Today, Explained - Taylor: Look What You Made Me Do

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Ambassador William Taylor finally testified on Tuesday and it was a doozy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we start, learn about art, learn about math, learn with your heart, learn about tech, learn design, learn engineering, grapes until wine. So many options to learn as you grow. Try it for free at kiwico.com slash explained. Alex Ward, National Security Vox. Late on Tuesday, you slacked me a 15-page PDF along with lots of proclamations. What were you so excited about? This was the testimony I had been waiting for.

And I think a lot of the country had been waiting for to see, wait a minute, was there actually a quid pro quo with Ukraine? And based on this testimony, we might have found it. And you're referring to the testimony of Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor. Billy T, as no one calls him. Tay-Tay. Tay-Tay, as many people call another person. Are you ready for it? How did Tay-Tay. Tay-Tay, as many people call another person. Are you ready for it?

How did Tay-Tay enter the fray-fray? Tay-Tay entered the fray-fray by being subpoenaed to appear in front of House committees that are conducting the impeachment inquiry. What he found is that basically everything we've already heard so far from previous people testifying was not the full story. How does William Taylor get the top job representing the United States in Ukraine? So you may remember that the Trump administration unceremoniously pushed out the then ambassador to Ukraine, Masha Yovanovitch, over these allegations that aren't corroborated at all, that she was working against Trump and did not like him. And basically, because of that, Giuliani and others got Trump to bring her home early. So Secretary of State Mike Pompeo needs to find someone and he finds Taylor in late May. Taylor was working at a think tank in Washington called the U.S. Institute of Peace, and he had been an ambassador to Ukraine before.

And Taylor was pretty clear with Pompeo, like, if I'm taking this job, I am going to be supporting a pretty strong foreign policy towards Ukraine, meaning giving them lethal aid to fend off Russia. And Pompeo goes, A-OK. Taylor goes, knowing full well and having consulted with Yovanovitch about everything that was kind of going on behind the scenes. So he was privy to the whole situation, but he cares so deeply about Ukraine. And if you read his testimony, he's quite passionate about it. It makes perfect sense that he would take the job regardless. So once he's on the scene, according to this testimony that was released on Tuesday, what happens? So Taylor finds that there are two foreign policies happening towards Ukraine. One that he deems the regular one, which is, you know, how any regular foreign policy

towards another country works through the State Department, through official channels, through the ambassador, right? That's normal. That's all well and good. Then he finds that there's this irregular policy, which is spearheaded in particular by Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, and Kurt Volker, who used to be the special envoy towards Ukraine, and with a little bit of Energy Secretary Rick Perry thrown on the side. It's these three men that seem to be leading a, as some would call it, a shadow foreign policy towards Ukraine. Taylor calls it an irregular foreign policy, where basically they're trying to get something

out of Kiev that official channels would not try to get out of Kiev. What you really need to know about what he found is that that the official and unofficial foreign policies really diverged in a dramatic and arguably corrupt way. How does Taylor lay this all out? I think we should start with July 10th. So July 10th, there's this White House meeting between Gordon Sondland, that U.S. ambassador to the EU,

former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Fiona Hill, who used to run European affairs at the White House, and then a bunch of Ukrainian officials. But Taylor's not in this meeting? Taylor's not in this meeting. You may have already heard from press reports and previous testimony that Bolton left that meeting pretty angry and told Hill, you should talk to an NSC lawyer about what happened. This is the drug deal meeting. Bolton advised her to tell White House lawyers, I'm not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up. Exactly, the drug deal

meeting. What we heard from Hill's testimony, and she said this previously, was that everyone left that meeting understanding that Sondland conveyed this message, that if Ukraine wanted what it wanted, that meeting with Trump, it would have to commit to investigations. OK. So Taylor's not in this meeting. Why is this a part of his testimony? Because he heard about it afterward and had heard it from people who were in the know about what happened in that meeting. What happens next? So I think we should go to July 18th, where there's this video conference call between government officials in which Taylor is participating. And then he hears during this call that basically some people around the table had been instructed not to give that military aid to Ukraine. And Taylor is like, wait a minute, what?

