But Donald Trump just couldn't resist the theatrics.

And in a sign of election tactics to come, the president used the podium to portray himself as the victim.

Our great country and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people.

They have done everything possible to destroy us, and by so doing very badly hurt our nation.

Senate will Convene as a Court of Impeachment Nearly half the nation, the latest polls show, believe that Donald Trump should have been removed from office for his dealings with Ukraine.

Stressors not guilty.

But in what came as no surprise to anyone, his Republican senators last night voted overwhelmingly to acquit him with one singular exception.

Mr Wrong, Mr Romney.

Guilty.

In so doing, the openly devout Republican Mitt Romney made history as the first senator to vote to remove a president from within his own party.

There are people in my party and in my state who will strengthen strenuously, disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced.

I'm sure to hear abuse from the President and his supporters.

Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?

Now will you join me in prayer?

But from a president to invokes his love of God?

At every turn came this response to Mitt Romney's decision to vote with his conscience.

I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.

As he left the chamber yesterday, the president's lawyer said a ll that mattered was Trump's acquittal.

What is your reaction to Mitt Romney's?

I have no reaction to it.

The president won.

The office of the president, won the Constitution, want for the Democrats?

Romney was alone.

Hero.

How great was Mitt Romney to do that?

This is the kind of decision it takes backbone and grit.

And that's what people America want in politicians.

Even the Democrats.

Senators in trump friendly states who thought about acquitting him said it was their duty to put politics aside.

You worried about how it would play out with voters.

I've taken two oaths since I've been a senator.

One oath has been to defend and protect the Constitution.

Second was impartial judgment, and I took an oath to God to do that.

And I think hopefully I've done that and consider this.

On the day that he was acquitted by the Senate after his impeachment, President Clinton addressed the nation contrite and with humility.

How profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people.

Now contrast that with this that we went through hell unfairly, did nothing wrong.

I did nothing wrong.

But this is what the end result is when it's worth dwelling on that Clinton moment.

When he was acquitted, he spoke for about a minute.

It was full, as you saw there, of contrition and healing.

Yet Donald Trump, by contrast, Donald Trump has just wrapped up in the hour long diatribe in which he was supremely defiant and there wasn't a single word of apology, accepted his family for putting up with what he called this phony rotten deal.

Then there was this agonizing pain staking name checking.

He went around the room thanking many of the congressmen and senators who had stood up for him during the impeachment ordeal.

You're so incredible, he told one.

I'll always be your friend, he told another.

The message.

Really?

There was very simple.

Read my lips to read for me or you're against me on one final point to make.

For all the bravado, it was clear that this impeachment had got to him.

He referred to at one stage as a dirty word, and while he was clearly you saw, they're giddy to be acquitted.

Remember that he will remain impeach.

That will be his legacy and that, as we all know, it's something that Donald Trump would never have wanted.