Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20240714 : comparemela.com

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20240714

Hearing me . Its a terrifying position to be in, to feel like you can cry on the stand, that you couldye a statement, and people still dont hear you. Brangham all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by life wellplanned. Learn more at raymondjames. Com. When itomes to wireless, Consumer Cellular gives its customers the choice. Our nocontract plans give y l as much, or tle, talk, text and data as you want, and our u. S. Based Customer Service team is on hand to help. To learn more, go to consumercellular. Tv bnsf railway. And with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made g. Ssible by the corporation for public broadcast and by contributions to your pbs station from viewek like you. Thu. Brangham questions of impeachment are growing tonight around preside trump. The speaker of the house says the house is moving forward with an offial impeachment inquiry. Thats after a whistleblower alleged that t president tried to force a foreign leader to aid his reelection. In turn, mr. Trump says hell release the record of a critical phone call. Congressional correspondent lisa sjardins begins our coverage. Co desjardins a dizzying day of developmen. Speaker of the house nancy pelosi went furtr than ever, late this afternoon, on formallm beginning impeachment. The actions of the Trump Presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of t president s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national surity, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. Therefore, today, im announcing e house of representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. Desjardins at the United Nations, a president arrivingk to tout u. S. Policy immediately faced questions about his own actions, and whether he pressuredkraine to investigate the biden family. I think its ridiculous. Its a witch hun desjardins hseemed to confirm, and defend, the fact that he withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for ukraine recently. My complaint has always been and id withhold again, and ill continue to withholdnu until such time as eurnae and other ons contribute to ukraine, because theyre not doing it. Desjardins the Washington Postand others reported the president froze nearly 400 million in aid foukraine this summer, one week before a phone ca witnewlyelected ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskiy. It is still not clear if the withheld money came up on that call, but this afternoon, mr. Trump announced he has ordered the release, torrow, of the complete and unredactedda transcript of his conversation. In turn, house intelligence chair adam schiff said thetl tifywer wants to t before the committee as early as this week. Meanwhile, calls for impeachment e grew. I hen patient while we tried every other path and used evher tool. I believe, i truly believe, the time to begin impeachment proceedings against this president has come. Djardins it was a remarkable 24 hours for democrats, starting with aca on blast in the Washington Post from seven freshman democrats, all with military ann na security backgrounds. All sit in vulnerable districts and had previously been hesitane to call for hment, but now if tr, we belieseir minds actions represent an impeachable offens we do not arrive at th conclusion lightly. On the campaign trail in delaware today, biden pushed back against any allegations of wrongdoing. Thats what he does. Desjardins republicans, meanwhile, are largely urging restraint. Senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. What we have here is an allegation related to ukranian aid by a whistleblower. Thats about all we ow now. Im not going to address all of these various hypotheticals that have been aired out, about what may or may not have happened, in the house. Pp i think all of that is quite premature. Desjardins but even within the presents own party, concern is brewing. Louisiana senator john kennedy said both the bidens and the president s phone calls should be investigated. Know more about prt andke to presidt zelenskiy, but wed also like to know about hunter biden. Desjardins President Trump t meets wi ukrainian president tomorrow. As House Democrats press forward wi. An impehment resoluti brangham as the push for impeachment grows, we want to hear from capitol hill. We start with one of the seven freshman democrats who wro that piece in the Washington Post. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is a democrat fromirginia, and she sits on the House Foreign Affairs committee. We spoke earlier this evening. Congresswoman spanberger, thank you very much for being here. You obviously heard the speakers announcement that she nis moving forward with official impeachment inquiry. In the piece that you wrote inat the Washington Post last night, you wrote, these allegations, this is about the president s behavior with regards to ukraine, are stunning, both in the National Security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent. You spent some time in the c. I. A. , can you give mae sense about what it is that is most iooubling about his beh whats most troubling about these allegations is the fact that we see a president who allegedly pressured a foreign vernment to provide information to, dig up dirt on a political opponent, and that he potentially sought to use Security Assistance funds, taxpay dollars, to leverage and to create that pressure fro a National Security perspective, this is tremendously worrisome first and foremost the fact that we would have seerity assistance funding at play, leveraged, potentially not going where it needs to go after its been appropriated by congress is troubling elemennumber one. The fact that we would have a president who would potentially put himself in a position of pressuring a foreign governmen thats not how our diplomatic relationships are supposed