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Oct. 4, 2019 - The Ben Shapiro Show

54:46

Ride of The Volker-ies | Ep. 873

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	Democrats hone in on Trump envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker.
	President Trump asks China to investigate the Bidens.
	And CNN refuses to run Trump ads.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	All righty, well, a lot of breaking news today.
	All of that breaking news starts with a big hearing that was happening on the Hill yesterday with the Trump envoy to the Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who's the former ambassador, former special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and he was communicating with other officials in the Trump administration, including one guy named Bill Taylor, who's the charged affairs at the U.S.
	Embassy in Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S.
	ambassador to the European Union.
	Andrei Yermak, who's an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the president's agent Rudy Giuliani, among others, is according to the Democrats.
	Volker was one of the people who's mentioned in the original whistleblower story.
	And Volker was one of the key players in trying to suss out what exactly was happening in Ukraine with regard to corruption.
	Well, yesterday Volker went to the Hill to testify and he testified at length and he also provided a bevy of text between himself and the other mentioned characters just now.
	People like Giuliani and Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland.
	And these texts are not great for President Trump.
	They're not good for the Trump administration.
	Now, they do leave open one very large question, as we will see.
	And that question is whether the Trump administration was indeed conditioning aid and presidential meetings and warm relations with the new Ukrainian administration on getting Joe Biden or whether they were doing so based on Ukraine demonstrating that it would fight corruption.
	If the latter, there's nothing wrong.
	If the latter, that's exactly what Joe Biden openly says that he did back in 2016.
	Joe Biden, there's that famous audio and video of him talking about how he withheld $1 billion in Ukrainian loan aid because he was attempting to fight corruption in Ukraine.
	And in 2016, we also know that the Obama DOJ was meeting with members of the Ukrainian government and trying to get them to root out corruption.
	And we know that in 2018, Three Democratic senators wrote letters to the Ukrainian government suggesting that their aid would be conditioned on whether they cooperated with the Mueller probe.
	So, in other words, conditioning aid on fighting corruption is not, in fact, a crime.
	Conditioning aid on going after your domestic political opponent, that looks like a quid pro quo that you are doing for personal benefit.
	Okay, so.
	The Democrats have now issued a letter updating everyone on their findings and updating everybody on the content of the text with Kurt Volker and here is what the letter says because we always bring you information first and then we break it down for you.
	So the letter is from the head of the Dear colleagues, we are writing to convey our grave concerns with the unprecedented actions of President Donald Trump and his administration with respect to the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.
	The President and his aides are engaging in a campaign of misinformation and misdirection in an attempt to normalize the act of soliciting foreign powers to interfere in our elections.
	Well, as we will see, the question here is whether Trump and company were soliciting a foreign power to interfere in the American election, or whether they were soliciting a foreign power to fight corruption internally, and that has an impact on American elections because it turns out that American officials are involved in Ukraine.
	That's exactly what the Obama administration was claiming in 2016, that they were trying to root out corruption in Ukraine, and that would involve investigating people like Paul Manafort, who would go on to be the campaign chairman for President Trump.
	According to these three congresspeople, we've all now seen the summary of the call in which President Trump repeatedly urged the Ukrainian president to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden immediately after the Ukrainian president mentioned critical U.S.
	military assistance to counter Russian aggression.
	The president claims he did nothing wrong.
	Even more astonishing, he is now openly and publicly asking another foreign power, China, to launch its own sham investigation against the Bidens to further his own political aims.
	Hold on a second, we're gonna get to President Trump.
	And his supposed request to China, he did in fact say that the Chinese should open an investigation into Biden, but there's no quid pro quo there, that's just Trump mouthing off, because one of the difficult things about President Trump is that he says so many things.
	I've been saying for years on end that on his epitaph will be written, President Trump, 45th President of the United States, he said a lot of crap.
	And the problem is that some of that crap borders on the vulgar and the obscene, to say the least, and is politically Unwise, to be very mild about it.
	This China comment falls along those lines.
	It does not fall along the criminal lines, but we'll get to that in just a minute.
	More of this Democratic letter and these texts that the media are saying are incredibly damning, and they do raise questions.
	They do raise questions.
	I'm not going to pretend that the texts are completely by the book and innocent and non-troubling in any way.
	I'm gonna give you the honest take on all of that in just one moment.
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	Okay, so.
	The Democrats continue this open letter, that's basically what it is, an open letter in which they inform the media and their supposed congressional colleagues, but it's about the media attention, about their investigation and their interview yesterday with Kurt Volker.
	Now remember, Volker really only came to light because Rudy Giuliani, the world's worst lawyer, it's amazing, he took that title from Michael Cohen when Michael Cohen went to jail.
	President Trump does have an inerring instinct in choosing the world's worst lawyer.
	He went to Michael Cohen and he's like, this guy'll be great, and then, He's like, you know, who could I replace the world's worst lawyer with?
	Ah, I know, Rudy Giuliani.
	That's gone great.
	And Rudy decided, you know, it'd be a smart idea.
	I will hold up my phone on camera and say that I have texts from the State Department.
	No way this will go wrong in any cla- This is why, folks, I sort of think that everything is more easily attributable to comedy of errors stupidity than it is to deep, malign planning.
	And now, both could be true, could be a stupidly carried out scheme, but My general take on the Trump administration is that when things appear to have been planned nefariously, instead they are usually just a reflection of incompetence and stupidity.
	Because, I mean, Rudy Giuliani.
	Have you seen the man on TV?
	It's not great.
	In any case.
