The House Majority whip. Thank you for being with us. This is the first time weve had a chance to talk to you since the passing of your wife, known and loved by so many as dr. M. I want to pass on our heartfelt feelings of sympathy to you and your family. Thank you very much for that. Thank you for having me this morning. Bill taylor, the senior u. S. Diplomat in ukraine, the former ambassador to ukraine, he testifies today behind closed doors. He is the one who wrote in a text message, are we now saying that Security Assistance and white house meeting are conditioned on investigations . Where does he fit in to the congressional impeachment investigation in your mind . I think hes a very, very important piece of all of this. I think that we can go back and forth with our opinions about what may or may not have happened, but when we get this kind of a document and we hear these kinds of expressions, we know that within this administration, there were people raising red flags. There were people offering alternatives. There were people who just were trying to raise caution, and it seems as if mr. Taylor was one of those people. So i think his testimony today would be very, very critical to whether or not we ought to move forward with impeachment. You still have questions about whether or not you ought to move forward with impeachment . I personally dont have any questions, but i really feel that in spite of what i may feel, we ought to lay out the facts. We ought to gather them so the American People, many of whom do have questions, can see very clearly and succinctly exactly what the issue is all about. Thats the responsibility that we have here as a congress. And i would hope that people will allow us that. The problem we have now is when we look at past history, we dont have a special counsel doing this, doing the investigations in secret. We have to gather these facts as congress. And we are doing this where in the past youve had special counsel doing it away from public view. And when they are ready, they will lay out for us whether or not we should go forward. You led me right to my next question about the timing. Let me read to you cnns reporting on what could be an extended timeline in this impeachment inquiry which you seem to allude to. Democrats say the initial hope among some in their party was the matter could be wrapped up before the end of the fall. That now seems overly ambitious. I think its more like between thanksgiving and christmas for the end of the investigation, said one democratic member involved in the probe. After that, its a strategic decision about when to bring it to the floor. So if you are looking at the calendar, and this is part of your job as part of leadership, when do you want the full house to be voting on articles of impeachment . As a majority whip, its really part of my job. It is my responsibility to gather the votes. And i would be much more comfortable if we were to do this in such a way that everybody in our caucus will be comfortable with the timeline. As i have lived quite awhile now, but with every passing day, i think about those old adages, haste makes waste is one of them. Lets not be hasty here. Lets take our times. Lets do what is necessary to lay the foundations, and i really believe that we ought to have the American People satisfied with the product once its reduced. Does that mean before christmas, congressman . I would hope its before christmas but it may be after thanksgiving as well. So between thanksgiving and christmas . Im not going to put a timeline on it, but thats kind of where i feel. Because after new years, you run into the democratic president ial contest. Iowa just 104 days away. Do you have concerns there could be overlap there . Well, iowa wont be until february. South carolina falls into that window as well. Even if were not done before christmas, it could be done just after new years and still be out in front of the president ial caucuses and primaries. I am loathed to read president ial tweets often when theyre intentionally inflammatory or say things that are not true, but the president just wrote something moments ago that i feel requires your reaction to this. He is trying to coalesce Republican Opposition to the impeachment inquiry and just wrote, all republicans must remember what they are witnessing here, a lynching. The president just called this impeachment inquiry a lynching. Your reaction. Well, the president has also been pretty loose with his words, and this is another indication of that. I really believe this man is prone to inflammatory statements and that is one word no president ought to apply to himself. You know, ive studied president ial history quite a bit, and i dont know if weve ever seen anything quite like this. Andrew johnson never would have described what was happening to him this way. And certainly bill clinton didnt, nor did nixon. So this president is hopefully an anomaly. Does using a word like that in a situation like this offend your sense of history . Yes it does. Very much so. I am not just a politician. Im a southern politician. Im a product of the south. I know the history of that word. That is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using. Congressman, we opened this segment by offering our condolences for the loss of your wife. The full congress this week is mourning the loss of chairman elijah cummings. And i know thursday and friday of this week there will be some ceremonies for that. I want to get your thoughts on the chairman. Well, he was just a magnificent person. Elijah cummings and i were very close friends, as you probably know. His roots in south carolina. His parents came out of the mt. Zero baptist church. It was the biggest crowd i had ever seen in that church. Every bench was full of people, the balcony full of people. He was dearly beloved by a lot of people. People associated him with maryland. But we loved him in south carolina. And he came back to his roots very often on my behalf and for others. We have lost a real giant whose shoulders were very strong for all of us to stand upon. And i really, really grieve with his family and his constituents as well. Congressman jim clyburn, we are sorry for your loss and very appreciative of you being here this morning. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Alisyn . All right. Look. Two very interesting things from the congressman. I think he just gave us the parameters of the timeline. He said between thanksgiving and christmas on a vote. I guess, if they can get it done. The timeline keeps shifting because they keep getting more information. That means the house vote where does that put the senate trial if there is one . Does that push it until after the new year . He wouldnt commit to a vote closer to thanksgiving so perhaps there. And is his reaction to the president s use of the word lynching there. I think he was deeply offended. Yeah, he had to process that in realtime as we all did. The top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine arrives on capitol hill any moment for this critical testimony in the impeachment probe. What will bill taylor reveal . And we have exclusive cnn reporting on a rift in the royal family. Are prince harrys comments being taken the wrong way . Must be hot out there, huh . Not especially. [ slurping continues ] what you drinking . Gasoline. Right, but i mean, whats in the cup . Gasoline. [ slurping ] for those who were born to ride, theres progressive. For those who were born to ride, alice loves the smell of gain so much, she wished it came in a fabric softener too. [throat clears] say hello to your fairy godmother, alice. 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Heres what the is on the president s mind and what hes just said. Some day if a democrat becomes president and the republicans win the house, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the president without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All republicans must remember what they are witnessing here. A lynching. We will will win . Thats grotesque. People ought to go to montgomery, alabama, where there is a new, the last couple of years, the National Memorial to the victims of lynching. And its an extraordinary thing. And lynching is an actual thing that happened in this country. There are thousands of people, virtually all africanamericans, who were lynched. That is killed without any sort of due process. And its a tremendous stain on the history of this country. There are people alive who have memories of seeing lynchings back in the 20s and 30s. Its just grotesque that the president in his selfabsorbtion and ignorance would invoke lynching there. Its also a pattern. Using the most inflammatory possible language to make a point about how things are being unfair to him. But in doing so really trying to get into the countrys deep racial wounds. This is often what he does in an attempt to get peoples attention, to be controversial, to be inflammatory. But it doesnt make any sense in this context, and i dont think we in some ways, i dont think we should indulge the effort to kind of make this about some controversy that he is concocting on social media in order to get people to focus on this tweet and not why hes so upset which is we debated whether or not to talk about it, but i think the reason we decided that this would be a moment to talk about this is our factchecker says that its the first time the president has used the term lynching, at least in a tweet. And again, if theres a spectrum, it just goes it seems to go farther down that spectrum. But this is about the history of the word lynching. The president knows what lynching is in this country. He was not born yesterday. He understands what that means. And i think hes doing it intentionally and its in part to really get a rise out of people. But doing it on the backs of something that is deeply hurtful to a lot of people in this country. And look go ahead. We should also note David Gregory is with us here. Go ahead. I think the fact that he is this is grotesque. And to inject this into the political bloodstream is just another example. And at a critically grave time right now in the country and in our politics, that the president adheres to no limits and there are no boundaries. And what this is is really a stain on the presidency itself which is much bigger than him. But hes using it in seeking to delegitimize it in a way and to delegitimize any political process that has him as a target. Thats the more lasting damage that hes doing. And i say its such a grave time because republicans who are already in a very difficult position of having to defend him have to wake up yet again and face Something Else that they have to answer for if theyre going to stand by him in front of their constituents. Im sure theyre going to tell us they havent read the tweet or theyre deeply uncomfortable with it. Or mitch mcconnell, i dont comment on tweets. The why and the when of this tweet to me seem relatively obvious which is that were like 40 minutes away from hearing from ambassador bill taylor. The senior diplomat in ukraine. In the words that we have seen from him, are as damning as the words the president just wrote about himself. Bill taylor is the one who in Text Messages to Ambassador Gordon Sondland suggested that he was concerned there was a quid pro quo. He wrote, are we now saying that Security Assistance and white house meeting are conditioned on investigations . Jeffrey toobin to which sondland responded call me. Call me, maybe. Is taylor minutes away to quote blondie. Youre welcome. Youre always good