Veteran journalist Dan Rather on Wednesday accused GOP lawmakers of trying to desensitize citizens during the first public impeachment hearing against Donald Trump to the gravity of the allegations against the president.

What jumped out to me today is the effort by the Republicans to sort of say, listen, everybody knows all of this, the former CBS news anchor told MSNBC s Ari Melber .

They seek to have people become numb to what we already know, Rather continued. Thats what jumped out to me today, because we already know that the evidence were talking about now, the solicitation of a foreign power to get involved in our election, the evidence is strong. The presidents behavior in what he said has been outrageous.

Rather described the complicity of the Republicans during a serious moment for the country as depressing and explained how the impeachment effort against Trump differed to those against former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon , both of which he reported on.

First and foremost, this is the first time in which weve had an impeachment proceeding in which it involved questions of a foreign power involved in elections or sought to be involved in elections, and very serious military national security issues, said Rather. That didnt exist with the Clinton impeachment. It didnt exist with the impeachment effort against Richard Nixon, who resigned, rather than face them.

But in a broader and much more important way, this is fundamentally about our history of the country and the destiny of our country because history is watching and listening and its going to be a very tough chronicler of these events and the people involved in the events of today, he added.

Check out the full interview above.