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Amy Walter:

Right, and where is the Republican Party, right?

And this seems to be the question that we continue to grapple with or have been grappling with really since 2015, Judy, when it seemed that so many times during Trump's first campaign, during his time as president, that the party was going to break up over Donald Trump.

And yet, when all is said and done, the party continues to rally around him. In this case, on the vote over the weekend to convict, the president was no different.

In some ways, as you said, this was a historic moment. This was the most bipartisan impeachment ever in American history. So that's quite remarkable. And yet, at the same time, it doesn't tell us anything about Trump's inability to keep a hold of the party. In fact, what it tells us is that he still has a pretty good hold on the party.

As you pointed out, a number of those senators who voted for conviction have since been censured. We know members of the House who voted for impeachment have also been censured, and they have been threatened with primary races. We know that, even in a bipartisan vote, it was still 10 votes short of a conviction.

And we also know that the seven Republicans who voted these are not who voted for conviction these are not the rising stars in the party. These aren't folks who you're going to see on the ballot in 2024 running for president. Only one of them is up for reelection in 2022. That's Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. Two of them are retiring, Senator Burr and Senator Toomey, Burr from North Carolina, Toomey that you pointed out from Pennsylvania, also been censured.

The rest are either up in 2026, so they were just recently elected, reelected, or one of them, Mitt Romney, up in 2024. So, there is no immediate repercussions for these most of these senators like, there is for members of the House.

But, at the end of the day, I think what's been made very clear is that this is still the party of Donald Trump, the local grassroots activists who are censuring these members making it very clear where their loyalties lie and what they're expecting from other elected officials down the road in 2022 and beyond.

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Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Trump's control of the GOP - PBS NewsHour