Milwaukee, and we welcome back Charlie Sykes. Last time you are on the program you are at the weekly standard, now founder and editoratlarge for the bulwark what is it . Guest it is an online publication, and basically kind of a quasisuccessor of the weekly standard. Staff. The core they moved over to the the podcast and we have a with three daily newsletters. People should check it out. Host where is it based out of . Do you do most work out of wisconsin . Guest it is based out of washington, and i spend my time between d. C. And milwaukee. Host we can talk about wisconsin politics, but your story this morning is about a National Story in many of the papers today. Jump ukraine the story is a stress test, talking about systems that are not ready. What are those systems . Guest we have not seen the whistleblower report, we have not seen the transcript of the conversation between the president and the ukrainian president , but this will putting a lot of pressure on our institutions. And i break them down into five. The rule of law, republicans, congress, pressure on joe biden himself, and the president ial and the way the media will handle it. One problem is we have the hysteria dial turned up to 11 over the last few years, so if this turns out to be the real thing, do we know how to calibrate our responses and will will be able to actually grasp what is the challenge here. Will congress be able to rise to this challenge, will the media understand how to deal with this, and what do we do with a president who seems emboldened to defy the law. Saying,ow basically look, i am invincible. Norms of the systems and that we count on will be under tremendous pressure, if in fact this story turns out to be, as it has been reported so far. Host nancy pelosi already under pressure. We saw comments from alexandria ocasiocortez tweeting and calling for impeachment hearings to begin now. Thisschiff saying that could perhaps be the crossing of the rubicon when it comes to impeachment. Talk about her role in the systems here. Obviously, one of the institutions is going to be congress, because in action is not an option. Again, we do not have all of the information yet, but if it turns out to be as it has been reported, then Congress Must act, otherwise it becomes a constitutional malady. And in a lot of ways, if congress does not do anything at all, it will do as much damage to the separation of powers as Donald Trumps conduct. Nancy pelosi put out a statement yesterday and has made it clear she does not want to move ahead with impeachment. And perhaps that is still somewhat premature, but my colleague also has a piece where he recommends an alternative, that congress could establish a Small Committee with a specific remiss to investigate this ukrainian story. Not the other issues, but specifically this, look at the whistleblower complaint, look at communications, then report to congress. So that could be a middle ground approach to this issue. Host phone numbers if you want to call in. Emocrats, 2027488000 2027488001, republicans. Ndependents, 2027488002 wisconsinites. R here is an article from the wall street journal, saying it might play out this is likely to play out in familiar trump era fashion, with adam schiff making claims that turn out to be exaggerated. And mr. Trump fighting back, saying the whole thing is a hoax. Muchut evidence, nothing is likely to come of it. What do you think . Guest i think that is probably accurate to a certain extent, however, look the president has already acknowledged that he did raise the issue of joe biden with the president elect of ukraine. What are the known facts . At the president of the united influence orto bully, we do not know whether he tried to extort the head of state of another country to dig up dirt on his political opponent. If that is true, if any element of that is true, then we are in a red zone area. And part of the editorial from the wall street journal is we have become kind of numb, but i think that this if this is not impeachable if it is true, if it is not impeachable, what would be . Issue ofdent taking an National Security and using his office to try to pressure another country to help his personal, political campaign. Remember, he was not encouraging the president to do something with the government of the u. S. , he was talking about coming should work with my personal attorney, rudy giuliani. Donald trump is going to do a lot of flipping the script to try to make it all about joe biden, that there are known facts in this case. But so far, there is no such gesture that there has been misconduct by joe biden or his family. We can clear this up by saying seeing what was the whistleblower complaint, why did the Inspector General regard it as valid, and if the president did not say anything inappropriate, then they can release a transcript of that phone call. Then we would have the facts on the table. Host plenty of callers and we have not even gotten to our wisconsin discussion. Joe out of boston, a republican. Caller thank you. I want to say that i am amazed, i am assuming he is one of those never trumpers. You guys should be so embarrassed, you and bill kristol. Ever