EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the only first-hand witness to President Trump's thought process on Ukraine, finally speaks.
Plus, Democrats prep for a debate battle royale.
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We're going to get to all the news, and there's tons of news today.
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Okay, so today is the biggest day in terms of the public hearings that are taking place regarding the Trump-Ukraine quasi-scandal impeachment inquiry.
And you should support them as well.
Okay, so today is the biggest day in terms of the public hearings that are taking place regarding the Trump-Ukraine quasi-scandal impeachment inquiry.
The reason that today is the biggest day is because the only person who has yet testified or is planning to testify, who has had a direct conversation with President Trump, testified today.
And that'd be EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
So, you'll recall that in his original testimony, Gordon Sondland suggested that there was no quid pro quo, or at least that he was told by Trump that there was no quid pro quo.
In his original testimony, he suggested that he had only spoken with President Trump maybe five or six times since being appointed ambassador.
Other witnesses have suggested that that is not true, that in fact, he'd had many conversations with Gordon Sondland.
He had also suggested that he spoke briefly to Trump before traveling to Ukraine for meetings on July 26th, which is right before Trump was supposed to speak with President Zelensky in Ukraine.
And he had said at the time, I do recall a brief discussion with President Trump before my visit to Kiev.
The call was very short, non-substantive, and did not encompass any of the substance of the July 25th White House call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
Also, he had some sort of July 26th call.
With Trump, but in his initial deposition, he didn't recall that, right?
He said he recalled no discussions with any State Department or White House official about former Vice President Joe Biden or his son.
He said in his original testimony, remember, all these witnesses have given closed door testimonies.
Now they are being brought out into the open.
He said in his original closed door testimony, he didn't recall taking part in any effort to encourage an investigation into the Bidens.
Okay, then there are other people who have testified that Gordon Sondland had spoken to Trump and that he had been overheard speaking to Trump.
There was a witness named David Holmes, who's a political counselor at the U.S.
Embassy in Kiev, and he testified that he heard Sondland speak to Trump after a meeting with Zelensky aides.
And during that conversation, Sondland had said he was going to call Trump to give him an update.
And apparently, Holmes said that he heard the president's voice through the mouthpiece of the phone.
And that President Trump clarified that Sunlin was in Ukraine and that President Zelensky quote-unquote loves your ass apparently that's what he said to President Trump and then apparently Trump asked if he was going to do the investigation.
Now is any of that substantive in terms of Did Trump commit an impeachable offense?
Well, we've known for a while.
I've been arguing for a while.
In fact, it's pretty obvious that Trump was withholding military aid in exchange for investigations.
I mean, that part is true.
The question is, is the withholding of aid for the investigations illegitimate?
So what was the purpose of the investigations?
Were the investigations designed to bring down Joe Biden in advance of 2020?
Or were the investigations designed to investigate what happened in 2016?
Both because Trump is vindictive about 2016, because he's obsessive about 2016, because he feels that he has been given a raw deal by the media on 2016, which is true.
But also because he believes in conspiracy theories about Ukraine, which are not true.
Because he knows that there have been credible media reports from places like Politico, that Ukraine was in fact coordinating with the DNC to go after Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman for a while.
That part's true.
But also, Trump was worried about CrowdStrike, based on bad information from Rudy Giuliani.
My suggestion for months at this point has been that President Trump basically wrapped up all the stuff in a ball on Ukraine, decided he didn't really want to give aid to Ukraine anyway because he was always a little bit split on giving more aid to Ukraine.
He always felt that Europeans weren't doing their fair share.
He always wondered why the United States was Was spending so much time and effort in Ukraine, and he finally allowed that to cloud his judgment to the point where he said, OK, I'm going to withhold the military aid until I get these investigations.
And the investigations are everything that bothers me about Ukraine, up to and including Burisma and Joe Biden.
Now, the way that you would establish an impeachable offense is if what you found was that and the Democrats basically said this, right?
It's not just me saying this.
This is the Democrats setting the standard.
They suggest that this was to get Biden.
This is all about Biden.
All the rest of this stuff, the CrowdStrike stuff, the 2016 election stuff, all that stuff is a ruse.
Really what Trump wanted was to go get Joe Biden.
And all the rest of this stuff he was mentioning, these other investigations having to do with corruption, these other investigations about the Ukrainian embassy coordinating with the DNC in 2016.
All of that was merely a pretext for Trump to force Ukraine to go get Joe Biden, right?
That's the case.
So, Gordon Sondland is the person who theoretically could speak to that, right?
Gordon Sondland is the guy who could get up before Congress today, and he could say, right, I talked to Trump, Trump said, go get the Bidens, and the rest of all this was a charade.
That isn't exactly what Gordon Sondland said.
So, people are honing in on the fact that Gordon Sondland had changed his testimony.
His original closed-door testimony, he said he didn't understand there was a quid pro quo with Trump and Ukraine.
Now, of course, he changed his testimony, and he suggested that there was, in fact, a quid pro quo with Trump and Ukraine.
But it is not clear exactly whether that quid pro quo was wrong, whether that quid pro quo was a problem.
So, here is what Gordon Sondland had to say in his early testimony today.
He had a bunch of things to say.
So, He began by explaining that everybody was in the loop on this.
Like, everybody knew that Trump was basically withholding military aid in order to get investigations.
Whatever investigations means.
This is clip 18.
He says everybody was in the loop.
It's not like this was a giant secret with regard to Ukraine policy.
He would greatly appreciate a call prior to Sunday so that he can put out some media about a friendly and productive call, no details, prior to Ukraine election on Sunday.
Chief of Staff Mulvaney responded, I asked the NSC to set it up for tomorrow.
Everyone was in the loop.
It was no secret Everyone was informed via email on July 19th, days before the presidential call.