to go. And then, of course, theres the primary piec that we should not have a president of the United States who is using h power to scollect information for wn personal gain. And i think there are so many troubling threads here with these allegations that we really do need fu investigation to understand if they are true or if they are not. And i think the ramifications from a National Security perspective, though very far beyond where we are right now. Allegations to other nations . He does this mean we have a president that might treat another country favorably if they were to proactively provide formation about one of his political rivals . There are so many elements that are deeuply troublingt the core facts of it, the fact that we have a president who wouleld rage his political position for his own personal gain and put u. S. Assistance dolbllars on the in such a manner, those allegations are striking. Brangham y mentioned in your piece last night and just now that if these allegations are true, we still dont have all the facts. The president himself i pointing out that we still havent seen a transcript of tha phon. We havent seen the whistleblowers repo i. Do you this too early to talk about an impeachment all the facts y, despite theknow president s admission . Well i think thel important thing about an impeachment inquiry or the congressional power of inherent contempt, subpoenas or any other tools we have, these are tools that allow congress to get to the bottom of issue. These are tools that allow us lo have a privileged process when vestigating these allegations. I dont think that it should be a forn egone conclusat we are definitely destined toward impeachment. Rthink i wanted to be vy clear, as did my colleagues, that these allegations, if true are, impeachable offenses, but the goal at this point in time is tmake clear the gravity of these allegations to the American People, to our colleagues in congress, and toad cate that we ue every tool available to congress to ge to the bottom of it and the move these allegations true or false. Brangham ifhe president releases tomorrow, as he has promised, the trits of that one call, will that benough to settle these questions . Oh, i dont think so. Think there are so may pieces of evidence that we need to have and so many questions that we need to have answered. Why would the president have withheld hundreds of mil hs li dollars of Security Assistance to ukraine . Were there other phone calls that occurred . What are theetails that the whistleblower, who came forward thaturrently the d. N. I. Is not allowing that information to go to congress as required by law . There are many more Unanswered Questions than the actual substance of one particular phone call. And as a former c. I. A. Case officer, as a former Law Enforcement officer, for me it is all about facts and evidence. So i hope tt my colleagues and pertainly members of the press and the americaople wont think that there is just one pie of evidence that weof need totrove one way or theher. My hope is that we will pursue every element of informatione possibly can have so that if we are getting to the pilot where we say these allegations are true or false, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is, in fact, the case. Brangham if the house were to gather all this evdence and see that it was important enough to vote to impeach the president , by all measures, the senate is not going to convictes the ent. Do you still think it would be worth it to go through this exercise . I am of the belief that people who are elected to office are going to put their oath to upho the constitution ave and beyond their political affiliation. I believe and i have faith that any elected member of th congress or senate will eventually put country before party when the choice is there the make. If throughout the course of an investigation it becomes clear enough that there would be a positive vote articles of impeachment within the house of representatives, my expectation is that in order to get that ouome based on facts and evidence, it would be clear within the senate what it is swo that thed be weighing in on. Brangham all right. Yopresentative Abigail Spanberger, thanvery much. Thank you very much, william. I appreciate it. Brangham we turn now for a republican perspective on these impeachment calls. Congressman andy harris of maryland is on the house ukraine caucus, and he joins me now. Congressman, thank you very much for being here. I wonder if you could just give me your initial reaction to todays developments, that thet house is goin move forward with an impeachment inquiry. Well, this is nothing new. There are dozens if not over 100 members ofhe househo have wanted to try to impeach this president. They tried the mueller investigation. Now theyre going to try this. You know, i just. Lo,ok i just think the American People need to see the transcript of the president s calel and v president bidens call where he was holding up a billion dollar of aid to the Ukrainian Government. His son was earning 50,000 a month. What did his son do while his father was negotiated over a billion dollars in aid. E the americanple need to know the truth. Brangham lets talk about the president s actions. The president has admitted that he pressured the president of the ukraine to look into the biden, repeadly, according to some times eight times in one phone call. The president has also acknowledged that hethheld aid from ukraine proceeding this phone call. Do nonof those actions trouble you . Well, lets put it in perspective. You know, therskrainian government has corrupt oligarchs in charge of a lot of things in the government, including the agency that hunter biden was associated with. And we have heard rports that military procure. And a lot of these funds were going to milita from curement is corrupt in the ukraine. The president is right to ask the Ukrainian Government to investigate corruption when it involves