We never even heard of and work out a better presidential attack Now we heard a couple key words there like never trump or is that also just the idea of raising the tweets Why are lawmakers doing that and how could that contribute to the overall conversation about articles of impeachment you know I think it's fascinating that both Williams and Vin men tried to show themselves to be nonpartisan you know in her opening Williams you know essentially said you know lining up that she lines up more with Republicans anyway she worked in d.h. As India just under Michael Chertoff a Republican in the Bush administration that she. That Condi Rice is one of or one of her heroes and of Inman when he was asked Are you never temper he said I consider myself a never partisan David Yeah I think there's also the question about whether there is witness intimidation going on here with these tweets we saw with. Ambassador to of out of it last week that the tweet that the president comes out and as the hearing was was. Was in progress. And then today the White House sent out this tweet that mentioned earlier that quoted bin man's boss as saying that he had questions about his judgment. Whether they actually are intimidated who knows but as as one of the Democrats pointed out it's hard to know whether they're pulling back on what they're saying because of the kind of. Statements that are coming out from the White House the fact that the White House would actually send out a tweet against somebody who is currently an employee of the White House I think is sort of unprecedented I want to talk about one more issue just because it keeps coming up they think there were at least 2 clashes along this point was the issue of the whistleblower and why the whistleblower is or. Is not testifying and even just attempts to reveal his. Reveal his identity can you talk about how that. Played out I believe it was ranking Republican Devin Nunez who led some of that questioning whether that's big piece of it I mean you know you've heard Devon Una's Jim Jordan at least a Fanuc from New York they've been the sort of principal agitators against chairman Adam Adam Schiff and making the Republican points and echoing them over and over again and sort of trying to get to say who the other person was that he talked to you know you had at one point Jordan saying you know you could plead you could plead the 5th if you wanted to and he didn't feel like there's any reason for himself to plead the 5th it was just that they were trying to go by the rules that have been laid out by shift and I'll say from our polling when we asked people if they thought that the whistleblower should remain anonymous should be protected or should be revealed 56 percent of people said that the whistleblower should be protected although that's 83 percent of Democrats 59 percent of Republican of independents just 16 percent of Republicans think that the whistleblower should be protected 78 percent of them think that that person should be revealed to a partisan divide there we're going to play one version of how that played out in the room with ranking Republican Devin Nunez and chairman Adam Schiff who interrupted the question from you as to sensibly protect the identity of the whistleblower as you know the intelligence community has 17 different agencies what agency was this individual from. If I could interject here. We don't want to use these proceedings it's our time I know Carol we need to protect the whistleblower. But if Please stop. I want to make sure that there's no effort to out the whistleblower through the use of these proceedings. If the witness as a good faith belief that this may reveal the identity of the whistleblower that is not the purpose that we are here for and I want to advise the witness Accordingly we should note at one point. And Colonel the lieutenant colonel villain's attorney actually stepped in to stop him from answering a question that could lead to identifying the whistleblower Joining us now will be Sue Davis she's our congressional correspondent she has been listening as well up on Capitol Hill and Sue Just now we heard that little back and forth between the chairman and the ranking member now this is when they go out into the hallways oftentimes and this is what frankly is usually spin what is the atmosphere up there you know you've seen an unusual amount of focus on the whistleblower today but we know that that has been part of the Republican strategy here I think it's somewhat twofold I think it's a way for Republicans to remind the public that there is a lot of people that the committee has not heard from in this investigation that sort of part of their tactic to try to undermine the investigation is not portraying a full portrait of the events in question on the other hand though the focus on the whistleblower is also a little bit of a red herring in that Republicans have not said explicitly what the information is that they believe the whistleblower has that hasn't been revealed in the course of this investigation right we should jump in here and promote to make it's hard work and it creating the whistleblower complaint right what did you fight yes so I went through the whistleblower complaint and found that at this point essentially every major assertion in that complaint has been borne out either by the call logs itself the call transcript that the White House released or testimony sworn testimony by other people who were 1st hand witnesses and not just 2nd hand you know the reality is the whistleblower gathered information from various sources but was not a firsthand witness to any of this but now we have these 2 essentially 1st hand witnesses and sued Davis how are Democrats talking about what they heard today I think Democrats see particularly Vin as in incredibly strong witness I think they've seen this interesting debate going back and forth happening in real time over his character and his motives but I think Democrats see a you know accomplice. The Purple Heart veteran a senior member of the national intelligence community someone who has had a unblemished career to date and they see a very compelling witness to the public you know testifying in his full military uniform another matter that came up in the hearing today is pretty hard to go after the sort of