administrations. right. i think that, you know, again i think the most serious concern is when domestic politics start to infect that process, which has been set up to be nonpolitical. because it is intended to advance the interests of our country 300 million plus americans who depend on that part of our government to keep them safe and to advance our interests as a country in the world. so when that process gets impeded or infected and the national security process gets infected and impeded by that, by domestic politics, that is i think when many of us who have worked in this area would want to prevent. this is my last question. you ve been so generous with your time. she didn t testify to this, and i wonder if she had an answer if she d be asked. was anyone other than donald trump opposed to releasing the military aid for ukraine? well, you know, a lot of the key events with respect to
specifically on getting information about joe biden and hunter biden in exchange for either a white house meeting, which the ukrainians wanted a phone call, or most importantly aid at a time where the country was at war with russia. every official painted the same picture. even those like gordon sondland somebody who got his job after giving a million dollars to trump s inaugural committee. it was a very damning two weeks of testimony. it seems that the president has settled on, a, digging in, and, b, continuing to put forward these talking points that we have heard from him and we have heard them from rudy giuliani about ukraine, which have been disproven. you know, nick, you re in the business of investigative journalism and you go about if it s a dicey story you need at least two sources. and if it s really dicey you need three or four. to prove a quid pro quo the democrats had 17 witnesses. it s proven beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump conditioned military aid for u.s.
they have more loyalty to our country in their little finger nails. speaking of horrific and gross and the trump family, i want to get to your story about the buying of books and i want to get michael steele in on it. rnc spent nearly $100,000 on copies of donald trump jr. s book. there is nothing at which the trumps don t cheat. all about the business, baby. that s what it s about. this isn t about the running the country and the presidency. this is about cha-ching. getting paid. and when you bring the rnc into the the universe of trump world and specifically his campaign, it is not surprising. look, i when i became chairman in 2009, i had written a book about how to rebrand and rebuild the party and move it forward. i got criticized because i wrote a book.
so, what joe biden did can i just say? here s what else they are obscuring. if a real crime happened donald trump sits atop the part of the government where he can pick up the phone and call the justice department with a tip. they ve got tip lines. if a real crime happened, you don t call a fake corruption hunter like rudy giuliani. and by the way, that goes doubly true for ron johnson and lindsey graham and all those people who were in the senate when this happened. like, this wasn t in ancient history. the republicans controlled the house and the senate when joe biden was going over to ukraine to do anti-corruption efforts. if they thought that the deal was rotten, they could have done investigations then. they didn t. ron johnson signed a letter saying he agreed that the prosecutor should be fired. it s all a farce. well, you know, it doesn t have to be. maybe i have watched too many erin sorkin movies, but there is still a scenario where i thought some tectonic plates shift
way i hardly know him, i still want to see that server. the fbi s never gotten that server. that s a big part of this whole thing. why did they give it to a ukrainian company? are you sure they did that? are you sure they gave it to ukraine? well, that s what the word is. that s what i asked actually in my phone call. i asked it very point-blank because we are looking for corruption. that s what the word is from whom? from rudy? again, there is no truth to what the president is saying. and there is a new report in the new york times reveals this claim that ukraine meddled in the 2016 election is literally a russian talking point, part of a years-long russian operation to blame ukraine to deflect from what it got caught doing, interfering in our election in 2016. that s where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former u.s. attorney joyce vance joins us, michael steele, former chairman of the rnc is here.