Lou Dobbs tonight praised the Senate vote rejecting witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, but he wasn’t too happy about the acquittal vote happening a couple of days from now.

Dobbs was irked that Mitch McConnell would agree to have the acquittal vote after the State of the Union — this coming Wednesday, February 4th.

“Why in the world would the Majority Leader agree to run this thing through the State of the Union address?”

Per multiple reports, McConnell spoke with the president about setting the vote and POTUS “signed off” on the deal.

Ed Rollins agreed and said they should’ve shut it down tonight, arguing “co-conspirators at the New York Times” could keep running reports on what’s in John Bolton’s book.

Rollins hit Bolton as trying to “get even” with a president that “brought him out of the darkness,” saying he’s jabbed Trump with a knife in the back.

At one point Dobbs said “it’s not really an impeachment” because it was a “partisan impeachment” that the Senate ultimately “rebuffed.”

Rollins touted GOP unity while pointing out Mitt Romney and Susan Collins voted to call witnesses, saying of Collins she “probably signed her death warrant.”

“Collins is a dead woman walking.”

“She should be welcome in the Democratic party,” Dobbs remarked. “How about Romney? He should be welcome?”

You can watch above, via Fox Business.

The Conservative Political Action Conference, referred to as CPAC, with Chairman Matt Schlapp at the helm, issued a statement declaring that Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) will not be invited to the conservative conference after voting in favor of hearing from witnesses late Friday.

The conference set to take place at the end of February has President Donald Trump as the keynote speaker.

Schlapp mocked Romney as a self-proclaimed “extreme conservative” in the tweet saying the senator’s barred from speaking at this year’s conference.

The senator from Utah has previously spoken at the conference many times over the years, including in 2013 after his 2012 election loss.

CPAC has yet to respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.

BREAKING: The “extreme conservative” and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020. pic.twitter.com/f35tYy73V1

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) January 31, 2020

Reactions to the move were swift on Twitter blasting the conference for their lack of “dissent.”

oh what a calamity how will Mitt ever be able to carry on https://t.co/7vsYOPzEuh

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 31, 2020

a cult https://t.co/Pd8oQNHYaS

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 31, 2020

Dissent will not be tolerated https://t.co/kLtH6PRcYI

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) January 31, 2020

It’s thoroughly Trump’s party https://t.co/wOElxhkQyu

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) January 31, 2020

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” https://t.co/atjmepTQ7g

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 31, 2020

Days ago, a number of GOP senators said they were furious at the suggestion Trump might retaliate against them for opposing witnesses. https://t.co/5etHV8jO61

— Heidi Przybyla (@HeidiNBC) January 31, 2020

Cancel culture strikes again https://t.co/LnuLsGWpuJ

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 31, 2020

48% of Utahns approve of Mitt Romney. His colleague Mike Lee is polling at 46% approval. So I think he’ll probably manage to survive the immense set back of a CPAC shun and sick burn via tweet from Matt Schlapp. https://t.co/YxAipedZhW

— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 31, 2020

How will Romney ever recover from not being invited to an event that features Diamond & Silk and Dan Bongino as speakers https://t.co/avd1035Z3o

— Thor Benson (@thor_benson) January 31, 2020

American “conservatism” 2020: Diamond & Silk are headliners at CPAC; former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn’t invited. https://t.co/Les5ceMJHV

— Dan Epps (@danepps) February 1, 2020

After the Senate voted to reject calling witnesses at the impeachment trial, the question of John Bolton — whose manuscript made a lot of news this week — came up on MSNBC tonight.

Ari Melber said essentially what the Senate has told the country is “they’re comfortable having John Bolton’s literary editors know more about this national security matter than the United States Senate.”

“Unbelievable,” Nicolle Wallace remarked.

Wallace said it seemed like Bolton had “wind at his back” this week, between reports on what his book details about the Ukraine pressure campaign and how John Kelly was defending Bolton.

Brian Williams pointed out that Bolton could’ve been “bold” and sat down with a journalist to share what he knows, remarking, “there would be nothing like an exclusive interview with Bolton to raise the temperature on this entire proceeding.”

Former Senator Claire McCaskill was a little more direct.