	The House Foreign Affairs Committee and the other Democrats, they put forward this letter.
	letter.
	They say, the president claims he did nothing wrong.
	Even more astonishing, he is now openly and publicly calling for another foreign power, China, to launch its own sham investigation against the Bidens to further his own political aims.
	This is not normal or acceptable.
	It is unethical, unpatriotic, and wrong.
	American presidents should never press foreign powers to target their domestic political rivals.
	I mean, I generally agree with that, obviously.
	I I don't think that you should be pressing the Chai Koms, the Chinese communist fascist government in Beijing, to be targeting domestic political rivals in the United States.
	Engaging in these stunning abuses in broad daylight does not absolve President Trump of his wrongdoings or his grave offenses against the Constitution.
	Now again, something can be wrong and also not illegal.
	Also, it could be just Trump mouthing off, which is, I think, what most Americans take this for.
	Over the past week, say these Democrats, new reports have revealed that other Trump administration officials may also have been involved in the illicit effort to get Ukrainian help for the president's campaign.
	For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has now admitted that he was on the call when President Trump explicitly pressed the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens, but failed to report this to the FBI or other law enforcement authorities.
	Well, yeah, because he didn't think that was a crime.
	He thought that was Trump mouthing off, because it probably was.
	But, say these Democrats you will recall, FBI Director Christopher Wray urged individuals to report efforts to seek or receive help from a foreign power that may intervene in a U.S.
	presidential election.
	Well, as we will see.
	It matters whether we are talking about a broader attempt to target corruption, which is going to be the Trump administration's case, or whether that broad attempt to target corruption was really just cover for getting a political opponent.
	This obligation, say the Democrats, is not diminished when the instigator of that foreign intervention is the President of the United States.
	It is all the more crucial to the security of our elections.
	Instead, when asked by the media about his knowledge of or participation in the call, Secretary Pompeo dissembled.
	Well, that's not true.
	He didn't lie about it.
	Likewise, we are investigating reports that Vice President Mike Pence may have been made aware of the contents of the call and his absence from the Ukrainian president's inauguration may have been related to efforts to put additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the president's demands.
	Well, that raises the question as to what the president's demands were.
	If Trump said, Mike, don't go to that inauguration for the Ukrainian president until he pledges to investigate Joe Biden.
	That would be bad.
	If he said, we are involved in an anti-corruption effort in Ukraine, don't go.
	That's exactly what Barack Obama said to Joe Biden about holding back $1 billion in loan aid.
	This week, current and former State Department officials have begun cooperating with the impeachment inquiry by producing documents, scheduling interviews and depositions based on the first production of materials.
	And it became immediately apparent why Secretary Pompeo tried to block these officials from providing information.
	Now there, the idea is scanty, right?
	Because the fact is, within a week, Volcker showed up.
	The other people who are asked to testify are going to testify within the next week and a half.
	But they have now released these text messages and the Democrats say these text messages reflect serious concerns raised by a State Department official about the detrimental effects of withholding critical military assistance from Ukraine and the importance of setting up a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian president without further delay.
	He also expressly directly expressed concerns that this critical military assistance and the meeting between the two presidents were being withheld in order to place additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the president's demand for Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations.
	Earlier today, selected portions of these texts were leaked to the press out of context.
	In order to help correct the public record, we are now providing an attachment with more complete excerpts from the exchanges.
	My favorite is that they're not going to release the whole exchange, just more complete excerpts.
	How about like the whole exchange?
	Why won't anybody just do the whole exchange?
	And that's the stuff we ought to see, right?
	I mean, it's the Democrats who are out there saying we ought to see the full transcript of the Trump-Ukraine phone call.
	And by the way, if it exists, we should see a full transcript.
	Why the hell not?
	More information is better for the American public.
	Sunlight, fantastic disinfectant.
	But the texts that were originally released yesterday were a small portion, and the Democrats are now saying, well, we'll release this slightly larger portion, but not the whole thing.
	Well, why not the whole thing?
	Seems like that would be useful.
	The Democrats acknowledge that the additional excerpts we are providing are still only a subset of the full body of the materials, which we hope to make public after a review for personally identifiable information.
	Okay, good.
	Good!
	Our investigation will continue in the coming days, but we hope every member of the House will join us in condemning in the strongest terms the President's now-open defiance of our core values as American citizens to guard against foreign interference in our democratic process.
	Now, as we'll see, the Trump administration case here is that they are trying to investigate foreign interference in our election process, that when President Trump is seeking to investigate What went on in Ukraine in 2016, that's because he actually is trying to stop foreign interference in our election process, and we need help from the current Ukrainian government in order to investigate that and come up with the information.
	And that is not a terrible argument, considering, again, that earlier this year, three Democratic senators sent a letter to the Ukrainian government, or last year rather, they sent a letter to the Ukrainian government specifically saying, cooperate with the Mueller probe or we're going to withhold aid.
	So, we're gonna have to determine what exactly was the Trump administration threatening over.
	So before, the question was, were they threatening?
	And I had suggested, well, maybe they weren't threatening at all.
	Maybe Trump wasn't really threatening anything on the phone call, since the Ukrainians, apparently, according to BuzzFeed and the New York Times, did not actually know military aid was being withheld at the time of the phone call.
	Now it appears that it was pretty clear to the Ukrainians that at least a presidential visit was being withheld or that perhaps there was some sort of warm relationship that was in the offing if they would do an investigation.
	So the question becomes an investigation into what?
	Was this really about Joe Biden and the cover for that was corruption talk?