Okay, so, not only did everybody know, says Gordon Sunlin, but everybody at the State Department knew, up to and including Mike Pompeo, that President Trump was manipulating Ukraine policy in order to achieve investigations.
So, everyone was in the loop, right?
Sunlin is trying to say, it wasn't just me.
It wasn't me making up this foreign policy.
It wasn't, like, don't try to throw me under the bus, right?
We've got a problem with the foreign policy.
I was not the originator of the foreign policy.
I'm not going to be the man who gets caught in the crossfire here.
I was doing the will of the President of the United States.
Here's Sunlin explaining that everybody at the State Department knew.
We kept the leadership of the State Department and the NSC informed of our activities.
And that included communications with Secretary of State Pompeo, his counselor Ulrich Brechtel, his executive secretary Lisa Kenna, and also communications with Ambassador Bolton, Dr. Hill, Mr. Morrison, and their staff at the NSC.
They knew what we were doing and why.
Okay, everybody knew, right?
In other words, this was not a giant secret, which you would assume at this point, since half the people on the call, the July 25th phone call, made complaints.
Now, and then Sondland continues along these lines, and he says, listen, the only reason we were even working with Rudy Giuliani was on Trump's behalf.
So if you think that I was coordinating with Giuliani because I had some sort of side relationship with Giuliani, not gonna happen.
So Sondland is trying to achieve a couple of things with this testimony.
One, he can't say anything that overtly contradicts his closed-door testimony, because then he would be charged with perjury.
Republicans would charge him with perjury.
Two, Gordon Sondland does not want to be the guy who is basically put out there as he was freelancing the foreign policy.
Now listen, I don't think that that was a credible accusation in the first place.
I think that if anybody had claimed that Gordon Sondland was making up Ukrainian foreign policy on his own, the giant owner to Trump who ended up as EU ambassador, suddenly an expert on Ukraine and negotiating with Rudy Giuliani, that was never a credible defense for the Trump administration.
Again, the only credible defense Was the one that I have presented for Trump, which was an intent-based defense, right?
The no quid pro quo, it was a perfect phone call defense, was obviously crap.
It was obviously crap from very nearly the beginning, right?
As soon as it came out that the Ukrainians had found out pretty soon after the July 25th phone call that military aid was being withheld, to say that there was no quid pro quo at all was obviously untenable.
To suggest that President Trump had engaged in a perfect phone call on July 25th, obviously, was also untenable.
The only tenable defense is that President Trump did not have intent to go after Joe Biden specifically in advance of 2020.
It was not about getting Biden.
It was about all of his thoughts on Ukraine mashed up together, thrown out there.
And Ukraine was supposed to fulfill all of these concerns that Trump had, some of which were legitimate, some of which were based on bad information being provided by Rudy Giuliani.
But Sondland is trying to avoid the it's-my-fault routine that I think many in the Trump administration wanted Sondland to take the bullet here and Sondland ain't gonna do it.
So here is Sondland saying, listen, the only reason we were even talking with Rudy Giuliani is because of President Trump.
Finally, at all times, I was acting in good faith.
I was acting in good faith.
As a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the president.
We worked with Mr. Giuliani because the president directed us to do so.
We had no desire to set any conditions.
We had no desire to set any conditions on the Ukrainians.
Okay, so there it is.
Him saying, along with members of the foreign policy team, that they were trying to pry loose the aid from Trump.
And it was not about them freelancing with Rudy Giuliani or anything.
It was top-down.
Trump was the one who was telling him, talk with Rudy Giuliani.
And then someone says, Rudy wanted a quid pro quo, right?
That the quid pro quo is a thing that happened, and that Rudy Giuliani's request obviously amounted to a quid pro quo.
Here is someone using that phrase, quid pro quo.
Which is different than what he had said in his closed-door testimony, and then he had revised.
Originally, he had said he didn't understand there was a quid pro quo.
Then he came back and he said, no, no, no, actually I got that wrong.
I just want to revise this.
I'm not charged with perjury.
I did understand that there was a quid pro quo, even if I didn't understand the full extent of the quid pro quo.
Here is Sunlin saying that Giuliani's requests did amount to a quid pro quo.
In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded.
I shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aid with Senator Ron Johnson.
And I also shared my concerns with the Ukrainians.
Sondland then concludes by suggesting that President Trump said that there was no quid pro quo, right?
That it is true that he was on the phone with Trump and Trump had said, no quid pro quo.
We'll play that for you in just one second.
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Okay, so Gordon Sondland concludes by saying that Trump did say to him no quid pro quo.
But basically, I didn't believe him when he said no quid pro quo.
Nobody believed him when he said no quid pro quo.
Here is Sondland saying that Trump did say no quid pro quo.
But I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman.
What do you want from Ukraine?
I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that.
What do you want?
And it was a very short, abrupt conversation.
He was not in a good mood.
And he just said, I want nothing.
I want nothing.
I want no quid pro quo.
Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.
Something to that effect.
Okay, so that's what Trump said, but it's pretty obvious that someone didn't believe him.
Now, there is stuff that someone said that goes to the key question, right?
So Democrats, the media, they're focusing in on the broader question, which I believe was already established, right?
And they're focusing in on that because the Trump administration keeps running away from what is obviously true, right?
They keep saying, no, there was no quid pro quo, perfect phone call.
Okay, that was always an indefensible position.
It was nearly always an indef- nearly always.
In the first couple of weeks, it appeared maybe defensible.
After that, it was a nearly indefensible position.
Saying there was no quid pro quo is obviously untrue.
There was, in fact, a quid pro quo.
And I'm sorry, but the defense, to be intellectually honest, the defense that was presented by the Trump administration, which was, okay, well, if there is a quid pro quo, Ukraine got its aid.
They didn't give us what we wanted.
Where's the quid pro quo?
Right.
