved should be punished.
"[S]ending something so sensitive to the White House during impeachment hearing and all the bureaucrats [could] review -- I'm afraid it was an invitation for a leak. There is a report now that there are many paper copies made at the National Security Council. If that is true, heads should roll at the NSC," he said, adding that the Bolton team should have been more judicious than to send his book draft to the NSC in the first place, if they had.
Later in the interview, Ingraham joked that a previous political critic of Bolton's, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appeared to want the ex-Bush administration ambassador to be put on the "Mount Rushmore of heroes in the modern political age," in the host's words.
"There seems to be a giant cover-up among so many of the leading people in the White House," Schumer said. "If it was ever even a shred of logic left to not hear witnesses and review the documents, Mr. Bolton's book just erased it."
In his FoxNews.com column, Fleitz wrote that executive privilege exists for people exactly like Bolton -- in sensitive positions and in close collaboration with presidents on national security matters where privacy is necessary.
He also pointed to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who delayed the publication of his book that Fleitz said "detailed the incompetence of Joe Biden and the Obama [NSC] staff" for several years so as not to affect the 2012 presidential election.
"There will be a time for Bolton to speak out without appearing to try to tip a presidential election," Fleitz wrote.
Fox News' Gregg Re and Gillian Turner contributed to this report.

CNN Don Lemon panel faces intense backlash for mocking Trump supporters as illiterate 'credulous rubes'

Idiot

A CNN panel is facing intense backlash on Monday night for mocking Trump supporters as "credulous boomer rubes," even sparking fierce condemnation from President Trump and his presidential campaign.
The panel, which originally aired on Saturday night during special live coverage of the impeachment trial, featured CNN anchor Don Lemon, New York Times columnist and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali, and ex-GOP strategist Rick Wilson discussing the heated exchange Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had with an NPR reporter, where he allegedly challenged the journalist to point out Ukraine on a blank map.
Wilson used the topic to mock President Trump as well as his supporters.
"[Pompeo] also knows deep within his heart that Donald Trump couldn't find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it," Wilson began, causing Lemon to chuckle. "He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that's partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump."
As Lemon began crying with tears of laughter, Wilson went on to depict what he thought a typical Trump supporter sounded like.
"'Donald Trump's the smart one- any y'all elitists are dumb!'" Wilson said with a heavy southern accent.
"'You elitists with your geography and your maps- and your spelling!'" Ali chimed in during the mockery.
"'Your math and your reading!'" Wilson added. "'All those lines on the map!'"
The CNN anchor almost lost his breath from laughing, wiping tears from his eyes with a tissue.
"That was good," Lemon reacted. "That was a good one. I needed that."
The clip was spotted by former CNN digital producer Steve Krakauer, who blasted the panel.
"The arrogance, the dismissiveness, the smug cackling, the accents," Krakauer reacted. "If Donald Trump wins re-election this year, I’ll remember this brief CNN segment late one Saturday night in January as the perfect encapsulation for why it happened."
Trump knocked Lemon, who he called "the dumbest man on television" as well as his "terrible ratings."
Several members of the Trump campaign slammed the liberal network for mocking the president's supporters.
"Deplorables. This Deplorable is ready," Trump campaign director Brad Parscale shot back with a flexing arm emoji.
"This is a real segment from an actual program on a cable news network that asks to be taken seriously. Not subtle message to huge parts of America: THEY HATE YOU," Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh wrote.
"The media hardly ever hides their contempt for @realDonaldTrump supporters but this clip is featuring CNN’s @donlemon, The New York Times’ @WajahatAli, and @TheRickWilson is ludicrous. This is one of the most offensive segments I’ve seen in a while," GOP rapid response director Steve Guest reacted.
CNN received strong condemnation across social media.
"The smug political class hates the tens of millions of Americans who comprise our movement. They can cackle and grandstand...as we build a country based on sovereignty, economic nationalism, and the diffusion of power," former CNN commentator Steve Cortes reacted.
"This isn't disdain or disagreement. What Wajahat, Don, & Rick showed was a disrespect, hatred, & mockery for their fellow man who disagree. I don't want to hear @JakeTapper, @AndersonCooper, @BrianStelter, @ChrisCuomo, or anyone on @CNN lecture about their higher level of decency," NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck wrote.
"Don Lemon will laugh for a minute straight over Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali mocking Trump supporters and calling them stupid, but don't you dare make a meme or he will freak out," Washington Free Beacon media analyst Cameron Cawthorne quipped.
"If you want to give people a reason to vote Trump as a screw you to the media, keep airing segments like these," Daily Caller editor Peter Hasson said.
Lemon was recently handed a lawsuit by a man who alleges he was a victim of a sexually-charged assault by the CNN anchor. The accuser, Dustin Hice, said Lemon offered a six-figure settlement before talks broke down and the formal complaint was filed.
He is currently competing in the first annual "Smug Industries Liberal Hack Tournament." Lemon defeated Vox journalist Aaron Rupar in the first round and will face off against BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith in the second round.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.