'What world do you guys live in?' — Jake Tapper to top Democrat after Nancy Pelosi's stalling gambit fails

CNN's Jake Tapper pressured Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) on the Democrats' impeachment stalling gambit failing after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced that Republicans had enough votes to set their own trial rules.

"With all due respect, this leverage gambit does not seem to have worked!" said Tapper.

"Well, he should still just do the right thing," responded Swalwell, who is on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

"You know, having the votes is one thing, but if you have a key witness that the House was not able to obtain who is now saying he is willing to come forward, the right thing seems to be, well, let's hear from this witness," he added, referring to John Bolton, the former national security advisor to President Donald Trump.

Swalwell would not answer if the House should subpoena Bolton if the Senate refuses to call to him to testify. He also would not answer if Pelosi should send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

"I guess I wonder just like what world do you guys live in, if you think that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is gonna get his robe dirty with the political tenor of this, or Mitch McConnell is gonna feel in any way pressured to do the trial the way House Democrats want to do it, when this is a guy that wouldn't even have a hearing for Merrick Garland," Tapper pressed.

"I understand you live in a world where things should be in a certain way but that's not the world that I live in!" he added.

"Yeah, well, I live in a world where these Senators have constituents to answer to, and my hope is that they will be calling their senators and saying in any trial when you have a witness come forward who has seen a lot, who called this Ukraine scheme a drug deal, you should allow that person to testify," Swalwell responded.

"I hope the phones are ringing right now, and senators are still persuaded by what their constituents actually think," he concluded.

Pelosi has not indicated if she will sent the articles of impeachment to the Senate, but many Democrats called for her to do just that after McConnell announced he had the votes to run the trial without their demands.

"I think the speaker should send the articles regardless. I think the time has passed," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on Tuesday. "She should send the articles over."

Here's the video of Swalwell on CNN:

McConnell says he has the votes to begin impeachment trialwww.youtube.com