character or character or the intent of this man although we are seeing elements of the Republican Party trying certainly even the president has tweeted some elements of some sort of attacks along those lines too right David on the pointed out one earlier which is the offer from Ukraine basically a job to and then can you explain the circumstances of this and how he explained it well it was he was really the point of contact for Ukraine officials who come to Washington or when u.s. Officials go to the kids and somebody offered him the Ministry of Defense post to be the country's defense minister and and he just thought it was absurd how could a lieutenant colonel in the u.s. Army. Even think of assuming such a post but he reported it as as he was required to do I think that there was a suggestion that by getting this offer Ukrainians viewed him as sort of being on their side and this he roundly rejected that and said that he was brought to the u.s. As a toddler in this that this is the country he loves he was trying to laugh it off but I have to say Republicans who are doing the line of questioning were not laughing now but you know here's the thing that's odd about this line of questioning though is Ukraine is an ally of the United States you know the idea that women was trying to point out that Ukraine interfered in 2016 is a line that that President Putin in Russia would want the United States to follow is something that Maria Vonn of the church the former ambassador to Ukraine from the United States pointed out that this is the. Way a former as she put it k.g.b. Officer would operate with a distant from Asian campaign to throw them to throw people off the scent and here you have you being that he tells President Trump that Russia did not interfere in the elections and advised Why don't you look at I grant you crane check out Ukraine and you know now you have this entire back and forth with muddied waters and not a unified front from you know Democrats or Republicans in the United States and it's exactly what Putin would want Sue Davis right now what are we going to be I guess expecting to see in the hallways are people going to the camera is this an actual break how are people talking about what transpired this morning you know I don't think that I think the views appear very similar to the public I mean the lines are pretty much drawn on the question of impeachment on Capitol Hill but you do certainly see sort of a furious effort going on along among Democrats and Republicans alike to sort of shape the public opinion on this I don't to the extent that we know how intensely Republican Americans are paying attention to that it's one of those things I think we're going to need to have to see this baked into the country a little bit longer right though there was some griping about the Republican witnesses being later in the afternoon why would people care about that is that kind of lucky Hill even though I think that Republicans have looked at every aspect of the process to attack the process I'm not sure that saying a hearing that starts at 230 in the afternoon is fundamentally gaming the system to a hearing that started at 930 I mean clearly Democrats are in control the process here they're going to do it in the order that they feel like you know serves their efforts if we're talking about a midnight hearing I might be able to entertain that as saying they were trying to game the system but it's still happening certainly within bankers' hours which I think is probably seen as fair play generally on Capitol Hill and not an unusual start time for a hearing on any topic another thing I noticed is that we saw far more questioning from Devon you know as I think that earlier in la. Last week's testimony we heard a lot from the Republican committee counsel Steve Castor he did speak today but was there a sense that there was a kind of I don't know stronger grip on the narrative from House Republicans themselves I think especially for the ranking member Nunez these these are people who work inside the intelligence community these are officials that I think he has much more of a comfort zone in sort of questioning I think you can also hear from the ranking member I mean he clearly has deep seated distrust of the media and his own part he certainly has had at times distrust of the intelligence community and his tenure as the ranking member I think it was just footing that he felt more confident and I also think he's a member that has been very vocal about the fact that he thinks there's something nefarious about not knowing who the whistleblower is and that information is critical to the public so I think in terms of just in terms of these being witnesses he was on more confident footing and I think he had much more to say in that regard we can also play an example from his opening statement where he didn't actually talk very much about the witnesses who would be appearing and said the ranking Republican member Devin Nunez focused on the media and generally talked about this idea that the president has been the victim of a smear campaign it really wasn't long ago that we were reading these headlines. From c.n.n. Congress investigating Russian investment fund with ties to trump officials this was false New York Times campaign aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence also false slate was a trump server communicating with Russia. This was false. And there was a lot of this kind of reading things into the record including a lengthy amount of time spent on the idea spent on the energy company and Hunter Biden and whether or not Biden should be testifying to them is this part of an overall strategy or is this an area that Republicans think should be investigated. The witnesses were not playing ball on this the witnesses but neither of them were doing work on Ukraine at the time of the events they write one of their answers were no I wasn't involved or I wasn't aware why are you still asking me about this that it became clear that it was just all about trying to get these items into the record it's not even clear that everything that the members were saying was factual but they were they were you know Vice President Biden is still running for president and and the president has made it very clear that he wants attention drawn to