Anda thoritatively about the Pressure Campaign waged against ukraine. They described an effort to leverage that country to deliver the politically motivated investigations the president wanted. And it was gent that backdrop the star witness, ambassador taylor, dropped an important new revelation, a bombshell really linking the president directly to that scheme. One day after the president asked ukrainian president zelensky to dig up dirt on his political opponents a member of taylors staff heard a conversation. And heres how taylor described what he heard. In the presence of my staff at a restaurant ambassador sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in kiev. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking ambassador sondland about the investigations. Ambassador sondland told President Trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump the member of my staff asked ambassador sondland when the president thought about ukraine. Ambassador sondland responded trump cares more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. I take the import of that is he cares more about that than he does about ukraine . Yes, sir. That staffer identified as david ho david holmes now set to testify this friday. Republicans spent their time trying to poke holes in the testimony and advance the president s counter narrative. But the testimony of taylor and kent offered some troubling details for the president. Ambassador taylor affirmed military aid was withheld in an effort to extort ukraine. And both suggested the actions taken in crew crane were unpresident ed. In your decades of military service and Diplomatic Service representing the United States around the world, have you ever seen another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the United States . No, mr. Goldman, ive not. Is pressuring ukraine to conduct what i believe you called political investigations, a part of u. S. Foreign policy to promote the rule of law in ukraine and around the world . It is not. Is it in the National Interests of the United States . In my opinion, it is not. Taylor also stood behind his texts of last september saying that military aid for political gain is, quote, crazy. Because that was so important, that Security Assistance was so important for ukraine as well as our own National Interests, to with hold that assistance for no good reason other than help with a Political Campaign made no sense. It was counter productive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical. It could not be explained. It was crazy. Im joined now by u. S. Congresswoman jackie spear of california that took part in todays hearing. Cynthia and glenn kirschner. Thank you, congresswoman for coming on tonight. What did you make of the bombshell tonight weve got a witness account now coming from david holmes who heard talking about following up the investigation he wanted done by zelensky on biden . Its the piling of more evidence that the president was using his office and hijacking our Foreign Policy to benefit his campaign for election in 2020. Its really as mr. Taylor and mr. Kent said, unprecedented that a president would do Something Like this. And in my mind it is grounds for calling for bribery. He is a person in his official status who is asking for something of value from another party and then withholding his office and his ability to do something unless he gets what hes asking for. Its quite simple. Cynthia, and everyone else, i want your reaction to getting the news now that the star witness today, bill taylor, the ambassador to yeah crane actually has a staffer now ready to testify he overheard the president following up on a deal he struck, extortion he setup with the president of ukraine. More actual real direct evidence. Right. Its a bombshell. And the reason why its a bombshell is because it brings the story away from whats going on in ukraine and brings it to trump. And thats what needs to happen more. Because he was on the phone. Because he was on the phone. Because hes actually involved. Hes physically involved. And one thing that happened today that i thought needed to happen more was they need to take it away from fact, fact, fact, email, email whatever and make it a story. This is what this case is about. Its about trump trading American Integrity and arms for his own political gain. Its got to be and every question has to go back to that. I thought they were pretty good at that. You dont think so. Glenn . I think this phone call now with sondland saying ukraine is ready to move forward, how do we interpret that . Bribery successful, mission accomplished. Thats what that is. And i agree with cynthia, i love all of the facts and i love an overarching story and an inclusive tale being told by heroes like bill taylor. 