“Does he know how mad people are at him?” she asked. “I just wonder if he has that awareness.”

McCaskill said it’s a “love-hate thing” she feels for Bolton, because as least he has spoken out a little bit about the White House.

She said she understood why Bolton may not want to testify, but it’s “frustrating to most Americans” and “like he’s playing a giant game.”

“It does lend itself to this argument that he’s trying to make money on a book, which hurts his credibility,” she added, “and right now we don’t want his credibility hurt. He’s got real credibility with a lot of people, including Republicans. And the longer he strings this out, I think the worse it is for him.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

(Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

Former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch who served as ambassador to Ukraine, according to a new report from NPR, has retired from the United States State Department.

Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until last spring when she was ousted following a disinformation campaign by the president’s private lawyer, is retiring — not resigning.

The story was broken by NPR Diplomatic Correspondent Michele Kelemen who was most recently kicked off an international flight with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

A scoop by @MicheleKelemen (who was removed from Pompeo’s plane this week) and @NPRKelly (who Pompeo berated last week) https://t.co/epm1fzNuM5

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 31, 2020

JUST IN: Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, has retired from the State Department.

She was abruptly removed from her post in May 2019 and was a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

— All Things Considered (@npratc) January 31, 2020

NPR diplomatic correspondent @michelekelemen and I joined forces to report out this story this afternoon. We’ve just laid out what we know on @npratc:https://t.co/arRkj1fpxP https://t.co/N8hABUxV7K

— Mary Louise Kelly (@NPRKelly) January 31, 2020

There’s *still* a lot about the Yovanovitch story we don’t know.https://t.co/8f1yMIlHPd

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 31, 2020

Katie Hopkins, a far right British conservative who was just banned from Twitter for violating its hate speech rules, was duped into accepting a fake “Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy” as part of an elaborate prank.

The ruse, concocted by two British YouTube pranksters, Josh Pieters and Archie Manners, was so successful that it even convinced Hopkins to fly from London to Prague to be recognized with a “CUNT” award.

Hopkins, who counts President Donald Trump among her friends and is infamous for her bomb-throwing commentary, was just suspended from Twitter on Wednesday for violating its anti-hate and harassment policy. Notably, the pranksters kicked off their video detailing their prank by saying Hopkins “probably doesn’t like you” before showing countless examples of her insulting vast swaths of people, including Muslims, Palestinians, homosexuals, fat people, trans people, mental health sufferers, “feminazis,” Ebola victims, and the Scots.

To pull off the ruse, the pair set up a fake free speech organization online months before their invite to Hopkins. As a flourish, they used a picture of a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, sans robe, to represent their nonexistent group’s president.

At the “award” ceremony in the Czech Republic, the pair used hired actors to play other members of the non-existent free speech group while they wined and dined a completely clueless Hopkins at the Four Seasons hotel.

“Without being able to mock other people, without being able to attack people, we are not free,” Pieters said in a short speech, as Hopkins nodded along in agreement.

In Hopkins’ acceptance speech, she, true to form, repeatedly bashed Muslims, claiming they are frequently “raping their own mother,” said epileptics “are all weirdos, they’re up there with the Asians,” and blasted teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg as an “autistic fucking wench.”

Why go through with such a complex prank?

“There’s an awful lot of hate in this world and people like Katie Hopkins spread that hate make money from it,” Pieters explained. “She can do that because she has freedom of speech, but so do I, so I used it to combat her spreading of hatred by playing on her ego and making her look a little bit silly.”

Harvard Law School’s Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz blasted CNN for playing a clip of his arguing on behalf of President Donald Trump that got a ton of attention on all cable news outlets over the past 24 hours.

The Harvard professor — and nearly ubiquitous visage on cable news — argued on the Senate floor that, if a President thought that his or her reelection was in the best interest of the country, he or she could nearly do anything in the pursuit of that goal. Even seeking foreign interference, as is being alleged by House Managers arguing for removal from office.

“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” said Dershowitz on the Senate floor.

But in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Dershowitz explained the deeper context of his comment, before putting CNN on blast, a number of times. “I never said, never suggested and it was a total distortion, not misunderstanding, distortion of my point that I think a president can do anything if he thinks it is national interest. Never said it, it is nonsense. Your network should never have said I said it repeatedly.”