hureds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money from the United States. Brangham but if it was thes esident saying repeatedly, i want you to look into joe biden and hunter bide within the full knowledge that could likelb his opponent in the president ial election, that does not give you pause . Look, were not going to talk about hypotheticals. Tomoow well know what th transcript wa. Lets talk about it after we know what the transcript was and then lets udee vice pre bide on the release the transcripts of his dealings with the ukrainians wn he was Vice President , because that goes to the heart of the matter. You know, were deing with a government that was rife with corruption and the question is whether we should be sending hundreds of millions of dollars en that goverwithout them taking a position to stop the corruption in the ukraine. Brangham your colleagues across the aisle say we need to do this impeachment inquiry because it gives us more legal tools and facilitates the investigation that weeel we are being stonewalled on. This is e democrats talking. Do you believehat th if you believe all the facts should come out and this will be a useful process, do you think this impeachment in be useful . Look, the facts are going to come out tomroin whethe triptsds are released. The allegation was that the president in a phone call with the ukrainian leader had some kind of quid pro quon an investigation. Well find out tomorrow. Lets talk about it after the American People ar the anscript. And scen lets release the transcript of the Vice President dealing with the ukrainians involving a billionrs in foreign aid. Brangham the president has said, as you areng acknowled that hell release the transcript. The democrats argue they also ed to see the whistleblowers complaint, the person who eithee d of this call as it was going down or read the transcript and said, som ahing ss it here. Would you support the whistleblowers complaint coming well, we kow he didnt hear the call, because we know it was second hand, his knowledge ofon the call. The bottom line is that his complaint was that the phone egations ofde and all what was done on the phone call, were going to know thewe transcript tomorrow. Thats the whistleblowers allegation. The president has gone ahead and said, okay, lets look at the transcript. I think its the right thing to do. I apaud the predent for doing it. Then we need the look deeper into what was going on dinuring the Obama Administration when Vice President biden was dealing with ukraine and his son was rning 50,000 a month from a corrupt oligarch. Brangham do you think wen the director of nae tional intelligence on thursday testifies before the he has been asked repeatedly to give this whistleblowers complaint. Should that come forward . Should he provide more inrmation about that particular complaint . Ic look, my understanding, and again, you know, thats not myea f expert tease, but its centered around whether this is urgenting and the law says if the dni felt it was urgent, thr it needs to be reported to congress. Thats a judgment call. But again, tomorrow were going to see the transcript. Were going to know exactly what went on. Brangm the president has hibtsed a few times that he thinks the democrats are overplaying their hand, th the end if they e go forward wih this inquiry that it will play to his political benefit. Do you think thats true . T do you thi democrats are overplaying their hand here . I absolutely agree. The bottom line is the American People want coress to deal with the problems that americans are facing and what theye concerned about. Right now theyre not really concerned about the ukraine. Theyre concerned about jos. Theyre worried about the economy. Theyre worried about whats going on here in the United States. Congress will be distracted. The last time this happened in 1998, the pay that held the impeachment was punished at the polls. It will be the same way next year. Brangham all right. Representative andy harris ofyo maryland, thanvery much of being here. Now for a broader look at these developments how House Democrats got to this point. Whats next for them, and the and, for the president. Again, our Lisa Desjardins is on capitol hill tracking the latest, and white house is following the pnt atlcindor the u. N. General assembly in new york. E to you both. What a difference a day makes. Help me understand, with a few ceptions, the facts that were on the table yesterday are largely the same facts that are on the table today. How did this change so dramaticly . Thats a great question, william. I think talking to deocratic aides, even those most closely involved in the decisions today did not expecting things to move i do think a sign of the growing mentum was that letter from the seven House Democratic freshman. They werent just any freshman. They really were seen as almost holdouts on the question peof hment, and they also were seen as having the most credibility when it comes to s nationurity. So when they came out as a group late last night saying, question , we think its timeu the moveher on impeachment if these accusations are true, we think that is impeachable, which was skipping a step from where the rest of democrats have been i thinkat really was part of a wave of growing momentum over the weekend, and because of that,a dam that was breaking became more visibly breaking to house democrame. Ki fohe different question is, william, what exactly happened today . What does any of this mean . I think the headline is thaint democrathe house are moving to impeachment proceedings. Whatever you want to cahem, nancy pelosi is now on board that effort. And here is another interesting thweg, william, as ll try to get our hands around what is happening, i asked for some time line information, got it from only one member,amilla jaipol, a democrat from washington state. She said, the powet is ill now move more quickly on this questio

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