as cnn s alex marquardt reports for us now, republicans are preparing their defense strategy which relies in part on you believing a whole bunch of assertions that are contradicted by witnesses and evidence. reporter: with historic impeachment hearings just hours away, republicans are now outlining four broad arguments to defend the president. they first argue that the transcript of the july 25th call between president trump and zelensky show no conditionality or pressure to announce investigations into the bidens before getting anything in return. we know there was nothing wrong in the call transcript and two guys said there was no pressure or pushing or quid pro quo. reporter: but on the call when the ukrainian president asked for military aid trump said i would like you to do us a favor though. he wanted zelensky to investigate the bidens and a conspiracy theory about democrats and the 2016 election. zelensky responds i guarantee as the president of ukraine that all of the i
and the answer is no? reporter: the aid was released on september 11th. only after the hold had been reported and there was pressure on the white house, including from republican senators. and it was just two days before president zelensky had planned to announce the investigations that trump wanted. all of those arguments will be on full display tomorrow in the first open hearing is gavelled into section with ambassador taylor and george kent and they are together because they were witnessed to what they call the full scope of the president s misconduct. and then on friday the next opening hearing with marie yovanovitch the former ambassador to ukraine recalled by trump in may. democrats are calling her the first victim of the president s scheme. jake. alex marquardt, thanks so much. let s chew over this with the panel. congressman dent, let me start with you. you re a former republican house member. i heard at one point republicans were going toward the, look the president should
second, the gop argues both presidents have said there was no pressure. nobody push it push me. reporter: before zelensky took office a source told cnn that he and his aids had a meeting in which they discussed the pressure they were already feeling to open investigations that the trump administration wanted. and there was $400 million in aid on the line. third, when the president spoke on july 25th, republicans say the ukraine government was not aware the aid was being held up but it wasn t just about aid. the ukrainians wanted a white house meeting as well and it was made clear in multiple conversations with the president s team before that call they would not get it unless they launched investigations. finally they argue the aid was released and the ukrainians got the meeting without ukraine launching investigations. when the aid was released, was there anything that was ever given to this president or the american people on behalf of any connection to releasing that aid
u.s. election. welcome to the lead, i m jake tapper. we begin with the politics lead. 18 hours from now the first public televised hearings into the impeachment inquiry and the ukraine scandal, tomorrow we ll hear from two trump administration officials, bill taylor who repeatedly described in dpooe tail what he clearly saw as a quid pro quo saying he was told, quote, president trump wants ukraine president zelensky to state publicly that ukraine will investigate burisma, the company that hunter biden once worked for, and alleged ukraine interference in the 2016 u.s. election. and plus george kent who testified, quote, trump wanted nothing less than president zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, biden and clinton. democrats today laying out the process for the hearings they hope will convince even more of the american people of the need to impeach president trump and
republicans. the attorney general race here millions of dollars were spent in that race. by democrats and republicans. trump personally got involved in that as well. the new ag got 58% of the vote. i believe this is confined to governor bevin and personal popularity issues. they had a big rally and he got involved. i think if trump hadn t come he would have not gotten within 4,600 votes. he was destined to lose. are their lessons for democrats in the races the kentucky candidate was a centerist? yeah. i lost audio. i m back. the idea that the republicans lost the kentucky governor race is astounding. this is a state that donald trump carried by 30 points. and there s no way scott or any republican can try to make this look good. they lost big tonight in kentucky. they lost the governor ship.