The accusation by Democrats and by people who don't like Trump, the accusation is that the reason that he changed the Ukrainian policy and then released the aid is specifically because this became a public issue.
It was embarrassing for him.
And so he released the aid because he had to.
So he preemptively corrected the problem before it materialized in its fullest form.
Right.
That is the accusation.
And so saying that eventually Ukraine got its aid, It's sort of like saying, I tried to blackmail somebody, it failed, and therefore, I'm not guilty for trying to blackmail somebody.
That's not a good defense.
The only defense here that makes any sense at all is the one that I've been presenting over and over and over again, which is that President Trump, again, because I think this is true, President Trump has in his head a bunch of crap.
And that bunch of crap about Ukraine can be listed on a 3x5 notecard.
And every time anyone mentions Ukraine, he flips to that notecard, and he gives you everything on that notecard.
He gives you Burisma, and he gives you Biden, and he gives you CrowdStrike, and he gives you 2016 election interference.
Those are the things on his notecard.
And he has a general predisposition not to want to give aid to Ukraine.
That is something that I disagree with him on, but he's elected.
I'm not, right?
So he's the President of the United States.
He does get to set foreign policy, even foreign policy, with which I disagree.
So the question here for Sunlin is, did Trump make clear to you that he only wanted the Bidens and the rest of this was a pretext?
Was Trump using taxpayer dollars to go after a domestic political opponent or was Trump using taxpayer dollars in order to pry anti-corruption concessions out of Ukraine and information about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election?
And Sondland, to Democrats' chagrin, right, this is the part you're not going to hear in the media today.
Sondland basically says, listen, I knew the foreign policy.
Everybody knew the foreign policy.
We all knew the quid pro quo was going on.
But what we were doing did not appear to be wrong.
That's the part everybody is going to ignore.
Here's Gordon Sondland, clip 17, saying, listen, I may disagree with the foreign policy.
I may have thought Trump should change it.
But we didn't think we were doing anything legally wrong here.
If we thought we were doing something legally wrong, we wouldn't have done it.
Here's clip 17.
Still, given what we knew at the time, what we were asked to do did not appear to be wrong.
so Third, let me say, precisely because we did not think that we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decision makers at the National Security Council and the State Department knew the important details of our efforts.
Okay, and Gordon Sondland said that as far as his own conversations with Ukraine, he didn't recall mentioning the Bidens, which makes sense because officials from Ukraine have said, we don't remember hearing from Gordon Sondland about the Bidens.
Here's Sondland saying, so if this whole thing was about the Bidens, then why didn't I mention the Bidens?
Clip 16.
And then on July 26th, you confirm you did indeed have the conversation with President Trump from a restaurant in Kiev that David Holmes testified about last week.
Is that right?
Correct.
And you have no reason to doubt Mr. Holmes' recounting of your conversation with the president?
The only part of Mr. Holmes' recounting that I take exception with is I do not recall mentioning the Bidens.
That did not enter my mind.
It was Burisma in 2016 elections.
You have no reason to believe that Mr. Holmes would make that up, if that's what he recalls you saying?
You have no reason to question that, do you?
I don't recall saying Biden.
I never recall saying Biden.
Okay, so he is obviously contradicting the testimony of somebody who says he overheard someone.
Okay, so, again, the Washington Post is picking up on the fact that the actual question is a question of intent.
There's a piece by Josh Dowsey today called Republicans defend Trump as concerned with Ukrainian corruption, but aides tell a different story.
But even the piece basically acknowledges the Democrats have not made their case.
So here's what the Washington Post says.
Some of President Trump's allies have argued that his motivation for holding up almost $400 million in aid to Ukraine was his deep-seated concern about corruption and that he needed to test the new Ukrainian administration's dedication to rooting it out.
In persistent questioning during the House hearings, Republican lawmakers and their staff lawyer have pressed witnesses to agree that Ukraine has long had a corruption problem, and to portray Trump's desire to have Kiev investigate his political rivals as fitting within that broader worry.
Representative Jim Jordan said last week, quote, corruption is not just prevalent in Ukraine, it's the system.
Our president said, time out, time out, let's check out this new guy.
Well, while there is widespread agreement that Ukraine has long struggled with corruption, recent congressional testimony, along with interviews with officials who worked closely with the president, raised questions about how much Trump cared about corruption broadly in Ukraine, as opposed to investigations that stood to benefit him politically.
Okay, now, investigations that stood to benefit him politically is not the same thing as solely meant to benefit him politically.
Let me give you an example.
So, President Trump is very upset about the idea that the Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 election.
Forget Biden for a second.
He's very concerned with the idea that the Ukrainian embassy was coordinating with a woman named Alexandra Chalupa, who is an emissary of the Democratic National Committee, in their attempts to dig up dirt on Trump's campaign.
Because apparently the Ukrainian government perceived that the Trump campaign had been pro-Russia, and so they were very concerned that Paul Manafort was the one who was influencing all of this.
They started funneling information to the DNC about Paul Manafort.
And so Trump's concerned about all of that.
And he wants Ukraine to investigate all of that.
Now, is that relevant to the American public?
Of course that's relevant to the American public.
We just did a two and a half year investigation into Russian interference in the American election.
Why would it not be relevant to the American public if Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and coordinated with the DNC in order to do so?
You can't have it both ways.
Either the Mueller investigation was a get Trump effort and irrelevant, or it was based on a fundamentally True assumption about the nature of American elections, which is that foreign countries should not interfere.
If the latter, then Trump is perfectly within his rights, even if motivated by certain vindictive anger.
He's perfectly within his rights to ask whether the Ukrainians were interfering in the 2016 election.
So when the Washington Post draws this false binary between Worrying about Ukrainian corruption and quote-unquote investigations that stood to benefit him politically, that's too broad.