	Or was this really just corruption talk and part of the corruption talk was talk about Burisma, which is in fact a massive Ukrainian company run by oil oligarchs.
	Okay, so now we get to the actual texts.
	And as I say, these are incomplete.
	We don't know what the entirety of the text says, so all we can do is go with the excerpts that we have in front of us.
	On July 19th, so remember the timeline here, President Trump decided he was gonna suspend military aid to Ukraine back in May, basically, and then he informed his own Office of Management and Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold that aid starting in mid-July.
	July 25th is the phone call with the Ukrainian president.
	The whistleblower files the complaint mid-August.
	Adam Schiff starts tweeting out the basic claims from the whistleblower late August.
	Early September, the whistleblower complaint's existence is made aware to Congress.
	And right after that, Trump restores the aid.
	So that is the timeline of events here.
	Okay, so a week before the phone call.
	After the military aid has been suspended, but the Ukrainians don't know it.
	A week before the phone call with Trump and Zelensky, there was a text between Ambassador Volker, who, remember, is, again, the special envoy to Ukraine.
	There's this text between Volker and President Trump's agent—they call him President Trump's agent, he's his lawyer—Rudy Giuliani, to thank him for breakfast and introduce him to Andrei Yermak, who's a top advisor to President Zelensky.
	Okay, well, getting Giuliani on the phone with Yermak doesn't necessarily mean that it's about Biden.
	It could also be about broader 2016 interference questions because Giuliani was, in fact, in Ukraine investigating all of that stuff.
	on Monday, maybe 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. Washington time.
	Okay, well, getting Giuliani on the phone with Yermak doesn't necessarily mean that it's about Biden.
	It could also be about broader 2016 interference questions because Giuliani was, in fact, in Ukraine, investigating all of that stuff.
	Now, Giuliani may also have been there investigating a bunch of bad theories, right?
	That is significantly plausible.
	The fact is the president tends to believe conspiracy theories, even if those conspiracy theories end up not really being true.
	So maybe he was there investigating a bunch of nonsense.
	But that does not obscure the generalized anti-corruption possibility, which is that he was there investigating corruption issues as well.
	Okay, so it's a little bit vague.
	Is it vague enough to let Trump off the hook?
	Not really.
	But we're going to find out how vague it is when we get all the rest of the text and when everybody testifies.
	Okay, so there's that text, right?
	Where Volker is putting together Yermak and Giuliani.
	Now, Volker also testified yesterday in front of the Democrats that he was telling Giuliani at the time that there was nothing to the Biden allegations.
	The Biden allegations were being completely overblown and that there really was not a lot of there there, which suggests that he was helping out Giuliani because he wanted to help out Trump, but that he was not participating in any sort of quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government.
	In fact, Volker testified he was telling the Ukrainian government the opposite.
	Do not get into the business of interfering in domestic political arrangements in the United States.
	It's not going to redound to your benefit.
	Which means that what we may have here is another Mueller situation where Trump was informing people to do bad things and his own team was saying, no, we're not going to do that.
	That may very well be the case as well.
	Yeah, again, the president has impulses that are not good very often, and the people around him are constantly thwarting those impulses.
	Okay, we'll get to the rest of these texts in just one second.
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	Okay, so we know that Volker was working with Giuliani and having Giuliani meet with Andre Yermak, who is the aide to Zelensky.
	Is that about Biden?
	Or is that about the investigation into what happened in 2016?
	Because one of those things is of public interest.
	The other thing is based on rumor and hearsay and without a lot of evidence to support it.
	Now, the Trump campaign is going to make a bolder claim than I'm willing to make, and that is that the investigation into Biden is fully legitimate.
	Meaning that they still suspect that Biden was engaged in serious corruption over there.
	Why is that not a public interest?
	Mike Pence basically said that yesterday.
	He suggested that the American people have a right to know if the vice president benefited from his position.
	When you hold the second highest office in the land, it comes with unique responsibilities.
	Not just to be above impropriety, but to be above the appearance of impropriety.
	And clearly in this case, there are legitimate questions That ought to be asked.
	And we're going to continue to ask them, since the American people have a right to know, whether or not the Vice President of the United States or his family profited from his position.
	Okay, but the question is whether you withheld aid over that.
	Would it have been a sign of Ukrainian corruption if they didn't investigate the specific Biden angle?
	Now, it is true that today, the Ukrainians apparently reopened a bunch of old investigations, and the media are reporting this as, okay, well this is the other half of the quid pro quo.
	Coming through.
	But that's not really the case.
	According to the Associated Press, Ukraine's Prosecutor General said on Friday that his office is reviewing all cases that were closed by his predecessors, including several related to the owner of a gas company where former VP Joe Biden's son sat on the board.
	Well, it seems to me that if they're reopening all the old investigations, and some of those investigations include Burisma, what's the big deal?
	I mean, there is a lot of corruption inside Ukraine.
	You know who used to say that?
	The Obama administration.
	You know who used to say that?
	Joe Biden.
	You know who used to say that?
	Barack Obama.
	So, are we going to pretend that the corruption did not exist and that it's illegitimate to investigate?
	Now Burisma is clean as the driven snow, is the idea here?
	Ruslan Ryaboshapka's comments came amid an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, according to the AP.
	Ryaboshapka told reporters in Kiev that prosecutors are auditing all cases that were closed or dismissed by former prosecutors, including several related to Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the gas company Burisma that hired Hunter Biden in 2014, at the same time his dad was leading the Obama administration's diplomatic dealings with Kiev.
	Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there's no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former VP or his son, according to the Associated Press.
