Trump impeachment trial live updates: Biden makes 1st comments on acquittal

In addition to breaking down the Trump defense arguments one by one, House impeachment manager Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., appealed to senators' sense of history in his final appeal for a vote to convict Trump. 

In a thinly veiled appeal to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he quoted Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay -- McConnell's political idol and college thesis subject -- and referenced the vote of Sen. John Sherman Cooper -- McConnell's former boss who he interned for -- on the Civil Rights Act. 

Noting his own parents' immigrant journey from East Africa, Neguse also noted McConnell's vote in 1986 to override President Ronald Reagan's veto of sanctions of South Africa during apartheid. McConnell was one of the few Republicans to buck Reagan on the vote.

"We remember those moments because they helped define and enshrine America at its best," Neguse said. "I believe that this body can rise to the occasion once again today. By convicting president trump and defending our republic."

"The cold, hard truth is that what happened on Jan. 6 can happen again," he said. "Senators, this cannot be the beginning. It can't be the new normal."

McConnell told colleagues in an email earlier in the day he would vote to acquit Trump.

-ABC News' Benjamin Siegel

House impeachment manager Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., countered arguments from Trump and his defense team that Neguse called "excuses" and "distractions."

"I would like to take a minute to explain why each of those distractions are precisely that, distractions, and why they do not prevent in any way the Senate from convicting President Trump," Neguse said.

He went on to counter the defense team's main arguments one by one. First, he argued impeachment is the best course of action, even with Trump being out of office, because the attack happened while he was under his oath as president.

Neguse argued the framers would have seen "incitement of insurrection" as an impeachable offense, and he blasted the defense for saying they were not given due process when leaders on both sides of the aisle agreed on the trial resolution before it kicked off.

Addressing the First Amendment, Neguse knocked the defense for trying to equate Democrats' past calls for supporters to "fight" with Trump's actions -- "because what you will not find in those video montages that they showed you is any of those speeches, those remarks, culminating in a violent insurrection on our nation's Capitol."

"Senators, all of these arguments offered by the president have one fundamental thing in common," he said. "They have nothing to do with whether or not, factually, whether or not the president incited this attack. They've given you a lot of distractions, so they don't have to defend what happened here on that terrible day."

Neguse went on to note he's the youngest member of the House managers team "by quite a few years" -- to a laugh from the chamber -- "so perhaps I'm a bit naive," he joked, and said he expects more from the U.S. Senate, noting how Congress responds to the Jan. 6 attack will go down in history.

"I fear, like many of us do, that the violence we saw on that terrible day may be just the beginning. We've shown you the ongoing risks, the extremist groups who grow more emboldened every day," Neguse said. "It can't be the new normal. It has to be the end. That decision is in your hands."

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., was the third House manager to speak during the closing arguments. She immediately outlined that she would focus on three points to counter the defense, all of which centered on Trump's conduct, inciting his supporters to violence on Jan. 6. She used short videos as evidence.

She began her argument by outlining how Trump, over many months leading up to Jan. 6, convinced his base that the election was stolen.

"We are not suggesting that Donald Trump's January 6th speech by itself incited the attack," Dean said. "We have shown that his course of conduct leading up to and including that speech incited the attack. The defense is correct that the insurrection was preplanned, that supports our point. We argued, and the evidence overwhelmingly confirms, that Donald Trump's conduct over many months incited his supporters."

Dean then went to claim that Trump urged his supporters to "stop the steal" on the very day Congress was certifying the election with the distinct purpose of overturning the election.

"It is true that some insurrectionists are being prosecuted," Dean said. "But it is not true that they did so on their own accord and for their own reasons. The evidence makes clear the exact opposite. That they did this for Donald Trump at his invitation, at his direction, at his command."

Rep. David Cicilline, D-Calif., used his time in closing arguments to give a thorough explanation of the timeline of events on Jan. 6, with focus on the timing surrounding Trump's 2:24 p.m. tweet attacking former Vice President Mike Pence.

"The undisputed facts confirm that not only must President Trump have been aware of the vice president's danger, but he still sent out a tweet attacking him, further inciting the very mob that was in just a few feet of him inside of this very building," Cicilline said.

While some GOP senators object to the notion pushed by House managers that Trump was well aware Pence was being evacuated from the Senate chamber around the time he sent the tweet, House managers argued it is "inconceivable" that Trump did not know what was going on at the Capitol. Cicilline said that Trump knew Pence was in danger and that he did nothing to de-escalate the situation.

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl has also reported that Trump didn't reach out to Pence for days after the attack.

"He didn't speak to Mike Pence until five days after this riot took place," Karl said on an ABC News Live Special Report Saturday. "He didn't inquire on his safety" during the riot "and didn't talk to him about this incredible experience to see how he was doing after it was over."