What's going on? He says, quote, unquote, all that the OMB staff person, so that's someone who works at the Office of Management and Budget. Yep. All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to OMB. So to be very clear, Taylor lays out that he learned in this official meeting that the president had given order to his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to then give to the Office of Management and Budget to not give the aid to Ukraine. So what Taylor's laying out here is that the president directly held up this military aid to Ukraine for some reason. Right. So now we have a clear implication of the president in this entire Ukraine aid holdup. We don't know what reason yet, but we do know that this goes to the very top. That's what we know based on Taylor's testimony. Then if you go to July 20th,

you have two important conversations that Taylor's a part of. The first is he's talking to Sondland, in which Sondland says that he told Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to use the phrase, I will leave no stone unturned regarding the investigations when he inevitably meets Trump. In other words, you have Sondland coaching Zelensky to be like, yes, Mr. President, we will do the investigations and we will be very thorough. Sondland actually told President Zelensky what to say?

That is what Taylor implies. Here's what he says. Sondland told me that he had recommended to President Zelensky that he use the phrase I will leave no stone unturned. Hmm. Also on July 20th, Taylor has a conversation with a top Ukrainian official in which he says that this official conveyed to me that President Zelensky did not want to be used as a pawn in a U.S. reelection campaign.

It's now pretty clear that Ukraine was feeling odd pressure here and feeling concerned that Trump was trying to get them to potentially help Trump with 2020, especially with the Burisma investigation, which would impact the Bidens. July 26th, Taylor and Volker, the former special envoy for Ukraine, they met with Zelensky. It all went well. And then they go to the Donbass region, which is the eastern part of Ukraine where the Russians have effectively invaded. And let me read from Taylor's testimony about what happened that day because it's striking. Arriving for the briefing in the military headquarters, the commander thanked us for security assistance. But I was aware that this assistance was on hold, which made me uncomfortable.

Wow. And then you have him say Ambassador Volker and I could see the armed and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridge across the line of contact. Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. assistance. So here Taylor is saying effectively two things. One, I know the aid is held up. They don't, and I have to kind of put on a brave face. And two, I know the consequences of holding up this aid because people will die if Ukraine does not have what it needs

to push back against Russians. But Taylor knows, as do we, that this aid is held up, although he's still unclear exactly why. Is that where the testimony ends? Oh, no, there's more. So let's fast forward to September 1st. Okay, at this point,

has the military aid been secured by Ukraine yet? No, that comes out on September 11th. So we have 10 more days till that happens. Okay. So it's here that Taylor has a conversation with Tim Morrison, who's leading the European affairs section inside the National Security Council. And per Taylor's testimony, Morrison tells Taylor that Sondland had told a Ukrainian official that, and I will read directly, the security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation. Okay, so now we have Sondland being extremely explicit about what he told a Ukrainian. And this is something that Sondland is completely denied doing. Right, Sondland says there's no quid pro quo, right? In his own testimony, he said that he talked to Trump. There was no quid pro quo. That's not what we were doing. And in fact,

even Sondland says that as late as August, he didn't even know that Burisma had anything to do with the Bidens, which is beyond belief. But so this is very clear now that you see that Sondland may not have been as truthful as he should have been. And actually, one of the meta narratives of this Taylor testimony that we've already heard is that Sondland did not really tell the truth to Congress, if you believe Taylor. And also Volker, who has also talked to the impeachment inquiry, he may not have given the full story of his involvement. And to wrap this whole thing up, on September 8th, Sondland and Taylor have a phone call. And I should read from Taylor's testimony here.

Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asked that person to pay up before signing the check. So it's here that you have Sondland being explicit that Trump feels or believes he is owed something from Ukraine before they get the money. How did Taylor respond to that? Well, according to Taylor, he says, I argued that the explanation made no sense. The Ukrainians did not owe President Trump anything. And holding up security assistance for domestic political gain was crazy, as I had said in my text message to Ambassador Sondland and Volker on September 9th. So you clearly have Taylor hearing all of this and saying this looks like a clear quid pro quo, that you have Trump asking for a public commitment by Ukraine to investigate Burisma, so the Bidens, and the DNC server conspiracy theory in order to get the money. Taylor thought it was crazy, but Sondland and Volker, who are part of that irregular and separate foreign policy process, were pushing this to happen.

