spoke dwriirectly to the. president. the american public will be introduced to witnesses who say there was a direct quid pro quo with the president. republicans will have to face that. the reason they don t have an argument is they can t discount that. republicans will be making a case about 2020. it will be a political case that the president s under attack. they will be speaking to a base of 2020 voters because that s the only currency republicans will have in response. that s a lot to get done there. joyce, quickly here, if you re trying to flip somebody and you laid out the first three witnesses, who might be you trying to flip? is it a mick mulvaney trying to get the legal cover, the federal legal cover of saying, yes, i can, answer yes to the subpoena that s been administered to me? we ve already seen this process happen with ambassador sondland who, once compelling facts came out, that he could not respond to. he was faced with either being singled out for perjury or finally
participate in such undertakings. now, according to taylor s testimony today, i mean that s exactly what he did at the behest the president trump. certainly sounds that way, anderson. what we have here to me is most striking about taylor s testimony. he is describing a conspiracy in operation. and they he glets a lit of information about what is what is going on. but he certainly doesn t become a coconspiratorer and doesn t like what he learns about that conspiracy. so i think that it s also striking that the justice department is ignoring this whole conspiracy, which is in a sense is still ongoing. if it s not ended soon we ll know. but i suspect that it s winding up at this point. anyway, it s devastating testimony. sondland has problems. he has to come in and either recant or he may be prosecuted. do you think the justice department what should investigate, i mean in what way? well, they when they
they re interviewing ambassadors who i never heard of. i don t know the people. i never heard of them. i don t know most of the people. if i do i met them quickly or know them very little. ambassadors and some others. i don t know most of them i never heard of their names. back now with david gergen. gloria boringen and abbey gill and david axelrod. i don t know this person is a common trope from president trump and michael cohen and and others. come to mind. i want to read something else from the ambassador s statement. quote, ambassador sondland tried to explain that president trump is a businessman. when a businessman is about to sign a check. he asks the businessman asks somebody to pay up before signing the check. unquote. i mean, i m not sure what that means. sondland himself is a businessman and knows of what he speaks in terms of that. but it seems perfectly aligned with how the president sees the world.
everything taylor says he was told, everything depended on dlen ski committing to his end of that quid pro quo and doing so publicly. by his account there was nothing subtle about it. in a statement ambassador describes a phone call with aide tim morrison describes the september 1st phone call with tim morrison, quoting now, during this same phone call i had with mr. morrison he went on to describe a conversation that ambassador sondland had with mr. yermak in war saw. telling mr. yermak that the security assistance moneyway are would not come until president zlency committed to pursue the investigation. barisma, the ukrainian company hunter biden served on the board of. yermak is a close aid to president dlenky of ukraine. the ambassador continuing he was alarmed by what he i was told by about yermak conversation this was the first time i heard the security assistance not just the white house meeting was conditioned on the investigations.
will look back and say this was another john dean moment. when someone went and opened the curtain to what we could see of a president of the united states, the mendacity we have seen here, the line we have seen opening that curtain is important. and not since nixon i can t remember a time since nixon when any president of the united states has been accused in this way with the evidence being what it is. now it s conclusive. we need to see the notes and state department is likely to withhold them. but we have to see the notes to see if they re consistent with the statement he made. sondland has to come become and others have to come back. a fellow named marcin should come forward. there is a lot more investigation to pin it down. david, i mean, congressman mark meadows comes out of the taylor hearing saying i can tell you there is no quid pro quo. so i m not sure let me let me give you a clue here. this is not legit. they know he is in deep trouble.