CNN analyst admits Trump is winning the impeachment trial, but has too many white lawyers

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin made a surprising admission on Saturday after President Donald Trump's defense lawyers laid out their opening arguments at Trump's Senate trial: Republicans are "winning" the impeachment case.

"Again, I just think the Republicans are winning here. The president is winning here. And as long as they don't completely fall on their faces, which they're all competent lawyers, they're not going to do that, I think that's fine for them," Toobin argued.

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The liberal commentator also acknowledged that Trump's lawyers raised a "legitimate" point by underscoring the president's longstanding concerns with foreign aid and burden-sharing among nations.

"They did make one good point about [the transcript], I thought, which was the president did about burden-sharing in that phone call, and the House managers didn't focus on that or even mention it. And fair is fair," he continued, according to the Washington Examiner.

Too many 'white people' on Trump's defense team

However, Toobin noted that Trump's legal team may have a major flaw: it lacks racial diversity.

In subsequent remarks, the CNN analyst quipped "White House and white people," while pointing out that Trump has too many "white men" as lawyers.

"It was all white men today," he continued. "There are two white women allegedly on the team, we'll see if they're allowed to argue."

Praised racial diversity of House Democrats

On the other hand, Toobin praised House Democrats for having a racially diverse team of impeachment managers.

"I mean, you know, this is a lesson in the diversity of the two parties," he said. "I mean you look at the House managers, it was almost evenly divided between men and women. It was, you had two African-Americans, you had a Hispanic."

It's unclear how the race and genders of either Trump's lawyers or House Democrats' impeachment team are relevant to the underlying facts of their respective cases, but Toobin said that since television is "a visual medium," when you have one side that "has a very diverse team" and the other is comprised of "all white men," it "says something in and of itself."