impeachment hearings, and this coming week promises to be more explosive. foreign service officers testified about what they saw as president trump setting a condition. ukraine would not get military aid unless it promised to investigate democrats and the bidens. but so far their evidence has been second or even thirdhand. on on ambassador gore son sondland will be the first person who takes us inside the oval office. in a moment, we ll speak with the number two republican in the house, steve scalise, and congressman jim himes a top democrat on the intelligence committee. but first, let s bring in kevin corke with the latest from the white house. reporter: the white house says the musings of career diplomats about a phone call whose transcript we ve alreadien seen are meaningless, but critics argue taken in the combined whole, their assessesment paints a troubling picture of possible improif priority or worse.
the media by tweeting in realtime. you know, he s right, he has a right to say what he wants, but it doesn t make it a good idea. before earlier in the day the white house had said he is going to listen to devin nuñes, and then he s going to do the business of the american people. that s what he should be doing, not tweeting creatism of this woman while she s criticism of this woman while she s up there because people who weren t paying attention then suddenly started paying attention. howard: now, most journalists think the career diplomats came off as sober, serious, unflappable, liberals praised them as heroes, conservatives not so much. but does that matter, they re fine public servants and they may look that way, if the democrats are trying to sell the country on impeachment? i was just going to use that phrase, higher bar. they did come across as sober, they did exactly what they needed to do, i thought. i think largely they were good witnesses to serve the democrats purpos
regarding ukraine. joining me now a former administrator from the white house under president obama, and author of impeechlt, a citizen s guide. professor, good to see you. good to see you. whatever some of your key observations made in this week of public testimony? there s been a great deal of clarity in a really short time. i think everyone agrees now that if the president actually used taxpayer money successfully to coerce or influence ukraine to interfere in our elections by prosecuting a family of a potential political opponent, if he intentionally did that and if he had succeeded, that would be an impeachable offense. i think there s consensus on that which greatly nairos the ground for reasonable disagreement. you heard from career diplomats talk about their suss
than wait for an election. it was i seldom find myself on the same side as andrew weissmann if, but i think that is the challenge they have. paul: kim, is gordon sondland next week, is he probably the biggest, most crucial witness here? because he has probably had more conversations than anybody else with the president. is that your view? yeah. look, i think what s going to be important next week is that what we ve heard up until now are career diplomats. and it was obvious today had some issue with the trump administration s general approach toward the ukraine, and so they ve been somewhat critical in that regard. i think next week we re going to get some more political appointees, people who were closer to the president. gordon sondland, also kurt volker, some political folks appointed in other areas of the government. and that s, i think, going to add a little more to the defense of the president if their depositions are anything to go by. paul: all right. thanks to you all. whe
save great costs. also the democrats taking office, president trump has increased defense spending and he has cut the state department s budget. those are the numbers, those are the facts. the same time choosing to make more political appointments at the ambassador posts rather than selecting the kind of people we have seen, career diplomats under different presidents. listen to how ambassador yovanovich reflected on that today. the state department of true reform policy does not get the same kind of attention or even respect as the military might. but we are, as they say, the point at the end of the spear. if we lose our edge, the u.s. will inevitably have to use other tools even more than it does today. the state department is being hollowed out. this is not the time to undercut our diplomats. martha: former arkansas