	Ryaboshapka says we are now reviewing all the cases that were closed or split into several parts or were investigated before in order to be able to rule to reverse those cases where illegal procedural steps were taken.
	When asked by a reporter if they are reviewing cases related to Burisma and Zlochevsky, the prosecutor said there are 15 cases where Zlochevsky and businessman Sergei Kurchenko are mentioned.
	He didn't specify how many were related to Hunter Biden's work at Burisma at all.
	Ryaboshapka was mentioned on that July 25th call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who assured Trump that Ryaboshapka was his man and that he would resume investigations into Burisma.
	Okay, so, back to these texts.
	Okay, so, on July 19th, 2019, Ambassador Volker, Ambassador Sunlin, this would be the ambassador to the EU, and Bill Taylor, who is the Acting Ambassador to Ukraine had the following exchange about the specific goal of that phone call that we've now all read the transcript to.
	Volker said, Can we three do a call tomorrow, say noon Washington?
	Sondland says, Gordon Sondland says, Looks like presidential call tomorrow.
	I spoke directly to Zelensky and gave him a full briefing.
	He's got it.
	Okay, it is unclear which investigation he is talking about.
	Is he talking about the Biden investigation?
	Is he talking about the Burisma investigation?
	Most important is for Zelensky to say he will help investigation and address any specific personnel issues if there are any.
	It is unclear which investigation he is talking about.
	Is he talking about the Biden investigation?
	Is he talking about the Burisma investigation?
	Is he talking about the generalized 2016 election interference investigation?
	Which one is he talking about?
	That makes a difference.
	If at the heart of this lies President Trump's desire to get Joe Biden and not root out corruption, he got an impeachable offense.
	If it turns out that at the heart of this was President Trump seeking to root out corruption, and as an aspect of that, he's saying you need to investigate Burisma, then it's not impeachable.
	On July 21st, Ambassador Taylor flagged President Zelensky's desire— Notice that none of these texts actually mention Biden, right?
	Not one of these texts mentions Biden.
	They all mention investigations, Most of them mentioned corruption.
	Not one mentions Biden.
	On July 21st, 2019, Ambassador Bill Taylor flagged Zelensky's desire for Ukraine not to be used by the Trump administration for its own domestic political purposes, according to Democrats.
	Taylor said, One thing Kurt and I talked about yesterday was Sasha Daniliuk's point that President Zelensky is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington of domestic re-election politics.
	And someone said, absolutely, but we need to get the conversation started and the relationship built irrespective of the pretext.
	I am worried about the alternative.
	Okay, so does that text message suggest that the Trump administration is withholding aid based on the Burisma stuff, or does it sound like what Sunlin and others in the administration are saying is, tell Zelensky that he should just try to butter Trump up, basically.
	And that we will make the relationship warm based on anti-corruption efforts.
	And then, we've got Giuliani advocating for the Trump-Zelensky call.
	Apparently Yermak and Giuliani agreed to speak on the morning of July 22nd.
	Later that evening, Volcker informed son Lyndon Taylor that Giuliani was now advocating for a phone call between Trump and President Zelensky.
	I'll get to the content of that particular text exchange.
	Remember, all of this is ahead of this phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
	We'll get to this particular text exchange.
	We're going through all of the evidence that is available, because you get information first here on this show.
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	Okay, so we are continuing to go through these text messages.
	Here is a text message exchange between Volker and Sunlin talking about Trump and Zelensky.
	This is on July 22nd, just three days before the Trump-Zelensky phone call.
	Volker says orchestrated a great phone call with Rudy and Jermak.
	They're going to get together when Rudy goes to Madrid in a couple of weeks.
	In the meantime, Rudy is now advocating for phone call.
	I've called into Fiona's replacement and will call Bolton if needed.
	But I can tell Bolton and you can tell Mick that Rudy agrees on a call if that helps.
	And Sutherland says, I talked to Tim Morrison, Fiona's replacement.
	He is pushing, but feel free as well.
	In other words, it looks as though they are trying to get Rudy Giuliani to sign off on Trump talking to Zelensky on the basis of Rudy is now convinced that the Ukrainian government is going to look into the 2016 election stuff.
	Or, according to Democrats, Rudy is now convinced that Ukraine will act as a cat's paw in going after Joe Biden.
	That part is yet unclear, which is why all of this is going to come down to, in the end, Rudy Giuliani getting up and testifying in front of Congress.
	That's what this is all going to come down to.
	If Rudy gets up and he says, yes, I was there, yes, my only mission was to go after Joe Biden, yes, I tried to force the Ukrainians to go after Joe Biden, not as an aspect of corruption, but just because Joe Biden is a bad man and I don't want him elected.
	And then this looks very much like an impeachable offense.
	If, however, Rudy just says, listen, I was there to investigate the 2016 election stuff.
	One of the aspects of that was Joe Biden and Burisma and corruption over there.
	And they made some sort of moves in that direction.
	So, okay.
	Then that clouds the water.
	Now, is that a good look?
	Is any of this a good look?
	No, it's all a terrible look!
	It's all a terrible look.
	This is not something that the President of the United States should have involved his administration in.
	It is one thing to deploy your resources to a foreign country to go investigate.
	It is another to then try and apply pressure to a foreign government via military aid to help your campaign.
	It is unclear so far if that last thing is what happened here, but why would you even want the appearance of impropriety?
	Why?
	When President Trump spends his life walking that edge and eventually walk that edge and somebody's going to push you off.
	And right now, the Democrats are trying to push him off that ledge.