Blitzer noted  We were only playing clips from what you actually said on the floor,” then later “Those were your words,” to which Dershowitz replied, “there were other words you left out.”

After a rather fascinating back and forth with Jeffrey Toobin, Dershowitz again hit CNN, saying that his original comment “was designed to ensure that no one can ever get in trouble for having as part of the motive their re-electability.”  He then added “that was my point. And to distort my point is to misinform your viewers.”

Watch above via CNN.

Former Clinton White Houser press secretary Joe Lockhart called out Trump defense attorney Alan Dershowitz’s audacious argument against impeaching President Donald Trump, noting that the Harvard law professor’s logic resembles the language dictators use to justify all manner of unspeakable acts.

Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Lockhart recoiled at Dershowitz’s stunningly broad argument that, because Trump thought his own re-election was in the “national interest,” he should not have been impeached by the House since that does not rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.

“Having worked on about a dozen campaigns, there is always the sense that, ‘Boy, if we win, it’s better for the country,'” Lockhart explained. “But that doesn’t give you license to commit crimes or to do things that are unethical. So, it was absurd. And what I thought when I was watching it was, this is un-American. This is what you hear from Stalin. This is what you hear from Mussolini, Hitler, all the authoritarian people who rationalized, in some cases genocide, based on what was in the public interest. It was a startling — and I still can’t believe he went on the floor of the Senate and made that argument.”

Later on in the segment, Scott Jennings, a former advisor to Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, circled back to Lockhart’s claims and chastised him for inappropriately comparing vicious fascist and Communist dictators to Trump.

“I have to respond to something that my friend Joe said. I’m not there to elbow him in the ribs. I don’t think it’s appropriate, frankly, to compare the President of the United States to Stalin and Hitler, ” Jennings said. “I don’t think anything this president’s done, the Democrats have done, either legal teams have done rises to the level of Stalin, Hitler, and people who commit genocide. I think that to me is not a proper comparison honestly.”

Lockhart, however, pushed right back, pointing out that he had not, in fact, compared Trump to those tyrants.

“I said that argument, that rationalization is exactly the rationalization that these authoritarian dictators make, which is we will do these things because, ‘Yes, they’re in my interest, but it’s in the public interest,'” Lockhart explained. “So, again, you know, I learned long ago not to disparage people without the receipts. So, Scott’s right. You shouldn’t compare the president to any of those people, but I didn’t. I compared the argument. And what’s shocking about it is that Alan Dershowitz made it on the floor of the Senate. Again, if I had inadvertently compared Trump to any of those people, Scott, I would say ‘I got it wrong, I apologize.’ I didn’t get this wrong, because it is that argument that’s so dangerous that you can commit any act as long as, in your head, you believe it’s good for the country.”

“Our political system would literally break down,” Lockhart added, teasing out the Machiavellian implications, “because you would have 535 lawless people all using the argument that ‘I’m good for my constituents so I’m going to go…’ or a president saying ‘I’m running against — this guy is blocking my legislation, I’m going to get the IRS to audit their taxes because the legislation is good for the country.’ We can’t have that.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Early on in his Fox Business program Wednesday night, Lou Dobbs decried John Bolton as a “turncoat” betraying President Donald Trump with his new book.

A few segments later, he spoke with former Bolton chief of staff Fred Fleitz — who’s calling on his former boss to withdraw his book — and got really worked up and said, “He has committed one of the greatest sins that you can in government. That’s to violate the confidence of the President of the United States.”

Fleitz suggested at one point Dobbs could come on the show and answer some questions. Dobbs said that likely won’t happen:

“My guess is that Mr. Bolton would not even begin to think about it, because he knows exactly how I would proceed with the questioning, and I can’t imagine that he would do so. As you well know, I told the man to go to hell months and months ago, because of his disloyalty to this president. I think very little of the man that I once held in high regard because he has turned his back on his president and his obligations… He turns out to be a petty snarling Lilliputian, and I really am astonished by it.”

He also said Bolton’s “gone rogue” and asked how someone like that could be considered honorable when he’s treating “the president who gave him an opportunity” like Trump did.

You can watch above, via Fox Business.