also ezra cline, and rick wilson, a republican strategist. author of everything trump touches dies. i want to start with you on a point in the middle of what i just said, a subpoena to the office of management and budget about holding back the military aid to ukraine, while the president was trying to put this pressure on. that is where the real facts of this story might be. the thing that frustrates me about the story is really pretending really, is it frustrating. we now have a firsthand whistle-blower. is he now the firsthand of the call record in which he did everything that the whistle-blower said that he did. it is all in such plain black
protect this whistle-blower and his or her identity. simply put he or she deserve their protection. that letter was signed by frequent guests on this program. he was also signed by former republican senator. and a former counsellor to the undersecretary of defense and a former senior advisor at the state department. and ezra cline is back with us. i want to get your reaction to these steps now being considered to protect the identity of the whistle-blower and the idea that the identity has to be protected from elected republican members of the house intelligence
situation like he is going to face tomorrow, there is a lot that trump has riding on it. can you imagine buying an ambassadorship to the eu and what you ended up buys was an opportunity to ring lead people to dig up dirt on joe biden? everybody who touches trump ends up so infected by the contact, no one comes there it unscathed. you give this kind of responsibility to people who don t know what they re doing and this is what you get. rick, ezra just rewrote the title of your book there. but i have at a certain point in the middle of the weekend, i spent a moment thinking what if donald trump actually did hire the best people. where would they be if he
state department. and ezra cline is back with us. i want to get your reaction to these steps now being considered to protect the identity of the whistle-blower and the idea that the identity has to be protected from elected republican members of the house intelligence committee. i don t think the fear is that one of the members of the republican house intelligence committee will try to throttle them personally, but i think we have seen a pattern in this administration from threats of donald trump that turn into actual physical threats to people s safety. we have seen it over and over. there was threats or acts of violence. and they found about 40
we know that this was withheld that the world went to omd and the department. so one of the strange things about this investigation that we re covering, is that it began with the smoking gun. it did, it did start with the smoking gun, and the reality is that there is still smoke to be to be coming out from the gun, so that the taylor testimony, the sondland testimony, the returns on the systems, because ezra may be convinced that we re already there. i may be convinced we re there, but people like senator portman are not convinced we re already there. so we need to figure out, we need to get the information that will help break that very thin ice. and you know senate