	Now, does that look like a political hit?
	Of course it does, because the Democrats are politically motivated.
	And as it turns out, Paul Sperry, the reporter, he is reporting now that the whistleblower in this particular case was not only a registered Democrat, he was a CIA analyst who was detailed before the 2016 election to the Obama White House, where he worked on the NSCs at Ukraine desk and met with anti-Trump Ukrainian officials before being sent packing by the Trump National where he worked on the NSCs at Ukraine desk and met with anti-Trump Ukrainian officials This is Paul Sperry reporting.
	So, he says, the Democrat whistleblower who complained about Trump digging up dirt in Ukraine was himself helping dig up dirt in Ukraine against Trump and Manafort while working in the Obama White House during the 2016 campaign.
	So I'm sure more will come out about that.
	So does it look like a political... Two things can be true at once.
	One, it can be politically motivated.
	Two, maybe there's a there there.
	We're about to find out.
	But we are going to have to decide what exactly is impeachable precedent.
	Is the impeachable precedent here?
	That Joe Biden's name got mentioned?
	Is the impeachable precedent that any attempt to link funding and corruption is wrong?
	Because if so, then Joe Biden openly admitted to that.
	Or is it that if there's any confusion at all between the two, then that's impeachable as well?
	Again, I'm trying to set up exactly what we think the standards should be because everything is moving goalposts at this point.
	Okay, so the rest of these texts.
	On the morning of July 25th, 2019, Ahead of the planned call between Trump and Zelensky, the Ambassador Volker advised Andrei Yermak, he said, good lunch, thanks.
	Heard from White House, assuming President Xi, Zelensky, convinces Trump he will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016.
	Okay, so this is the text that the Democrats are focusing in on.
	Because this one obviously has a quid pro quo right in it.
	Right, that if Zelensky convinces Trump he's serious, they'll nail down a date for a visit to Washington.
	Good luck, see you tomorrow.
	And that does lead to the phone call that obviously leads directly into the transcript of the phone call.
	Between Trump and Zelensky, in which Zelensky is trying to butter up and woo Trump.
	100%.
	Obviously.
	Now, notice what that text does not mention.
	Joe Biden.
	It says, assuming that Zelensky convinces Trump that he'll investigate and get to the bottom of what happened in 2016.
	That's a legitimate American interest.
	Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
	Hell, we had a two-year investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
	So there is nothing wrong with the administration or Rudy Giuliani or anybody in between investigating what happened in the 2016 election.
	As I say.
	In fact, Democrats were pressuring the Ukrainian government to work with the Mueller probe with regard to what happens in the 2016 election only directed at Russia.
	So directing that same question at Ukraine is not illegitimate.
	That text is not a smoking gun.
	That text actually just adds to the lack of clarity about what exactly is the investigation we are talking about.
	By Volker's own testimony, it's not Biden.
	He said he was downplaying the Biden stuff to Giuliani.
	But if you are Trump, what makes you nervous right now is that Rudy Giuliani will be called to testify and that man has no filter whatsoever and just says stuff.
	And we'll get to more of these texts and all of the rest of the evidence, President Trump in China, CNN canceling Trump ads.
	We'll get to all of that in just a second.
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	Okay, back to these texts.
	In just one second.
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	All righty, so back to these texts.
	So, I don't.
	So Yermak apparently gave sort of an informal readout of the Trump-Zelensky call.
	After the call, Ambassador Volker received a readout from the Ukrainian presidential advisor Yermak and confirmed his intent to meet Giuliani in Madrid.
	Yermak said, phone call went well.
	President Trump proposed to choose any convenient dates.
	President Zelensky chose 2021-22 September for the White House visit.
	Thanks again for your help.
	Please remind Mr. Mayor to share the Madrid dates.
	Volker said, great, thanks and will do.
	Then, on August 9th, 2019, this is the other text message that people are honing in on.
	So there are really two in this whole exchange people are honing in on.
	One is the obvious quid pro quo, but for what?
	That is the Volcker message saying that if Zelensky convinces Trump he'll investigate and get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we can nail down a date for a visit in Washington.
	Right?
	It's not clear what the investigation is that he's mentioning, which is the entire thing.
	That is one text message people are honing in on.
	The other one is this exchange.
	It's about Ambassador Volker and Sunland, about arranging a White House meeting after the Ukrainian president makes a public statement.
	Quote, Sunland says, Excellent, how did you sway him?
	Not sure I did.
	I think the president really wants the deliverable.
	But does he know that?
	Yep, clearly lots of convos going on.
	And it's good it's coming from two separate sources.
	To avoid misunderstandings, might be helpful to ask Andre for a draft, embargoed, so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover.
	Even though Zelensky does a live presser, they can still summarize in a brief statement.
	Thoughts?
	Agree.
	So what exactly is supposed to be in that Ukraine statement?
	What exactly is this brokered agreement, basically?
	What is the deliverable that the president wants and is mentioned there by Sumlund?
	Well, on August 9th, 2019, after Giuliani met with President Zelensky's aide, Andrei Yermak, Volker asked to speak with Giuliani about the Ukrainian statement.
	Volker said, Hi, Mr. Mayor.
	Had a good chat with Yermak last night.
	He was pleased with your phone call.
	Mentioned Zelensky making a statement.
	Can we all get on the phone to make sure I advise Zelensky correctly as to what he should be saying?
	Want to make sure we get this done right?
	Thanks.
	Sunlin said good idea Kurt, I'm on Pacific Time.
	And Giuliani said yes, you can call now going to fundraiser at 1230.