on these musical references. Call me, maybe. Thats a different i remember now gregory wants in on this. I remember blondie, of course. The gray haired caucus here. The point is, is that taylor at least on paper or digitally, ironically, might be the most important witness yet because he is someone who has a contemporaneous record of expressing concerns about a quid pro quo. Exactly. If you believe, and i think its correct that the core accusation here is that the entire relationship of the United States to ukraine was based not on the National Interest but was based on getting dirt on the president s political opponents. The most provocative statement we have from a witness who is not the president himself is that tweet because that tweet spells it out. Conditioned on is quid pro quo ell see what he says. And, of course, well see what he says about what prompted him to send that text message. Thats the most important bill taylor is a longtime hes highly regarded and respected. Long time career diplomat. He knows how things normally run. So he will be able to testify today about what got what was so aroused his i dont know, suspicion or anger that you engage in these. He was always hesitant to take that job according to our reporting in part because of what he saw the former ambassador to ukraine being pushed out of the job. So, clearly, he was already suspicious about what was going on here and just like Gordon Sondland writes this lawyerly tweet, call me. Lets not put this in writing. What bill taylor is doing is putting it in writing, trying very much to make sure that his concerns are reflected on paper so that for a time such as this, when we are now looking at those messages, and seeing clearly that there were people who were raising those concerns at the time, in the moment, and believe that there was something fishy going on. David gregory who joins us from studio 54, what are you looking for this morning in the testimony . Well, speaking about one of my contemporaries, dean achison, former secretary of state. Hes be appalled theres all this texting going on in diplomatic circles. But to be serious about that, the fact that taylor wanted to make a record is because he understood how inappropriate this relationship was and this course was. And i think whats been striking about the congressional investigation so far, the inquiry so far, is how much deeper this ukraine story goes than just the phone call. From sondland himself who was a political appointee, we got ow uncomfortable he was with what the president is doing. Now well get more, perhaps to amplify on the reporting and the times in the post this morning about the extent to which that President Trump was being led down this path by authoritarians in Central Europe and russia to marginalize ukraine. Not representing u. S. Interests. When you have a government that is a fledgling democracy, trying to look toward the west and reform that trump looked at ukraine, on the advice of giuliani and others saying, no, lets use it to get to the bottom of how we can get dirt on political opponents. Davids point relates to what you were talking to congressman clyburn about earlier which is this investigation is taking a little longer than they expected. When they thought it was just sort of the partial transcript, lets go to impeachment, thats one version of this investigation. Now, as david points out, there are the tentacles of this story are getting spread wider and wider which is creating its good if you are looking for evidence, but it takes longer to collect it which do they have to collect it all . The democrats have to decide today if they have to collect it all or if they want to wrap this up before the end of the year. You can go down a million different tentacles and rabbit holes and they can do that forever. But it sounds like they now feel some pressing timeline. Absolutely. And remember, the actual impeachment hearings will not be before adam schiffs intelligence committee. Theyll have to sort of gin it up all over again to do it before the Judiciary Committee which is a complex process. Going to take some time. Already here we are in latish october. Its hard to think how that can get done by the end of the year. If you are a republican who doesnt want to take a vote on whether to remove the president in the senate, doesnt it get a lot easier after the first of the year to say, if this is a close call y dont we let the Voters Decide because were almost there anyway . And the argument gets harder for democrats to make. But the question about, should they not just take a vote here depends on what nancy pelosi wants to do. She could take the vote tomorrow. But if she wants to build a Critical Mass of republican support, she might need more time to do that. We might need more information to come out. The censure vote yesterday against adam schiff, 185 republicans voted for it and not one single one voted against it might show that shes not building a lot of support in the house for impeachment right now. Fair point. Thank you very much for that. Iraq says u. S. Troops leaving syria cannot stay in iraq. This as turkey hopes to resume its military offensive soon. Were going to speak with a congressman just back from the middle east, next. Underserved bd the technology that they need in school, theyre not going to be competitive in the workforce thats waiting for them. Since verizon innovative learning, students have hardware, connectivity, and quality curriculum. The jobs of tomorrow will involve technology. Now students are truly hopeful for what they may achieve. But you dont feel good. With polycythemia vera, pv, symptoms can change so slowly over time you might not notice. But new or changing symptoms can mean your pv is changing. 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