Vice President Biden and his son and and there have been numerous witnesses including these witnesses who said that you know there could be potential questions about conflict of interest with Vice President Biden's son being on the board of a an energy company that had major corruption issues was trying to clean up its image by bringing on Biden but certainly those are questions that can be asked and the White House and the president's Republican allies want to make sure they ask it as many times as possible on the flip side Democrats really focus on the idea of motivation why the president and his allies in the White House would push for the investigations the way they were and here is within a kernel of in talking about why he reported his concerns about the phone call by the president to the National Security Council's top lawyer chairman without hesitation I knew that I had to report this to the White House counsel I had concerns and it was my duty to report my concerns to the proper people in the chain of command it was inappropriate. It was improper for the president to request and to demand. An investigation into a political opponent opponent especially a foreign power where there is at best dubious belief that this would be a completely impartial investigation and that this would have significant implications if it were became. Public Knowledge and it would be perceived as a partisan play it undermined our Ukraine policy and it would undermine our national security so in a way that sums up a lot of the testimony from one of the key witnesses not just the reason why he thought it was of concern with the president had to say in his phone call but why he thought that it could have severe national security consequences Dominican Gennaro Can you give us a final sense of what we can take away from this morning well I think with almost half a dozen people who've now testified it's pretty clear the impeachment train is down the tracks I mean they're headed in this direction and there isn't a whole lot that's going to change a lot of people's minds on this so Democrats have argued that maybe I'm sorry Republicans are you the Democrats have been on this path for 3 years they will argue that but of course Democratic leaders fought being a fight going that path and didn't want to have to do it Nancy Pelosi felt like her hand was forced when Democratic moderates came out and when the details of this Ukrainian affair came out and they decided that you know what they have to stand up for what they feel like is you know a precedent that could be set in democracy the fact is here though there isn't a whole lot of room for people to move you know 2 thirds of people in our poll that came out today said that they they can't imagine anything not a single detail that anything that could come out in these hearings that could change their mind they're locked in in that way 30 percent said that maybe there could be something but very few people seem movable Democrats are just happy with the fact that they had independent shift back in late September that they've held on to them and they're hoping to hold them through when they might file articles That's Jim and that's to medical Montoro thanks so much will be back in a moment with our special coverage of the house in Pietschmann hearings you can find more at npr dot org Please take a listen to our podcast which also has wraps these testimony days. 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News of the house public impeachment hearings as we wait for lawmakers to return from their break right to take a moment to look at one of the figures at the heart of this someone we've been talking about all morning the president of Ukraine n.p.r. Host David Greene dug into his past and put together this profile of President will of the America Zelinsky if there were ever a person stuck in a place he never wanted to be it's him Selenski spoke about that call in September when he was sitting awkwardly next to trump at the United Nations I'm sorry but I don't want to be in the old to do that great to cold. That. Would kill ashes elections all of us save the world wanted to finally hear how Selenski felt about that call and whether he felt pressured to do us normal we spoke about many seeing such and such so I think when you read in that nobody Bush pushed me yes or no credit for Selenski that moment was about so much more than finding the right words his country's security depends on its relationship with the United States and right now that means Donald Trump on that visit to New York Selenski had only been in office for 4 months and he was desperate for the validation of an official White House invitation you invited me. But I think I'm soloing and story about but I think you forgot to tell me the date . But I think in the nearest future they'll tell you that oh yes they know you're for Selenski does often lean on humor the 41 year old is a comedian and an actor who just got into politics he's 5 foot 7 he's a small frame he clearly loves being goofy and cracking jokes maybe imagine Steve Kerr from the office becoming our president these guy was was everybody's. Family Television for 20 years at least that's Ukrainian journalist Natalia Hooman uku grew up watching Selenski on t.v. She was quite a funny guy like a really great comedian a super talented actor. And it's true that till the last year I would never in mention somebody like that would run hard to imagine Yeah because he's a lifelong entertainer but here's the weirdest part up until becoming president of Ukraine he was on t.v. Playing the president of Ukraine and. This was just wildly popular show was called servant of the people who were New York says even though it was comedy The show made it possible for voters to give Selenski a real shot somehow in the people's mind I believe that he people think that the stand the politics because he always made the jocks about politics but think of that trump phone call Think about that appearance at the United Nations Selenski is now really in it. I feel sympathy empathy I feel sorry for the guy that's the voice of Thomas Henrik Ylvis who was himself the president of another former Soviet republic a stone from 2006 to 2016 he says there is no way Selenski could have been prepared for that phone call I mean