There are certain things that fall under both, meaning that presumably if it turns out that the Ukrainians were in fact targeting Trump in 2016, that might benefit him politically going into 2020.
It would certainly assuage his feelings going into 2020, but is that an area of relevant political consideration for the American public?
Of course it is.
Do you think that it would have benefited Democrats politically had they found out that Trump had coordinated with Russia in advance of 2016?
Of course!
Does that make the inquiry illegitimate on its face?
No.
Okay, so, what the Washington Post is trying to establish is that President Trump generally doesn't care about corruption.
He only cares about Ukraine because it concerns him.
Okay, but again, that's too broad.
That's true, but that does not mean it's illegit- I mean, it is true!
I'm sorry, Trump doesn't care about corruption in Zambia, right?
Trump isn't worried about corruption in Mexico, per se.
Trump isn't worried about corruption in most places in the world, but he was worried about corruption in Ukraine.
Why was he worried about corruption in Ukraine?
Not because of Joe Biden in 2020, but because he was angry over 2016, and he saw that the Ukrainians were attempting to target him.
According to Politico, not according to Rudy Giuliani or InfoWars or something.
And the Washington Post basically acknowledges as much.
The Washington Post says, Four former administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe at private conversations, shared Sunland's view and said Trump's main contention was that Ukrainians had, quote, tried to take me down, in the words of one former senior administration official.
Trump angrily complained the official said that they had Hillary Clinton's email server, a reference to an unfounded theory that Democrats conspired with Ukrainians to interfere in the 2016 election.
Former envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Sunland, and other officials said in testimony that this view was shaped by Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer.
Officials said Trump described Ukraine as a problem because it caused tensions with Russia and sucked security money out of the United States.
He begrudgingly approved the military aid in 2017 after being repeatedly pushed by national security officials.
Okay, so that backs my theory, not the Democratic theory.
That backs my theory, that Trump was sitting there and simply mulling over in his mind and obsessing about 2016, not that he was attempting to go after Joe Biden in 2020.
That Washington Post piece backs my case, not their case.
Okay, in one second.
We're going to get to more of the testimony over the past couple of days, which was all supposed to be bombshell, but turns out, in many cases, not really to be.
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Okay, so, as I say, Sunland's testimony is not actually providing answers to the key question.
To the key question, which is, what exactly is the intent here?
Right, what exactly is the intent here?
Now, again, the fact is that Sunlin is not really even testifying as to intent, and when he has testified to intent, then Sunlin has basically suggested that the intent was go after problems in 2016, not problems in 2020.
And even in his testimony, he basically suggests the same.
Now, all of that can be based on bad information.
Now, all that can be based on bad information provided by Rudy Giuliani.
President Trump, being a sort of conspiratorial-minded dude, sent Rudy Giuliani over to Ukraine to dig into what happened in 2016.
Rudy Giuliani, it appears, was feeding him bad information provided by corrupt Ukrainians who are now being prosecuted under the law.
But that's... Trump's fault there is bad judgment, not bad intent, per se.
Right?
It was bad judgment to trust Rudy Giuliani's info.
That does not mean this was all about getting Biden.
Remember, the original accusation is that Donald Trump used taxpayer dollars in order to basically bribe the Ukrainians to give him bad information on Joe Biden for purposes of the 2020 election.
Not that he had broad Ukrainian corruption concerns dating back to 2016, and that he was using American resources to investigate that.
That may have been motivated by base political concerns, but so is nearly everything in Washington, D.C.
That's not the same as he was weaponizing a foreign government to go after domestic political rival with an eye toward 2020.
And by the way, who's to say that it's illegitimate for people to ask questions about what happened with regard to Burisma?
Elise Stefanik, for example.
She's the Republican representative who's getting all sorts of press these days.
She was talking with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman.
He was the Democrats' star witness yesterday.
And she asked Vindman about Burisma.
And Vindman basically acknowledges that Burisma is corrupt.
And so if Trump asked about Burisma, what's illegitimate about that specifically?
Here's Elise Stefanik going after Vindman.
I know that my constituents in New York 21 have many concerns about the fact that Hunter Biden, the son of the Vice President, sat on the board of a corrupt company like Burisma.
The Obama Administration State Department was also concerned, and yet Adam Schiff refuses to allow this committee to call Hunter Biden despite our requests.
Every witness who has testified and has been asked this has answered yes.
Do you agree that Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma has the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest?
Certainly the potential, yes.
OK.
And by the way, Vindman also, who was the Democrat star witness yesterday, came in full military regalia, obviously served honorably in the United States military for 20 years and stood on that to the cheers of the media.
He was asked specifically about Hunter Biden.
He said, yeah, of course, Hunter Biden wasn't qualified for the position he held.
I mean, Hunter Biden has acknowledged that himself.
Here's Vindman saying Hunter Biden was not qualified.
We talked a little bit about at your deposition about whether Mr. Biden was qualified to serve on this board.
Um, and, you know, I believe you acknowledge that apparently he was not, in fact, qualified?
As far as I can tell, he didn't seem to be, but like I said, I don't know his qualifications.
Okay, so again, the questions about Hunter Biden, those are not going away.
They're not going away.
And so the fact that Trump was concerned about Burisma and Hunter Biden and wrapping that all up in 2016 concerns, that does not speak to go get Joe Biden.
It doesn't speak to go get Joe Biden specifically.
So, to go back to Sunlin's testimony, I'm reading through his entire opening statement right now.
There are a few key sections, right?
He says, Again, that is Sunlin maintaining, I'm not the fall guy here.
work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine.
So we followed the president's orders.
Again, that is Sondland maintaining, I'm not the fall guy here.
You want to blame somebody, blame Trump.
But he also says, although we disagreed with the need to involve Mr. Giuliani, we did not believe his role was improper at the time.
As I previously testified, if I had known all of Mr. Giuliani's dealings or his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment, I would not have not have acquiesced to his participation.