	The next day, President Zelensky's aide Yermak pressed Ambassador Volker for a date for the White House visit before committing to a statement announcing an investigation explicitly referencing the 2016 election in Burisma.
	So that is the democratic description.
	Here is the actual exchange.
	So Yermak says, Hi Kurt, please let me know when you can talk.
	I think it's possible to make this declaration and mention all these things, which we discussed yesterday, but it will be logic to do after we receive a confirmation of date.
	We inform about date of visit and about our expectations and guarantees for future visit.
	Let's discuss it.
	Volker says, okay, it's late for you.
	Why don't we talk in my morning, your afternoon tomorrow?
	Say 10 a.m., 5 p.m.
	Volker says, I agree with your approach.
	Let's iron out statement and use that to get date and then President Z can go forward with it.
	Euromax says, okay.
	Volker says, great.
	Gordon is available to join as well.
	Once we have a date, we will call for a press briefing announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for a reboot of US-Ukraine relationship, including among other things, Burisma and election meddling in investigations.
	And Volker says, sounds great.
	Okay, so here is where you start at the first time in any of these texts, the explicit mention of Burisma, right?
	And Burisma is mentioned in the context of election meddling in investigations and corruption that is happening in Ukraine.
	Biden isn't mentioned here, but It's pretty obvious that the mention of Burisma is meant to be about Joe Biden.
	So if you're a Democrat and you're looking at this, you're saying, okay, this is starting to look like a smoking gun, right?
	It's starting to look like Trump asked Yermack and Zelensky to mention that they would investigate Burisma, and in return, they'd get to visit the White House.
	If you are the Republicans, if you're Trump and his administration, what you're saying is President Trump has a wide variety of things he thinks are corrupt in Ukraine.
	Those things include Burisma, but are not restricted to Burisma.
	And the President is trying to fight corruption, and thus, he is asking for some sort of guarantee about reopening investigations into a wide variety of topics, including Burisma.
	Right, so the question is, is now the Biden-Burisma stuff its own thing that Trump is specifically asking for and focusing in on, and the corruption stuff is just an excuse, or is it under the broader rubric of anti-corruption?
	And that one is, you know, it's, frankly, it's hard to say.
	It is.
	I mean, it's very hard, and this is why I keep coming back to Rudy Giuliani's gonna have to testify about this stuff.
	We need to see the full text of the exchanges.
	We need to see Rudy Giuliani testify.
	More information, better information.
	These are open questions.
	I don't think we have conclusive evidence, but the text messages are sure not good for the Trump administration.
	Following the August 9th, 2019 outreach to Giuliani, Volker and Sondland had an exchange regarding the proposed Ukrainian statement.
	Volker said special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of sub-Ukrainian politicians.
	I want to declare that this is unacceptable.
	So here is the Trump case.
	Here's Volker's case.
	I am explicitly saying I do not want Ukraine involved in U.S.
	elections.
	Right?
	In these texts.
	So, we are talking about the broader rubric of corruption because I'm explicitly ruling out Ukrainian interference in the American election process, right?
	He says, I want to declare that this is unacceptable.
	We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 US elections, which in turn will prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future.
	And someone says, perfect, let's send to Andre after our call.
	Right, so obviously Trump's team Is saying basically the Burisma is part of the broader corruption inquiry just as Manafort was brought part of the broader Obama corruption inquiry into Ukraine in 2016.
	On August 17, 2019, Volker and Sunlin had an exchange in which they discussed their message to Ukraine.
	Sunlin says, we still want Zelensky to give us an unequivocal draft of 2016 in Burisma.
	Volker says, that's the clear message so far.
	I'm hoping we can put something out there that causes him to respond with that.
	Sunlin says, unless you think otherwise, I'll return Andrei's call tomorrow.
	Suggest they send us a clean draft.
	On August 28th, Zelensky's aide, Yermak, texted Ambassador Volker a news story titled, Trump holds up Ukraine military aid meant to confront Russia.
	Yermak said, need to talk with you.
	Volker said, absolutely.
	On August 30th, Trump canceled his trip to meet Zelensky.
	Bill Taylor, and this is the first you hear of Bill Taylor in these exchanges.
	Bill Taylor is an Obama era holdover.
	And so this has led to some suspicion that Bill Taylor was either working with the whistleblower or that Bill Taylor was basically trying to create a narrative that this was all about Biden, not merely about anti-corruption. - Bill Taylor said, Volcker said, hope the vice president keeps the bilateral and tees up a White House visit.
	Sondland says, I'm going.
	Pompeo is speaking to the president today to see if he can go.
	Bill Taylor says, are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations?
	And Sondland says, call me.
	So Democrats are saying, well, that's suspicious because why are they now using phones and not texting?
	So Sunland is going to be called to testify as well.
	Okay, and now Bill Taylor is starting to really get upset about all of this, right?
	Bill Taylor starts texting Volker and Sunland and he's saying, guys, is this really a quid pro quo for Biden?
	Bill Taylor says, the nightmare is they give the interview and don't get the security assistance.
	The Russians love it and I quit.
	In other words, that they are going to start to do these investigations, and then the aid is held up to Ukraine anyway.
	And then here is the one that Democrats are really focusing on extreme, in extreme fashion today.
	Okay, so this is the final one.
	There are three real exchanges.
	One is that supposed quid pro quo over Biden, but it may in fact be over generalized investigations.
	One of them is the conversation about the possibility of withholding a date unless there is some sort of press statement that mentions the 2016 elections in Burisma.
	And here's the third one between Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland.