50 years, i get patriotic goose bumps listening to that guy. But now we need a message. We need to tell it like it is because what this is arms for political dirt. And i think weve heard no obstruction, no collusion, which was a lie. We heard perfect call, perfect call which was a lie. But the truth is this is arms for political dirt. Thats the message. Right. And every time theres a question it has to go back to that. Every question. If the president said this, that was a lie, wasnt it . Because in fact what was happening he was trading arms for dirt. Majority members they werent going off about emoluments or some other little tangent they did stick to the question of what happened to our president and the president of this very vulnerable question when he shook him down. Republicans, on the other hand seemed a bit scatter shot in their approach. What did you think about the whole thing . I thought the witnesses were excellent. And i like the Human Interest part of it. He said wait a minute, lets talk about you for a second since nobody knees who you are, bill taylor. You graduated from west point. Serious trait arrows come out of there. We know they come in fourth in a class of 800 in any school is pretty amazing. And we also know in the heat of the vietnam war, he chose infantry. He went out in the jungle as opposed to guess who. Thats why guess who bone spur is . I think that was pretty smart. And thats why these guys give you patriotic goosebumps. Theyre in there just telling it like it is. Theyve been doing the peoples work for in george kents case 27 years. And there were two councils up there today, Danny Goldman and this guy caster. I think goldman was great. The other guy was a dunce. The other guy got nothing done. I dont even know what he was doing. Going back to the bombshell with sondland and this phone call, sondland is coming in next wednesday. Take off work, get your fire going in your popcorn because that is an epic showdown between sondland. And goldman also pushed back that theres no quid pro quo. Here he goes, Danny Goldman. Even though President Trump was saying repeatedly there is no quid pro quo, ambassador sondland relayed to you that the facts of the matter were that white house meeting and the Security Assistance were conditioned on the announcement of these investigations. Is that your understanding . Thats my understanding. He described conditions for the Security Assistance and the white house meeting in those terms. Dependent upon, conditioned on pursuing these investigations. Congresswoman spieier, i think youve learned from mistakes. Weve lost a lot of effort back in the days of iran contra when Brenden Sullivan and oliver north win the day against a bunch of people hiding up in these chairs ibcommittee rooms and hes in uniform. This time around instead of everybody doing scatter shot you focused your energies on a council. Was that a tough decision to make Danny Goldman would be the attack dog . Hes very effective. A trial lawyer, u. S. Attorney, great experience. And we wanted to lay out the facts, and thats precisely what happened today. Facts do matter. And i would disagree with some of your speakers in that we need to lay the foundation and then we can tell the story. What we were doing today was presenting facts while the republicans were presenting conspiracy theories again. And id like to remind everyone that it was the president s own Homeland Security advisor tom brosart, who said in 2017 to the president that this ukraine election involvement in 2016 was a myth, was a hoax. And there was no relevance to the, there were no facts to support it. And yet the president is still barking up that tree. I agree with you completely. Also still telling everybody that ted cruzs father was involved in killing jack kennedy. He was selling that baby for a long time. Hes still selling it as far as im concerned. Both taylor and kent, the Witnesses Today said it went against Americas National interest in the region. Here they go. The committees investigation has uncovered a web of shadow diplomacy engaged in and executed by several state Department Officials and the president s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and ultimately directed by President Trump. Was mr. Giuliani promoting u. S. National interests or policy in ukraine, ambassador . I dont think so, maam. Mr. Kent . No, he was not. What interests do you believe he was promoting, mr. Kent . I believe he was looking to dig up political dirt on a potential rival in the next election cycle. Ambassador taylor, what interests do you believe he was promoting . I agree with mr. Kent. Thats val demings of florida being sharp and getting sharper answers there. Rudy giuliani is up to no good. I think the key thing we heard today is we have a bipartisan Foreign Policy associated with ukraine that was being undermined by Rudy Giuliani and the others. But this was actually the declared trump Foreign Policy. How come ukraine president never admitted he was being pressured . Because the minute he was being pressured he would have lost the whole game, right . These are stupid things these arguments. The republicans problem is they have about seven defenses and they really cant get to the core defense because trump wont let them which is we know he did it, we know he liked it, we know hes not sorry, but its not impeachable. Thats where they want to go, but they cant. So they have scatter shot defenses not effective. Thank you u. S. Congresswoman jackie spier, and weve got a lot more to get to on tonights assessment of the dramatic impeachment hearing today of President Trump including the attempt by the gop crowd and its less than brilliant lawyer to pick apart the democrats case. The problem with his argument didnt make a whole lot of sense, did it . Lets watch him. Who is this guy . You believe he genuinely believed they were working against him, right, ambassador taylor . I i dont know what president or candidate trump was thinking about the ukraine. So you certainly can appreciate President Trumps concerns . Its a big night, not for him fortunately. Try another line of work, brother. Anyway, stick with us. Another l brother. Anyway, stick with us. Weve seen a thing or two. Even a ernie lost rubber duckie . burke you mean this one . ernie rubber duckie cookie what about a broken cookie jar . burke again, cookie . cookie yeah. Me bad. grover yoooooow oh what about monsters having accidents . I am okay by the way burke depends. Did you cause the accident, grover . grover cause an accident . Maybe. bert how do you know all this stuff . burke just comes with experience. all muppets yup. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum theres a company thats talked than me jd power. People 448,134 to be exact. They answered 410 questions in 8 categories about vehicle quality. And when they were done, chevy earned more j. D. Power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. So on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say thank you, real people. Youre welcome. Were gonna need a bigger room. 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Choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. Giving you more choice and control compared to other top wireless carriers. Save up to 400 a year when you switch. Plus, get 50 off when you buy any new lg phone. Xfinity mobile. Click, call or visit a store today. Back to hardball. In an daechattempt to m. D. Minu republica republicans there are elements of the ukrainian establishment out to get the president. Thats a very reasonable belief of his, correct . I dont know. Did the state department ever express any concern tuesday the Vice President s office that the Vice President s role at the time engaging on ukraine presented any issues . No. The Vice President s role was critically important. It was top cover to help us pursue our policy agenda. The second member of the regular channel was ambassador sondland who is senate confirmed, ambassador to the eu, so his involvement here while, you know, not necessarily part of his official duties as the ambassador to the eu its certainly not outlandish for him to be interested and engaged persaupe pursuant or secretary pompeos direction, correct . Its a little unusual for the u. S. Ambassador to eu to play a role in ukraine policy. Were back. What do you make of his presentation of the Republican Council there . I get the feeling he was a down beaten staffer who was afraid he was going to look like two big a big shot so hew avoided that. So the other thing looked like he had tremendous confidence. Danny goldman was outstanding. He kept it focus, was calm, moved it along and this guy was sort of all over the map. He can do Amazing Things with his facial expressions. He can move his whole face around. Hes maybe in the wrong business. He had no notes either. Did you notice that . He was winging it. He also got undercut by the president when the president tweeted out what i did was good. Hes not allowed to do the obvious defense which is its not impeachable. You cant fall back with this president. Heres my question, Television Viewers you all watched this on television, very few people are in the room. Did it work . I dont i dont think the republican attacks worked. When you look at the jim jordan, hes doing the jim jordan garble thing where you talked to four people in six days and three levels of hearsay and a p partridge in a pear tree. And he was saying this is all hearsay information, secondhand, thirdhand. Yeah, President Trump is prohiblting the firsthand witnesses, the direct witnesses from testifying. So you cant complain about hearsay information. Its like the old line about you cant kill your parents and cry and complain youre an orphan. And thats what jordan was doing. So if you peel back the jordan garble, its a bunch of nonsense. Because Mick Mulvaney is not going to show up. None of the perpetrators like giuliani are going to show up. Not to be a contrarian but apparently thats my role tonight, it would be nice after he does his partridge in a pear tree thing if the next Congress Person is listeningening and will deal with it instantly like glenn just did. Because goldman cant do all the questioning. So when he did some of those spiels people didnt come back quickly enough and provide fox news a nice little section they can play on the news over and over. The goal is not to be the goal is to convince people to change their minds, right . So we have to counter him right away. Okay, President Trump has repeatedly attacked anyone who dares to speak up about his questionable behavior labeling them nevertrump republicans. Thats his phrase. Today kent ander w taylor was a if they had a nevertrump agenda. The president tweeted multiple times about this hearing and he put in all caps, never trumpers. Mr. Kent, are you a nevertrumper . I am a career nonprofessional who serves whatever president is duly lected and carries out and ive done that for 27 years. Ambassador taylor are you a never trumper . No, sir. What do you think of that, larry . Well i think they are the president tweets out in big bold letters never trumpers. They proved today theyre actually all americans. They served in their country, public servants. They answered the call to pu