Still, given what we knew at the time, what we were asked to do did not appear to be wrong. - Yeah.
And he said, Precisely because we did not think that we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decision makers at the National Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts.
The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false.
So, Sunlin is actually kicking back there against the accusation being made by the other witnesses that there was this irregular channel and that Sunlin and Volker and Rick Perry and the President And Pompeo, they were in this irregular channel.
And then there was the regular channel, which was all of the career diplomats, the honorable career diplomats.
Someone was like, no, everybody knew about this.
Everybody was in on it.
Everybody basically acknowledged that it was weird, but nobody thought that this was wrong at the time.
And it was only later that people started to suggest that it was wrong, which gives the idea that this was in fact politically motivated, or at least could have been politically motivated from the outset, right?
Someone also acknowledged that Giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo.
Giuliani said that he was expressing the desires of the President of the United States and everybody knew the investigations were important to the President of the United States.
And he said in July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine and everybody was upset about all of this.
He shared his concerns with Ron Johnson and with the Ukrainians.
He says, I was acting in good faith at all times.
As a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the President.
We worked with Giuliani because the President directed us to do so.
We had no desire to set any conditions on the Ukrainians.
Indeed, my personal view was that the White House meeting and security assistance should have proceeded without preconditions of any kind.
We were working to overcome the problems given the facts as they existed.
Our only interest was to advance long-standing U.S.
policy and support Ukraine's fragile democracy.
Okay, so now the question becomes, with this testimony, do the Democrats have what they need?
Do they have what they need?
Do they really believe that they are going to be able to somehow draw the impeachment rabbit out of this hat based on Sondland saying that there was a quid pro quo?
And some of that is going to depend on the White House actively not pursuing the dumbest possible defense.
Like, the one that's not true.
I don't know why Trump thinks that it is more embarrassing for him to say, yeah, there is a quid pro quo, but the quid pro quo is for my concerns about 2016.
What's the problem?
Right, he was angry at Mick Mulvaney for saying that.
But Mick Mulvaney actually was saying the actual defense from the White House.
I don't know why that's somehow more embarrassing than him claiming pretty obviously, falsely, that there was no quid pro quo and that his phone call on July 25th was perfect.
I understand Trump's normal defense mechanism.
Is that you defend at the front line every time, right?
You never make a strategic retreat.
You never reveal your plans, right?
I get all of that.
But in this particular case, he's put himself out there on grounds that are unsustainable, and Republicans are not going to be able to sustain those grounds.
They can easily work within the grounds that I have suggested and that the Washington Post has suggested.
Again, it's not just me.
The Washington Post is reporting the actual testimony of aides.
The aides are saying that Trump was mainly obsessed with 2016.
It was not about 2020.
And by the way, there is crossover between American interests and 2016.
Vindictiveness by President Trump.
There is crossover there, whereas there is no crossover with regard to Trump going after Joe Biden specifically because he wanted Joe Biden out in 2020.
That is the question.
Okay, coming up, we'll talk more about this.
Plus, big Democratic debate tonight.
Pete Buttigieg is surging in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
Does he have a real shot at the nomination beyond that point?
We'll get to that.
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Alrighty, we'll get to more on Impeachment Gate 2019.
Did Gordon Sondland give Democrats what they need today?
We'll get to all of that in a sec.
Plus, the Democratic debates, which are happening tonight.
Another big Democratic debate.
Ooh, ah.
We'll get to that in a second.
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So Byron York has a really good piece of the Washington Examiner talking specifically about the accusation that Trump never should have asked about Burisma.
And he says, well, you know, that's really questionable.
He says, one of the most important issues in President Trump's impeachment defense is also one of the least explored.
To what degree were Trump's concerns about Ukraine valid?
It's well documented that the president fixated on Ukrainian activity in the 2016 election and on the Biden's actions in the Burisma matter.
Democrats and many in the media dismiss his concerns as conspiracy theories, but to what extent were those concerns in fact legitimate?
If they were even mostly legitimate, Trump defenders could say, look, you had a point.
Even if one thinks he handled the issue inappropriately, the fact is what was going on in Ukraine was worrisome enough for the US president to take notice.
That would not change minds among those dead set on impeachment, but among others, it would make the case for impeachment and removal much harder to make.
Of Trump's two concerns, 2016 interference and Biden-Burisma, the 2016 part came first and is the foundation for Trump's later concerns about the former VP.
So leave the Biden part for a later article focused on Ukraine and the 2016 election.
Like, this is the part that's so weird.
I keep seeing articles from the mainstream media suggesting that Trump's concerns about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election are completely fictitious.
In fact, he had testimony to that effect yesterday.
It was very, very weird.
Right?
You had people who were suggesting that Ukraine was never involved in the 2016 election.
Like, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, this is clip 5, suggested that Trump's focus on 2016 interference by Ukraine was totally fictitious.
There was no evidence to it whatsoever.
Are you aware of any evidence to support the theory that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 election?
Congressman, I am not.
And furthermore, I would say that this is a Russian narrative that President Putin has promoted.
And are you aware of any part of the U.S.
government, its foreign policy or intelligence apparatus that supports that theory?
No, I'm not aware of.
You are aware that other parts of the U.S.
government, our intelligence community for example, has said definitively that it was the Russians who interfered in the 2016 elections.
That is correct.
Okay, so here is the problem.
It is true that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election.
It is also true that there have been widely available public reports from credible sources, like Politico, sugge- If you find Politico credible, which I do.
As a general matter.
Those reports say Ukraine was coordinating with a woman named Alexandra Chalupa, who is a DNC hack, in order to grab information on Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman.
So Byron York says...
During the summer of 2016, candidate Trump was under constant criticism for being insufficiently critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
From Ukraine's perspective, Trump's statements were linked to the presence of Paul Manafort in the Trump campaign.