	Taylor says, the message to the Ukrainians and Russians we send with the decision on security assistance is key.
	But to hold, we've already shaken their faith in us.
	Thus my nightmare scenario.
	Taylor says, counting on you to be right about this interview, Gordon.
	And someone says, Bill, I never said I was right.
	I said we are where we are and believe we have identified the best pathway forward.
	Let's hope it works.
	Taylor says, as I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.
	And someone says, Bill, I believe you're incorrect about President Trump's intentions.
	The president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.
	The president is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms President Zelensky promised during his campaign.
	I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.
	If you still have concerns, I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly.
	Thanks.
	I don't know who S is in this particular conversation.
	Okay, so Bill Taylor obviously thinks this is a quid pro quo.
	Sunland is saying it is not a quid pro quo.
	Volcker is saying it is not a quid pro quo, at least with regard to the actual investigation into Biden.
	So that is where things stand.
	Does this make us more suspicious today than we were yesterday about the transcript of the phone call?
	The answer there has to be yes, obviously, because there were obviously negotiations taking place.
	Now, were those predicated on Biden specifically, or was it about a broader corruption effort?
	Unclear.
	Now, in another piece of news that Democrats are jumping on today, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump ordered the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including Rudy Giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kiev to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.
	So there's that.
	There's always that anonymous sourcing.
	The recall of Yovanovitch in the spring has become a key point of interest in the House impeachment inquiry.
	A whistleblower complaint by a CIA officer alleges the president solicited foreign interference in the 2020 elections.
	The complaint cites Yovanovitch's ouster as one of a series of events that paved the way for what the whistleblower alleges was an abuse of power by the president.
	State Department officials were told this spring Yovanovitch's removal was a priority for the president, a person familiar with the matter said.
	Secretary of State Pompeo supported the move.
	Yovanovitch was told by the State Department they couldn't shield her from attacks by the president and his allies, according to people close to her.
	In an interview, Rudy Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal, in the lead-up to Yovanovitch's removal, he reminded the president of complaints percolating among Trump supporters that she had displayed an anti-Trump bias in private conversations.
	In Mr. Giuliani's view, she had also been an obstacle to efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.
	So again, this is why, if Rudy testifies, it's a real problem for Trump.
	Because it sounds like in this interview that Giuliani is telling the Wall Street Journal that Trump fired an ambassador because she was not attempting to push forward the Biden investigation in Ukraine.
	Which looks real ugly.
	So, you know, all of this doesn't look fantastic for sure.
	However, the Wall Street Journal also reports that when Yovanovitch left her post in May, the State Department said she was concluding her assignment as planned.
	She was recalled three months before the end of her customary three-year diplomatic tenure.
	Giuliani told the Journal that when he mentioned the ambassador to the president this spring, Trump thought that she had already been dismissed.
	Giuliani said he subsequently received a call from a White House official asking him to list his concerns about the ambassador again.
	He then gave Pompeo, the Secretary of State, a nine-page document dated March 28th that included a detailed timeline of the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine and allegations of impropriety against Yovanovitch, including that she was very close to Mr. Biden.
	Okay, well, that's a different thing.
	Right?
	In other words, if Giuliani is saying that Yovanovitch is basically a Democrat appointee and that she is very close to Trump's political opponent and that that's a problem, Trump does have plenary power over the executive branch.
	That doesn't mean that they are firing her for holding up an investigation into Biden.
	If you believe that somebody is stacked against any of your interests because you are a Republican and that person's a Democrat, this is why, for example, it's pretty customary to fire all of the U.S.
	attorneys when you enter office as President of the United States.
	So, the question in this story is, again, whether this was about the Biden investigation in Ukraine and Yovanovitch not participating in it, or whether it was about she was a Democrat, Trump's a Republican, didn't like her.
	Okay, now all of this is exacerbated yesterday because President Trump then decides to go out publicly on the South Lawn of the White House and call on China to investigate the Bidens, which of course adds to the miasma and fog of complaints that President Trump keeps going out there and asking foreign countries to investigate Biden.
	They were honest about it, they'd start a major investigation into the Bidens.
	It's a very simple answer.
	They should investigate the Bidens, because how does a company that's newly formed, and all these companies, if you look at, and by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens.
	Because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.
	Okay, so people are jumping on this and they're saying, well, now Trump is just throwing out their quid pro quos.
	He's asking for foreign interference.
	Okay, now this is Trump riffing.
	Okay, this is John Belushi in Animal House.
	He's just saying stuff because that's what he does.
	He does.
	Now, the Democrats and the media, they are trying to claim that Trump has already raised Biden in calls with Xi Jinping.
	But the fact is that he was just, again, riffing in a conversation with Xi Jinping.
	During a phone call with Xi on June 18th, Trump raised Biden's political prospects as well as those of Elizabeth Warren.
	Okay, so that has nothing to do—that's not Trump asking for China to investigate Biden in exchange for something, right?
	That is just Trump mentioned Biden's name, which Trump is apt to do because dude has no filter.
	Apparently in that call.
	I mean, what is more troubling is Trump told Xi he'd remain quiet on Hong Kong protests as the trade talks progressed, which is in and of itself a moral problem, but that is not a moral problem that goes to the heart of the criminal activity alleged.
	By the way, why exactly is Trump mentioning China?
	Well, because Hunter Biden formed an investment consulting firm called Rosemont Seneca with a relative of John Kerry.
	And then he met with two top executives of China's sovereign wealth fund, social security fund, and largest banks.
	They're not going to meet with Hunter Biden unless Joe Biden is his daddy.