since he was elected, you are putting things in front of him. So you guys are just unbelievable, and to me you are not asking the right questions. You should be asking joe biden those questions. Withim what he meant withholding billions of dollars from ukrainians unless they fire the sky. Why dont you follow that up . Host we will give you a chance to respond. Guest it is always interesting hearing a trump supporter using the term unbelievable since the president uses that term on a regular basis. This is where you get the dust thrown up. There is a clip of joe biden ukrainians in fact should fire their prosecutor, but if you go back and look at what happened, virtually the entire free world was putting pressure, the imf, the entire western alliance was putting pressure on the ukraine to say, you have to do something about your corruption. You need to do something about this. This is not joe biden doing something that was freelancing this had nothing to do with the investigation into his own operations. So again, this is the alternative reality, unfortunately, that we are living in. This is why i think it is incumbent on congress to do something, to create maybe this select committee, because you cannot wait for the special prosecutor. The department of justice will not lift a finger. This is up to congress. And congress has to decide what is its constitutional responsibility. Is the president above the law . Will he ever be held accountable for his conduct . Because if you have a president of the United States who is in effect betraying the National Interest of this country, colluding with a former foreign country to dig up dirt on his opponent, that is a big deal. Republicans should recognize that as well as democrats. Host that clip the caller was referring to. Some have asked us to play that clip. Here is joe biden from 2018 at the council on foreign relations. I remember going over to our team and with others, saying we should be providing for loan guarantees. I went over maybe the 13th time to kiev and i was supposed to announce there was another billion dollar loan guarantee. And i had gotten a commitment would takehat they action against the state prosecutor and they didnt. We are not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you do not have authority, the president does. I said, call him. You are not getting it. I will be leaving here. Im leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you are not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in somebody who was solid at the time. Host on those comments and what this whole story means for joe biden and his family. Guest yes, this was not about joe biden and his family, again, this was the Foreign Policy of the u. S. , the position that virtually the whole western alliance was taking, with the imf saying, if you want to get more loans you will need to deal with your chronic problem of corruption. If you look at the timeline, this has nothing to do with his son, this has nothing to do with an investigation into his son or members of his family. But you can take that out of context. It can be made to look like undue influence. Everybody needs to step back for a moment and remember that used to bep campaign headed by Paul Manafort, who is up to his knees in ukrainian corruption. Irony is dead in the trump era, but for him to be concerned about ukrainian corruption is highly ironic. All of this is an attempt to turn attention away from, wait, the sitting president of the United States had a phone conversation that according to the wall street journal included timestempt eight separate to pressure the ukrainian president into digging up dirt on his political opponent, and to work with his private attorney. I mean, this is where i think that we need to focus, this is what Congress Needs to focus on. This is where i think the public needs to focus. Because i think you have a president who has become absolutely emboldened. He believes he can push any narrative. He believes he will never be held accountable. He knows the democrats have never held him accountable. The republicans will never break with him. He understands it is easy to manipulate the media. But this actually does matter, and i think that there is a lot of things at stake here and very dangerous precedents for our constitutional if we do not take this seriously. Host connie, a democrat. Good morning. Are you with us . Stay by your phone. This is thomas and waukesha, wisconsin, a republican. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Wesoutheastern wisconsin, knew that Charlie Sykes was a never trumper from the beginning, and most of us were too. We were supporting scott walker for president , then we went to marco rubio, and eventually to ted cruz, who won the nomination here. Once President Trump started doing the things we wanted him to do, we saw he was the right choice. And continues to do what needs to be done. Charlie sykes is part of the resistance. The resistance strategy is that through enough against the wall. He has lost credibility. Host do think donald trump will win again in wisconsin . Caller standard. Host same question to you, do you think President Trump wins wisconsin again in 2020 . Guest thomas is probably not a fan of mine anymore, but can i point out that i was on the air here in wisconsin for more than 20 years and i did support scott walker and i wouldve supported marco rubio. I helped ted cruz when the primary. That some point you have to have some principles and standards, and i have been unwilling to surrender all of those to support donald trump. So will he win in wisconsin . The caveat was i did not think he would win in 2016, but i that wisconsin will be the battleground state. I think it is a microcosm of the rest of the country. And the vote is divided into urban, rural, and a suburban. There are democratic strongholds, hardcore republican strongholds. Donald trump won in wisconsin because he flipped the northern rural parts of the state. Many counties that voted for barack obama twice voted for donald trump. The question is, will democrats turn out in big numbers in milwaukee, in places like dane county. In the midterms, they did. But it is a different ballgame with the general election. So if i knew who the democratic nominee was, i could give it a stronger prediction. So far, most of the democrats are leading donald trump, but i think the candidates actually matter. And i do think that wisconsin will be very much in play right until the end. Host which candidates definitely win and which definitely lose wisconsin . Guest there is no such thing as definitely stays, i think we have learned these days. I think we have learned that. I think joe biden is in the best position at the moment to win wisconsin, but then again we are having this conversation in september of 2019, not september of 2020. So i think that if the democrats move too far to the left, they run the risk of squandering some of the advantages they have here. I think there are a lot of suburban voters in wisconsin, as there are in michigan, pennsylvania and of the other swing states, who are open to the idea of voting for a democrat. Who were disgusted by Donald Trumps conduct, character and maybe some of his policies. But if they think the democrats pose more of a threat, they may not vote for them. They might sit out the election. They might hold their nose and vote again for donald trump. I am talking about, for example, taking away private health massivee, or increasing middleclass taxes, or open borders, the prevention of Free Health Care to undocumented immigrants. There are positions that the democrats and we are not much different from the rest of the country a lot of these are winners for the democrats, but they could also turn into losers as well. Host we have an independent on the line. Good morning. Caller i agree with this ingestion that bill kristol made with the suggestion that bill kristol made with a special meeting. That way to mccants and republicans would be on that committee. And they could go even further and investigate joe biden, even though this is not about joe biden, but lets make it all clear. That is what i think should be done. Host ok, Charlie Sykes . Obvious,at is the most logical and low Risk Strategy for democrats in congress. This committee should be bipartisan. Nancy pelosi should invite Mitch Mcconnell to participate. Lets get the facts on the table before we take any other steps. This should not be complicated, because number one, we once we see what the ig saw with the whistleblower report, if we get a transcript, it will be clear what happened. And then put it on Public Record what we know about what happened in ukraine with joe biden, which i think will turn out to be the fact that there is nothing there. But again, this can be done in a relatively short time. I am not naive enough to think it will not be caught up in the partisan back and forth, but this is up to congress. The bulk is in their court and nobody else will pick this up. A committee is expected to meet with the director of national intelligence, that will be on thursday. And also this week, president andp is expected to see meet the president of ukraine and 16 other World Leaders as he attends the u. N. General Assembly Meeting in new york. The white house confirming that the president is expected to meet with ukrainian president on wednesday. Just some markers to look to this week. Shelby in bluff city, tennessee. Good morning. Caller thank you. I would like to send see nancyto pelosi really push impeachment. We have lost so much with mr. Trump. He is not reliable. He is not competent. He is a liar. And everybody that believes in him, they better take their blinders off, because i think major misfirese or screws loose. Host that was shelby. Charlie, go ahead. Guest well, there are two ways of looking at impeachment. One is the political dynamic, the second is constitutional. The political dynamic is what i think nancy pelosi is focused on, which is this could backfire on democrats. She is concerned about members of her caucus, those in the swing states. She knows it will not result in his removal from office, because whatever the house does the senate will not convict or remove him because we know how republicans are reluctant to break with donald trump at all. But then