Manafort was promoted to campaign chairman in June.
Few Americans knew much about Manafort, whose best-known political efforts were with the Gerald Ford campaign in 1976, but Manafort later made millions in Ukraine, working for President Viktor Yanukovych and the pro-Russia Party of Regions.
Trump's comments on Crimea and Ukraine ...set off a strong reaction in Ukraine.
Some high-ranking members of the Ukrainian government took to social media in an attempt to influence as best they could the U.S.
presidential race.
On Facebook...
Arsene Avakov, at that time the Interior Minister, tweeted that Trump was a clown, added that a Republican candidate was an even bigger danger to the U.S.
than terrorism.
He said the shameless statement of U.S.
presidential candidate Trump on the possible recognition of Crimea as Russia is a diagnosis of a dangerous outcast and called him dangerous and all the rest of this.
Okay, and at the same time, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, a person named Valerie Chaley, wrote an op-ed published in The Hill.
Chaley said Trump's statements on Russia and Crimea have raised serious concerns in Kiev and beyond Ukraine.
Okay, so obviously Ukraine was very, very concerned about Trump.
And based on Trump's commentary, for decent reason, it seems.
But the question is, did they then interfere in the actual election cycle?
Because it turns out that the Trump-Ukraine brouhaha shed light on the activities of a woman named Alexandra Chalupa, who worked in the Clinton White House and later with the DNC.
Chalupa's parents immigrated to the U.S.
from Ukraine.
She maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S.
Embassy in Ukraine, according to a January 2017 article in Politico.
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.
That is the best source of information on her activities.
Politico reported that in 2014, Chalupa had a client interested in the Ukrainian crisis.
As part of that, she began looking into Manafort's activities in Ukraine.
Chalupa, quote, developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence operatives.
In 2015, Chalupa began focusing her research on him.
The website reported that Chalupa occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
In March 2016, she went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington and shared her concern with Politico, according to Politico, with Ambassador Chaley and one of his deputies, Oksana Shulyar.
Not long after, Chalupa spoke again with the DNC, and according to Politico, with the DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which then-President Petro Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.
So in other words, it sounds like Chalupa, on behalf of the DNC, wanted the Ukrainian government to make a public statement discussing Trump's campaign manager.
They sound familiar?
Politico then added, quote, Andrei Tilijenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian embassy under Shuliar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort, and Russia.
Oksana said if I had any information or knew other people who did, I should contact Chalupa, recalled Tilijenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev.
They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexander Chalupa.
Adding, Oksana was keeping it all quiet, but the embassy worked very closely with Chalupa.
In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called to Lyshenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet's ongoing investigation into Manafort.
Politico also reported that Chalupa, quote, discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with foreign policy legislative assistants in the office of Representative Marcy Kaptur, who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.
The investigation didn't end up happening.
So, is there any evidence about the CrowdStrike nonsense?
No.
But is there evidence that the Ukrainians were involved in 2016?
Yeah, there is!
There are serious open questions about that.
And that's what Trump is obsessing about, even according to the Washington Post.
Even according to the Washington Post.
So, did today's... So did today's testimony change that fundamental intent issue?
Not really.
Not really.
Right?
President Trump suggested So, according to Gordon Sillman, so this is what he just testified moments ago.
He said, President Trump never told me directly that aid was conditioned on the meetings.
The only thing we got directly from Giuliani was that Burisma in 2016 elections were conditioned on the White House meeting.
The aid was my own personal, you know, guest, based on your analogy 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Okay, but again...
Assuming that the quid pro quo is a thing, which I am happy to assume because I think it is true, the question becomes intent.
Is the intent impeachable here?
My answer all along has been, I am doubtful that it is.
And someone has not yet provided any testimony that changes that.
Okay, so tonight is the next big democratic debate and the field is just a mess.
I mean, it is an absolute mess.
We've had basically several people contending at the top of the field.
There are four top contenders right now.
Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders still hanging around.
You've got Elizabeth Warren, who is dropping fast, and you've got Pete Buttigieg, who is climbing fast.
So, it seems to me that Elizabeth Warren is in a lot of trouble.
It also seems to me that the romance with Pete Buttigieg is likely to peter out here.
There are some new national polls out today, and they show Joe Biden actually gaining in the national polls.
There's an Economist YouGov poll today that has Joe Biden up nationally, 30 to 22 over Warren, Sanders at 12, Buttigieg at 9.
According to the Hill-Harris poll that came out in the last couple of days, it's Biden at 30, Sanders at 18, Warren at 15, Buttigieg at 7.
I'm telling you, this feels a lot like 2012.
It feels a lot like 2012 on the Republican side.
It feels like there was a frontrunner, everybody was unhappy with the frontrunner, Everybody else is going to get a chance at the top.
Everybody's going to fall and Biden's going to be the nominee.
If you had to predict it right now, that's what I would suggest.
The betting odds aren't reflecting that.
They still say that Warren is the likeliest nominee, but I'm not seeing why that would be the case.
Right now, Buttigieg is leading by big numbers in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
There's a brand new poll out in New Hampshire that is devastating for Elizabeth Warren.
That is her neighboring state.
She has to win.
If Elizabeth Warren does not win New Hampshire, she does not win the nomination.
But, according to a new St.
Anselm poll, Pete Buttigieg has vaulted to a 10 point lead over the rest of the field.
Now, people would suggest here maybe hardest hit is Joe Biden, right?
Because Buttigieg is stealing sort of moderate support away from Joe Biden in early caucus states.
But that's not correct.
The reason that's not correct is because if Elizabeth Warren does not win in Iowa or New Hampshire, which are super white, super progressive territories, how the hell do you think she's going to perform in South Carolina where one black person supports her?
