they had staff do the interview instead and they had it happen out of state. we know for sure that no members of congress went to the interview. not because they ll tell us but because we have the roll call vote for the house when they were voting on the tax bill that day and you can see from the time stamp that it happened at 12:55 p.m. that s when they finalized the vote. there were seven members of the house who weren t present and didn t vote on the tax bill but none are members of the intelligence committee. all the intelligence committee members were there in person for that tax vote so they weren t in new york interviewing felix sater. there was a second vote at 6:47 p.m. there were a total of 11 members of the house who didn t cast a vote. it was the seven who missed in the morning plus four more. none who missed that vote were members of the intelligence committee either. all intelligence committee members were present and voted then too. that means none of them, republican or
complex where most of these interviews take place. it s very unusual that this is happening in new york and it s one of the reasons democrats are accusing republicans of trying to wrap this up quickly. one day this week there are three separate interviews. today was the second interview that happened in new york, and we know of only a handful of members that have traveled for it. they couldn t come at all because of the votes they had, most specifically, the tax vote. rhona is a very important person. the gatekeeper to president trump. anyone who has met with trump has gone through her. and we know one of the subjects they were certainly going to bring up. don jr. testified before the committee december 6th. we know that rob goldstone who arranged that meeting in the e-mails between them setting it up, there was a reference to rhona. if you wanted to get the incriminating information to donald trump it was through rhona. that had to be one of the areas they focused on today. we also
just in the last few minutes a surprise visit from vice president mike pence. he s in afghanistan right now unannounced visit with some of our servicemen and women there. you might remember he had to postpone a previously scheduled middle east trip ahead of the tax vote in the senate. on the topic of pence and the tax bill if you were watching yesterday you might have seen this. mike, would you like to say a few words? i know i speak on behalf of the entire cabinet and millions of americans when i say congratulations and thank you. thank you. you ve spurred an optimism in this country that s setting records. but mr. president, i want to thank you, mr. president. i want to thank you. i want to thank you, mr. president. thank you, mr. president. god bless you. yikes. if you felt like mike pence s comments yesterday were a little over the top, don t worry. there s math to back it up. the washington post crunched the numbers. pence praised trump once every 12 seconds for three mi
opposed to washington. which i can t figure out. can you confirm and tell us why they re happening in new york if that s the truth? i can t confirm to specific witnesses, but i can tell you this, two witnesses are very significant we ve asked to be brought before the committee for months that the majority has refused to invite. they did schedule one of them today while we had tax vote, scheduled to be interviewed out of state. that went forward against our protest. at a time when we were hear voting on tax bill and none of the members could participate. they have a second interview they ve planned for out of state, another key witness we ve asked for for months. why is this happening? they want to jam these in end of the year, really don t want members to be present to hear what the witnesses have to say. part of an effort to close this down beginning in the new year. go through the motions of
you have been at this a long time. it makes a rational case that you end up hurting yourself and your prestige around the world. that creates a place for the u.s. to step in and be the lead partner. that s a logical rational case. will the trump administration follow it? that s a good question. there are questions of other countries pulling back is a real one. it s a real thing. the only problem i have is no one thought that the peace process was in great shape. no one thought that he was the president. we were on the cusp of a major breakthrough even though the white house will release the peace plan sometime in the next month or so. it s interesting to watch. he delays the trip in case he was needed for the tax vote. what kind of reception does he get? which nine voted against this and who were the 35 who