there is the question of, is the president above the law . When the Robert Mueller report came out, it was clear the position was the department of justice said a sitting president cannot be indicted. So what is if congress will not investigate potential, illegal actions by the president , then literally the man in the oval office is above the law. I do not think that that is consistent with our constitutional understanding. So whether you are talking about the corruption, the obstruction of justice, or whether you are talking about all of this, it has to be on the table, because as i said earlier, if congress does absolutely nothing then it will render itself with constitutional nullity. I think that will have negative consequences. Host bill, a republican. Caller good morning. Charles, i do not know who you are trying to kid. Im wondering who you will vote for in the election. I am sure it will be joe biden, if he gets the nomination. But he is not. Elizabeth warren will be up against trump. Y is story is the stor the democrats are trying to get ahead of joe bidens messy family affairs, including biden on a major drug sting that included him getting hooked up his exwife, and running around china and the ukraine, posing as an Energy Expert and making millions of dollars on the biden name. And the democrats are trying to get ahead of this story because it could be very damaging for joe biden. The whole idea that donald trump needs to be investigated for some type of crime listen, we do not believe you or bill kristol anymore. Host that was built in pennsylvania bill in pennsylvania. Here is one of the papers focusing on Hunter Bidens dealings. The Washington Times saying that there was dealings are helping his fathers rivals in this campaign. Charlie sykes . The caller, i mean, throughout a threw up a lot of things. I do not know who i will vote for. I find it amazing that anybody who supports donald trump, anybody concerned about corruption, this notion that we are concerned about joe biden because of these possible conflict of interest, could you look in the mirror and look at what is going on with the president . Again, i think that these issues have been well reported. By people who have talked to prosecutors, who have talked to officials in ukraine, and they say there was no crime committed in the ukraine. There was nothing improper that was done. Now, hunter biden was paid money to be on the board of directors of this company. Did he pay all his taxes in the United States . That is an American Issue and legitimate to look into. It is interesting we have a projection where we have this, nature ofibly swampy the trump administration, and yet somehow we are supposed to be focused on all of this. Look, i would feel better if we had a consistent standard. Corruption and the lying and you applied it to donald trump and joe biden equally, but we are seeing this as tribal. We will swallow everything donald trump does. We are going to swallow the instruction, the contempt for the rule of law, the selfdealing all of the lies. We will swallow that and then contend pretend to be indignant about somebody else. At some point we will recognize that if you have ethical standards, they should apply across the board. But that is not the case in american politics right now. Host a democrat in pennsylvania, good morning. Caller good morning. Joe biden isnt the thing with ukraine. That is a divergent. Diversion they need to look at Paul Manafort and what they did. That is a blueprint for the election. Host anything else . Caller all that lobbying he was doing over there. Read the indictment of Paul Manafort and all of the lobbyists talking to all the congresspeople. Who were they . Maybe some of them were republicans and they all know that donald is illegitimate and if they admit that, they lose all their judges and they worked so hard to get. Host what about Paul Manafort . Guest this is the irony, right . Donald trump, who once had Paul Manafort as the chairman of his campaign, is now trying to make an issue of ukrainian corruption. Paul manafort was one of the most corrupt political operators deep in the and worst aspects of american and ukrainian politics. So there is that irony. But to the point about legitimacy and everything, this is where i think that Everybody Needs to take a deep breath and step back. Right now thes president of the United States, he won that election. You may not be happy about it, but there will not be a scenario in which he is declared a and judges are removed from their positions. That will never happen. I realize that was the suggestion. But i think we need to focus on what are the facts, what do we know, and what can be done about this . Again, folks, if the story turns burger,e a nothing burger, lets find out about it. Lets look at the report, lets see what was the transcript. Donald trump said yesterday, yea h, i did talk to the president of ukraine about going after one of my political opponents. At the end, there seems to be a notion that if you admit something in public that makes it ok, but it is still a breathtaking statement. If there is nothing wrong, lets lay out everything on the table and then lets make a judgment. But i think we are at the point now where many republicans have simply given the president an absolute blank check and he is abusing at. I think that there is always something dangerous about taking somebody in power and saying, there will be no consequences, do whatever you like, we will not hold you accountable no matter how egregious your misconduct is, we will find a way to rationalize it, enable it and make it about the other guy. There something dangerous about that. Host just a few minutes left with Charlie Sykes this morning. He is on the bus in milwaukee, part of our battleground tour of the cspan bus. In the time we have left, lets talk with some wisconsin callers, including tim out of green bay. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you for your time. I wanted to go back to the topic of wisconsin and being a battleground state. I agree with Charlie Sykes. Sykes. At the that wisconsin will be about a ground state, if not the battleground state. And Charlie Sykes has been identified as a never trumper, but i believe that of the six of the 10 members of congress from wisconsin, a few of the republican members have distanced themselves from donald trump during their time in this congress. And i think that will hurt the Republican Base in wisconsin over time. And i wanted to get his thought on that. Thank you. Guest i guess i would disagree. I think that longterm, having republicans who are willing to show that they are independent and that they are not simply toadies, is in the interest of the revoking party to say, look the Republican Party to say, look, there will be a close trump era. And of those that kept their heads and maintained a sense of integrity, i think, will be better off. Wisconsin has a strong delegation. Most of them have been, i would say, supportive of the government, of conservative policies, but they have criticized the president on occasion. I do not think there is anything wrong with that. Host what do you think about that term, never trumper . I do not have a problem with it. I think i probably called myself that at a certain point. The reality is i am never going to vote for donald trump. I will never think he is fit to be president of the United States. I may support some things that he does in terms of his policies, but i do think that and country is greater oetter and more decent than t deserve him as the president of the United States. Host this is calvin, a republican. Caller good morning. I was wondering, if a crime was committed there, wouldnt it be right to investigate it, or for donald trump to inquire about it, would that be wrong . And the problem is they do not think that they can beat donald trump, so they want to find a way to take him down without having to beat him in the polls. Paul manafort, he keeps backing him up, but he says he supported what does donald trump differ on compared to ted cruz . It is a pretense to give him credibility that he is a republican or conservative. You mentioned his conduct and character, what was wrong with his conduct and character since being in office . What did he do that this man, Charlie Sykes, that he disagrees with him or has a doubt about . Host ok. Guest well, where do you want to start . I wasonservative when on the radio i probably had paul ryan on my show 1000 times, maybe 100 times, the dark about the deficit and at the debt. I remember the tea party was concerned. Now we have a trillion dollar a year deficit. We will start with that. We used to believe in free trade , rather than trade wars. I remember when republicans did not kiss up to dictators or tried to appease Vladimir Putin or kim jongun. I remember when we said things like character mattered, when it was bill clinton as opposed to as donald trump, who lies frequently as most politicians even speak. I guess that is the objection. Look, you can say you like his but do not make the case that he is a man of good character, because you know that he is not. And i guess the question is, can we distinguish and to say that we support that policy, but we are going to draw the line here. We believe in fiscal prudence, so we objected the deficit . Where were the republicans on that . Where are they on character in free trade . Where are they on standing up against the worst dictators in the world, the authoritarians around the world . Those are all legitimate issues that i think that republicans ought to be able to say, no, we are not going along, we are not getting on that particular train. Host Charlie Sykes is the editoratlarge for the bulwark and you can find him at the bulwark. Com. Thank you for stopping schumer s consent the quorum be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Schumer now, mr. President , over the weekend, details emerged about President Trumps conduct with the ukrainian president. Specifically, the president s phone call with the ukrainian leader were the subject of an official whistleblower complaint by a member of the Intelligence Community. The Intelligence Community Inspector General, a trump appointee, determined that this whistleblowers
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