Two-thirds of the electorate in South Carolina on the Democratic primary side of the aisle is black.
Which is why Joe Biden is way up in South Carolina.
He continues to be up 19 points in South Carolina.
He continues to be up 9 points in Nevada.
Buttigieg, by the way, is pulling at 7% in Nevada.
So if Buttigieg were to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, it's still unlikely he's the nominee because he has no minority support.
As in, none.
Zero.
Zip zilch.
Now, Bernie Sanders is falling out of the race, but his support, it seems, is not bleeding over to Elizabeth Warren, particularly.
And tonight, the candidates on the debate stage, Elizabeth Warren, because she's, like, Buttigieg is in good position because he is climbing in some of the important state polls, but Elizabeth Warren is still widely perceived by the media as the frontrunner, and she has opened herself up to every possible attack.
Every plan that she has proposed is garbage.
She's been shifting her plans repeatedly.
Her wealth tax is nonsense.
And there are people on stage who are only going to be able to make hay by attacking Elizabeth Warren.
So I'm talking, of course, of Cory Booker, who, if he has any brains at all, should be going after Elizabeth Warren on her decision to go against charter schools that she previously supported.
And he's going to have to do that.
He's going to have to say, listen, Elizabeth, I know that you're a very, very white person despite your Native American ancestry, but your former support for school choice, which was a good idea, You've now subsumed that in order to win over college-educated white people in Iowa.
And what about people who actually need a better educational opportunity for their kids?
In Newark, I did X, Y, and Z, right?
That should be Cory Booker's attack.
Kamala Harris should be attacking Elizabeth Warren on the basis of stolen racial valor.
Kamala Harris should say, listen, as a black woman in America, I know what it's like to be victimized.
You claim to be a victim by claiming Native American heritage and that is absolutely unsustainable, right?
That'd be a brutal attack on Elizabeth Warren tonight.
Bernie Sanders should attack Elizabeth Warren saying, listen, it's my plan.
You stole my plan.
And then you presented it in the worst, stupidest possible way.
You lied about the costs of the plan.
At least I'm honest.
You are a damn liar.
She has opened herself up to attack from every possible angle.
Every possible angle.
So, expect a pretty good night for Pete Buttigieg.
Expect Joe Biden to continue to be Joe Biden.
He's never going to have a wonderful night.
He's never going to have a horrible night.
Expect that Elizabeth Warren is going to have to fend off attacks and she has not proved adept at fending off those attacks.
She has not.
So in the aftermath of this debate, she is the one most at risk here.
And if you are Elizabeth Warren tonight, you are nervous.
You are very, very nervous.
And you should be extremely nervous.
She's the most vulnerable candidate at the top of the field right now.
And as again, for the Buttigieg surge, I think that he has a good ground operation in Iowa.
He's getting the glowing media coverage that was reserved for Elizabeth Warren until about six weeks ago.
But the media fall in love with, and then out of love with candidates extremely quickly.
Watch for in the next few weeks, Elizabeth Warren, for Pete Buttigieg to be hit with a spate of stories about how he has badly governed racial politics in the city of South Bend, right?
That's where he's most vulnerable.
Watch for that.
And watch for Cory Booker and Kamala Harris to go after him on that.
And watch for Joe Biden to continue to skate by.
So in a certain way, Joe Biden is actually benefiting from the fact that he is the actual front runner being treated as though he is not the front runner.
It's actually not a terrible place to be.
It means most of the attacks are not going to be leveled at Joe Biden.
In fact, the Democrats basically have exhausted their attacks on Joe Biden.
What else is there to say about the guy?
They've already hit him on criminal justice reform.
They've already hit him on working with Republicans.
They've already hit him on being old.
Like, what else is there?
But there are brand new attacks on these other Democratic candidates every day of the week, so...
I feel like Joe Biden is actually in shockingly good shape here.
Like in shockingly good shape.
So two things were true.
One, I was right that his best day was his first day.
But also, none of these other candidates are rising from the bottom up to the top.
It's pretty incredible.
Okay, time for a quick thing I like and then some things that I hate.
Things that I like today.
So there is a fun kids movie called Abominable that is out.
It's kind of fascinating also to look at the Chinese-American politics in this film.
So this movie was a joint production by a Chinese production company and an American production company.
I think it's a DreamWorks production.
It was obviously meant for release in China.
The sort of rosy depiction of China is pretty hilarious.
At the same time, it really is a fun kids movie.
I took my kids to see it.
They really enjoyed it.
It's really innocent.
It's really fun.
I've come around to the notion that the movies are just not fun anymore, which is why everybody's going to Marvel movies and superhero movies and kids' movies.
It's why those are the big earners.
And that the less fun the movie is, the more the critics love it.
But this is a really nice, sweet film for kids.
There are no sucker punches or anything.
If you're... I have a kid who's three, watched the movie, loved it.
So if you're interested in a kids' movie, taking the kids out to the films tonight, then Abominable is definitely a worthy choice.
There are people looking for you.
Go faster!
You can do magic?
This is amazing!
This is impossible!
I wish dad were here to see this.
Yeah, Ma.
Beijing is great!
Oh, Peng is a...
So one of the things that's actually kind of cool about this film, so a lot of it is about getting...
Basically, it's about getting a Yeti back to Everest, right?
It's a fantasy film, and it's fun.
It's a fun movie.
And one of the kids who stars in it, one of the kids who stars in it, is the grandson of Tenzing Norgay, who was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer.
One of the first people to climb, he summited Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary.
And so his grandson actually plays one of the parts in this movie.
It's kind of fun.
And, you know, again, if you're looking for a fun movie for your kids tonight, this would be one to check out.
Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
Exciting news, the ACLU is celebrating International Men's Day.
International Men's Day.
So, yesterday was International Men's Day.
It was supposed to sort of signify the problems that men have.
