at least a handful of times. peter alexander, garrett haake, thanks both. nancy pelosi set to speak in just about 40 minutes from now. you got to think she s going to be talking about this, garrett. absolutely. pelosi has argued that house can walk and chew gum at the same time. this is walking and chewing gum. we will look for a lot of demonstration for that later. ambassador michael mcfaul, served as u.s. ambassador to russia under president obama and now an msnbc international affairs analyst. ambassador, thanks for being with us. what we know and where this is going, what we know bill taylor said his staffer overheard a phone call between president trump and the eu ambassador. you were an ambassador, did you ring up president obama when you were working under him from a restaurant out in your neck of the woods? well, let me add context. ambassador sondland just met president i don t know when they met but started working for him just during the inauguration after he paid
president trump is telling reporters he doesn t remember that call. do you believe him? no. i don t. i thought what ambassador mcfaul said is exactly right. who forgets a call sitting in a restaurant from the president of the united states. just think about it. and then apparently the president speaks so loud half the restaurant heard it, at least mr. holmes heard it. i don t believe him. it s totally consistent with what the president s preoccupation was. you know, he had an ambassador, yovanovitch, who was carrying out the real policy or the bipartisan policy of fighting corruption and trying to help resist russian aggression. sondland was the trump ambassador who was about getting ukraine to do the investigations on the bidens. so it s just further confirmation what the president wanted above all else was getting those investigations on a potential opponent in 2020. you will have the opportunity, your committees, next week, to talk with gordon
president are trying to focus in on just the call, but the events that lead up to the call are just as important including the removal of the ambassador, the circumstances around that removal, why she was taken out of ukraine, and to the extent that she can sort of cast light on what giuliani was up to in the months prior to the phone call. interestingly, democrats, one democratic aid told our team they believe that yovanovitch will tug on the heart strings, her story is compelling and people can relate to a character witness like this who had her job yanked from under her feet when she felt she wasn t doing anything wrong. do you think that s an effective strategy? i think ambassador yovanovitch is a credible witness, very well-known and respected u.s. diplomat and served in many capacities and she s very dedicated to advancing american security interests and that s going to come across. what about the idea that the republicans are saying this is hearsay and they were not direct
of the activities described yesterday is important to the republican case. that staffer by the way will be deposed on friday. so we could hear his side of the story and move this ball forward a little bit further. maybe as early as next week. and we are watching, garrett, a couple things here in this impeachment inquiry. the fallout and framing, which you have talked through here, from both democrats and republicans, number two critically, what will gordon sondland say. he is on the other end of the call on july 26th between president trump and him according to bill taylor. number three, will there be a shift in sentiment? it seems like that is what white house allies we have been talking to are looking for not just to public opinion but republican opinion as well. i want to bring in peter on that because you ve been talking with your white house sources. speaking of white house sources and those outside the white house close to the president who as you described earlier in the set
actually at the front line, literally the front line of ukraine s battle, hot battle, with russia at the very moment that gordon sondland was on the phone in that restaurant in ukraine with donald trump. when david holmes testifies about hearing donald trump s voice on gordon sondland s telephone, republicans are not going to be able to complain about hearsay. that is not hearsay evidence. that is someone who was there telling you what he heard the president of the united states say and what he heard gordon sondland say. that is going to be another very bad day for the republicans on the intelligence committee. every day was a bad day for the republicans during the closed door depositions because the transcripts show that the republicans could not come up with any form of defense for donald trump in those depositions, and they didn t bother with the kinds of stunts and speech making that they do in public hearings. today chairman adam schiff