	Now does that mean that Joe Biden is involved in the corruption there?
	Not really, but it does mean that Hunter has been taking advantage of daddy's name and he's been doing that for a very long time.
	Jim Garrity at National Review says, It's fair to wonder just what Rosemount Seneca had to offer huge institutional investors beyond the stepson of a top Democratic Senator turned Secretary of State John Kerry and the son of the Vice President.
	It certainly wasn't a big firm.
	Trump and Giuliani keep insisting the Chinese paid or gave Hunter Biden $1.5 billion.
	That's not quite accurate.
	Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, Jonathan Lee, other business partners formed BHR Partners in June 2013.
	Hunter Biden was an unpaid member of the board, received his share of the money after his father left the White House, but obviously his name being attached was not unhelpful, was not unhelpful on any of that.
	And so, here is where things currently stand.
	We need more information.
	Giuliani is going to end up testifying.
	Giuliani should end up testifying.
	He is at the center of all of this.
	Was all of this merely an attempt to get Joe Biden via Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine with a quid pro quo?
	Or was this just an extension of the same efforts that the Obama administration was making to ferret out corruption inside Ukraine and fight that corruption by withholding aid?
	That's what Joe Biden was doing and what Barack Obama was doing.
	And again, I mentioned that Hillary Clinton was in fact involved in election shenanigans with the Ukrainian government in 2016.
	And so, that does not justify the president's behavior.
	Hillary wasn't president at the time.
	But it does provide a backdrop for the possibility of impeachable offenses.
	Because if Obama did not commit an impeachable offense, and Trump did the same thing, then presumably that's not an impeachable offense.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I like, and then we'll get to a thing that I hate.
	So, thing that I like, You know, as I say, over the weekends I tend to read lots of books.
	One of the books that I read in the non-Jewish realm, because it was Rosh Hashanah, I was reading a lot of Jewish books, but one of the books that I read as sort of a break is a really terrific tennis book called Strokes of Genius by L. John Wertheim about the rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
	I have to admit that I am a Federer fan.
	I'm not as much of a Nadal fan.
	Nadal is a terrific player.
	If you have to take One of those players all time, it's probably Federer.
	But, let's put it this way, if Federer had Nadal's mentality, he'd have about 35 majors right now.
	In any case, this is about the 2008 Wimbledon final where Nadal finally broke through at Wimbledon.
	It's a really good book.
	L. John Wertheim, the book is Strokes of Genius, well worth the read.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	Alrighty, so.
	There's this clip that is going around last night in which some woman gets up and suggests that the only solution to global warming is to eat babies.
	She does this at an AOC town hall meeting.
	And again, you know, I want to be fair, believe it or not, to AOC.
	This lady who's speaking to her is either crazy or, in my humble opinion, a troll or prankster.
	She immediately starts saying to AOC that the only solution to global warming is to physically eat children.
	We only have a few months left.
	I love that you support the Green Deal, but getting rid of fossil fuels is not going to solve the problem fast enough.
	So I think your next campaign slogan has to be this.
	We've got to start eating babies.
	We don't have enough time.
	There's too much CO2.
	All of you, you're pollutants.
	Too much CO2.
	You know, even if we would bomb Russia, we still have too many people, too much pollution.
	So we have to get rid of the babies.
	That's a big problem.
	Just stopping having babies is not enough.
	We need to eat the babies.
	Okay, so AOC was getting all sorts of flack for not shellacking this woman and saying, no, we're not going to eat babies.
	Again, I'm fair to AOC here.
	If this were me, it would seem like this person actually had a problem, right?
	And that I will, you know, again, I think AOC's response here is actually correct, right?
	She says, hey everyone, we had a fabulous town hall tonight.
	I'll be highlighting some moments from it.
	At one point, I was concerned there was a woman in crisis and wanted to ensure we treat the situation compassionately.
	Let's not mock or make a spectacle for all.
	Let's work on Medicare for all.
	I don't know what Medicare for all has to do with anything, but again, when you watch that clip, I kind of agree with AOC's take on this.
	She says, this person may have been suffering from a mental condition and it's not okay that the right wing is mocking her and potentially making her condition or crisis worse.
	Well, I don't think the right wing is mocking her.
	I think they're pointing out that she's probably pranking you.
	Just be a decent human being and knock it off.
	As far as the quote-unquote right wing's reaction, not really super into it.
	I don't think that AOC is characterizing the right properly, and I also don't think that Donald Trump is characterizing her response properly.
	Everybody faces down when they're in public events.
	Everybody faces down people who are kind of crazy who get up and say things.
	And the best thing you can do is sort of tut tut it until it goes away.
	Honestly, I'm not going to get on AOC's case about that.
	I also am not sure why she is getting on everybody else's case about it.
	Okay, other things that I hate, one quick thing.
	Sam Bee is just the worst.
	Samantha Bee is supposed to be a comedian, but she's not been funny for several years.
	She's kind of like, low-rent Hannah Gadsby.
	So, she went and met with the squad, and became an honorary member of the squad, and boy was it so unfunny, my goodness.
	In an effort to find a place of calm in this political shitstorm, I went to D.C.
	to sit down with Congresswoman Omar, aka the president's enemy number one, and member of the... OMG!
	OMG!
	Is that...
	Okay, be cool, be normal, and then not.
	not produced at all not funny at all my My goodness, that is some terrible, terrible stuff from Samantha Bee, but it is the horror to which we've grown accustomed.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours, all the updates.
	Otherwise, we'll see you here next week.
	I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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