Men have a higher suicide rate, for example.
They have male health issues.
The idea was that it was supposed to celebrate male contributions to society, promote male role models, etc.
Well, the ACLU came out with a tweet.
That basically tells you about the status of modern politics and why we are totally screwed.
Here's ACLU's tweet.
There is no one way to be a man.
Men who get their periods are men.
Men who get pregnant and give birth are men.
Trans and non-binary men belong.
Hashtag International Men's Day.
I'm gonna have to ask a question here.
If there is such a thing as an International Men's Day and an International Women's Day, presumably there is some distinction between them.
Explain.
Really, explain.
Define man.
Define man.
If you are going to say that a man can get his period, then I don't know what to tell you.
Obviously, your definition is not biological.
So, if your definition is a characterization of gender stereotypes, then which gender stereotypes are male?
Is it aggression?
Is it aggression that makes a man a man?
Because if so, then a biological female who says that she is a man, but does not have the male characteristic of aggression, is not a man.
And by the way, men who are biological men, who are not aggressive, are not men.
You have to set a standard.
The problem for folks who keep suggesting that trans and non-binary men are men, If the idea is that you are not a biological man, but you are a man, then you have to have an alternative definition of man that has some sort of internal coherence.
The left has none.
And so you end up with this stupid— I mean, it's absolute stupidity.
And the ACLU blames inaccurate stereotypes for opposition to biological male athletes competing in female athletics, by the way.
I mean, the ACLU is completely out of touch.
They've lost whatever tenuous grasp of reality they ever had.
The ACLU actually gave a statement last year suggesting that trans women should be able to compete as women, meaning a biological male should be able to compete alongside the women.
And they suggested it was inaccurate stereotyping to oppose biological male athletes competing against women.
As opposed to, you know, the basic biological dichotomy between mammalian males and females.
True in every mammalian species.
The ACLU at the time tweeted, Equal participation in athletics for transgender people does not mean an end to women's sports.
Trans women are women, including women and girls who are transgender.
Advances women's equality and well-being.
Um, no.
Having a biological male, like Fallon Fox, fight a biological female does not advance women's equality and well-being.
It's just a dude hitting a lady.
Which, last I checked, is not only unchivalrous, but also quite dangerous.
This is pretty... I mean, this is just absolute garbage.
It's just ridiculous.
It's just ridiculous.
All the way through, ridiculous.
But, the left is so focused on changing definitions of basic biological reality that they end up in the position of actually taking the interest of women.
And making them completely secondary.
Perfect example.
There is a school district in Illinois that has now decided that you get to go into the locker room of your gender decision.
So if you're a boy and you decide that you are a girl today, you get to go and undress in the women's locker room.
Well, here's a video of a teenage girl at one of these schools talking about the fact that she no longer feels safe in the bathroom because now there are biological boys walking into the bathroom who could spot her undressing.
This is clip 23.
Uncomfortable that my privacy is being invaded as I am a swimmer.
I do change multiple times naked in front of the other students in the locker room.
I understand that the board has an obligation to all students, but I was hoping that they would go about this in a different way that would also accommodate students such as myself.
Okay, well, there is no... I mean, the alternative that has been suggested in the past to having, you know, biological boys dress alongside females has been to have, like, a separate bathroom for transgender kids, right?
Or to have these transgender kids dress behind a curtain, allow the girls to dress behind... But apparently, the privacy concerns of a woman are no longer relevant so long as a boy who says he's a girl is treated as a girl.
This is all insanity.
It has nothing to do with reality.
It has nothing to do with biology.
It's just... There's no description that is appropriate beyond it is pure insanity to suggest that this is the case.
Truly.
It was amazing.
I do have to mention this.
It was pretty amazing.
So I saw an argument the other day.
I've always taken the position that pronouns refer to objective biological characteristics.
Right?
That when I say male and I say female, I mean biological male and biological female because there is literally no other descriptor that fits.
And if you take on the attributes of a male or female, that does not make you a male or female.
You have to be biologically male or biologically a female.
Now, for purposes of identifying for going into a bathroom, what you appear to be objectively to the outside world will probably be good enough because otherwise we're not going to check everybody's genitals as you walk into the bathroom or something or check your genetics as you walk into a bathroom.
But, for purposes of saying male and female, we mean biological male and biological female.
So, some dolt.
Suggested to me, well, look at the romance languages.
There are lots of romance languages where the verbiage is gendered.
Right?
If you look at Hebrew, to take a non-romance language, then the verbs are gendered.
Right?
The nouns are gendered as well.
So, for example, the word for table, shulchan, is a male word.
So that means that all of the verbs are male verbs.
And thus, because the language is gendered, why should we say that the word male applies to a male and not to a trans male?
This is the stupidest argument you could possibly imagine.
The fact that there are gendered objects in language for grammatical reasons does not mean that the table is a male.
Nor does it mean that the male is a table.
Nor does it mean that a male is not a male.
There's no transitive property that applies here.
Plus, the logic here is completely asinine.
Because you have to assume one of two things.
Either you assume that the gendering of objects means that gender has no actual relevance to terminology.
In which case, what do you care if I call a male a male and a female a female?
Because these words mean nothing anyway.
Or you have to assume that gender does have content.
In which case, you're with me.
If gender has content, then a male is a male and a female is a female.
But the social left wants to have it both ways.
And by both ways, I mean they just want to rewrite the entire doctrine of human language and human logic in favor of the asinine notion that men can have periods.
Alrighty.
We'll be back here later today with two additional hours of content.
Plus, we will be back here tomorrow if you missed that.
And we'll recap the debate for you then.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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An insufferable power-hungry bureaucrat testifies before Congress, the ACLU celebrates menstruation on International Men's Day, and the UK's first gay dad is dating his daughter's boyfriend.
But don't worry, because the governor of South Dakota is on meth.