"We always are trying to compare presidents to each other, but we haven’t had an outlaw president before, and that’s what you have with Donald Trump," Brinkley said on CNN Newsroom. "And incidentally, outlaws in American history get their fans, Billy the Kid or Al Capone, and Donald Trump may be in that swirl." The perspective from Brinkley, a staunch critic of the president, comes as Trump's Senate impeachment trial began Thursday afternoon."We always are trying to compare presidents to each other, but we haven’t had an outlaw president before, and that’s what you have with Donald Trump," Brinkley said on CNN Newsroom. "And incidentally, outlaws in American history get their fans, Billy the Kid or Al Capone, and Donald Trump may be in that swirl."

Brinkley continued, saying that the president's actions in the foreign policy realm are something that no one could have predicted.

"But he’s going to be seen as acting in a demagogic way and acting in a dictatorial way, trying to smash the foreign policy establishment, diss intelligence gatherers, operating in a whole new way of an imperial presidency that we couldn’t have imagined," he continued. "So it’s very important that Donald Trump was held accountable.

House Democrats voted Wednesday to send the two articles of impeachment to the Senate after a trial in the House ended nearly one month ago.



The vote, almost entirely along party lines, saw 227 Democrats voting for the resolution and 192 Republicans opposing it.

Arguments are expected to begin Tuesday.