Sen. Cory Booker's campaign said Friday it raised $6.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The state of play: While the Q4 sum is the biggest the Booker campaign has collected during his presidential run, it is still smaller than the majority of his 2020 rivals who have thus far announced their numbers for the quarter.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Friday on the Senate floor that senators' role in an impeachment proceeding is "nothing like the job of jurors in the legal system."
"That is why the Constitution puts the impeachment trial in this place. Not because senators should pretend they are uninformed, unopinionated or disinterested in the long-term political questions that an impeachment of the president poses — but precisely because we are informed, we are opinionated and we can take up these weighty questions."
Flashback: McConnell's statement tracks with the position he expressed last month — when he stated that he is not an "impartial juror" and called impeachment "a political process."
Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) announced Friday he won't seek re-election in 2020, per WCYB.
The big picture: Roe, the ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, is the 25th Republican to announce he will not run for re-election this cycle.
Billionaire Tom Steyer's presidential campaign has hired Democratic delegate guru Jeff Berman, a move that signals Steyer intends to stay in the race for months despite his standing at around 2% in national polls.
Why it matters: Berman, whose detailed understanding of the delegate process was key to Barack Obama's nomination in 2008, could be especially valuable if there's no clear frontrunner after the first several 2020 caucus and primary contests — or in a brokered convention scenario.
Amy Klobuchar's 2020 presidential campaign said Friday that it raised $11.4 million during 2019's fourth quarter, Politico reports.
Why it matters: It's the best quarter yet for the moderate Minnesota senator, who pulled in just $4.8 million in Q3, boosted by strong debate performances in the later portion of the year.
Sen. Bernie Sanders' $35 million fourth-quarter fundraising, which easily tops 2020 Democrats, is a timely reminder that the socialist senator from Vermont is the single most consistently popular and viable Democrat of the past half-decade.
Why it matters: The media rarely treats Sanders, 78, with the seriousness warranted by his sustained popularity and fundraising.
Mark Galli, editor in chief of Christianity Today, is "surprised by the ethical naïveté" of Trump supporters' response to his editorial, calling for the president to be removed from office, he told the New York Times on Thursday.
What he's saying: "There does seem to be widespread ignorance — that is the best word I can come up with — of the gravity of Trump’s moral failings. Some evangelicals will acknowledge he had a problem with adultery, but now they consider that a thing of the past."