And so Taylor just called them all out in his opening statement. I recommend everyone read the full thing because there's a lot more in it. No one's going to read it, Alex. All right, fine. But even so, that's the main thrust that you need to know, that Taylor says basically to lawmakers and people investigating this impeachment inquiry, everything you've heard so far is not the full story. This is the full story.

And the full story is there was a quid pro quo and President Trump was involved. We're going to take a break and do more of this in one minute. Hello? Hey, Desmond, it's Sean from Today Explained. How are you? I'm good. Desmond, it's no secret to listeners of the show that you are the leading Today Explained KiwiCo expert. And it's also no secret to close listeners of this show that KiwiCo does Halloween costumes, and I'm very excited about it.

I got to ask, are you going to go to KiwiCo.com slash explain where people can get a free trial to find your Halloween costume? Well, I actually wanted to dress up as the Today Explained logo. What? You're going to be the Today Explained logo for Halloween? Yeah, we already got material. Desmond, you're my hero. Wait, are the kids going to know it? Is Today Explained big in, you know, elementary school where you go? Well, I don't think we actually have Halloween parties at this school.

Yeah? There are lots of different cultures going, but I'm going to go trick-or-treating still. That's very considerate of you. I just demand to see photos of the greatest Halloween costume of all time. Thanks. Alex, remember that one time the president of the United States and the president of Ukraine had that joint press conference at the United Nations in New York? Totally. President Zelensky, have you felt any pressure from President Trump to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden?

No, you heard that we had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. Do you remember what Zelensky said when Trump publicly asked him if he had been pressured? I think, and you read it, that nobody pushed it. Pushed me. Yes. In other words, no pressure.

It was all good. Nothing bad happened. How does that moment and that statement from President Zelensky compare to what we see in Bill Taylor's account? It doesn't go. I mean, from what we see in the opening statement, you see Ukrainians feeling pressured, thinking that they might be a pawn in a U.S. election and being confused about what U.S. policy was towards Ukraine, whether they were going to get the aid or not. Clearly, if you were sitting in Kiev, you were just dumbfounded and worried about what was happening back in Washington. So why would Zelensky say that in front of the president? Because he has to, right? I mean, it's diplomacy. You can't be like, yeah, I felt pressure. This was a shitty thing for Trump to do. You can't be saying that. And look, it's possible that a lot did not get to Zelensky. But what's clear from what we see in the opening statement is that

there were Ukrainian officials worried about, hey, do we have to actually like do what America wants us to do here in order to get what was promised? What were their concerns specifically that they'd have to investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden, that they'd have to investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden, that they'd have to participate in perhaps interfering with a foreign election? What was it explicitly? Explicitly, it was along the lines of, again, we don't want to be a pawn. I mean, I think that's the most explicit bit of it. Ukraine does not want to be used by Trump or the Trump campaign or whoever to influence 2020 in any way. You also have them being a little skeptical about making this public announcement

that the administration wanted, which is like, you guys have to announce openly that this investigation to PRISM is going to happen. It looks like there was even, it was a close call that they almost went on CNN to talk about it. Yeah. As long as CNN had agreed, if you listen to Taylor's account,

they effectively agreed on some sort of interview. And in that interview, Zelensky was going to say that they were going to open this investigation. That never happened. Taylor thought it was a bad idea,

went to the Ukrainians and confirmed twice, like, you guys aren't doing this, right? And they were like, no, we're not going to be on TV and say it. So, of course, it's all Taylor's testimony, so he might make himself more of a hero here they were like, no, we're not going to be on TV and say it. So, of course, it's all Taylor's testimony. So he might make himself more of a hero here being like, hey,

I was checking in to make sure they weren't doing it. It was a bad idea. It does seem like it was a Ukrainian decision to pull the interview. But still, we were that close, right? We were that close to having Ukraine effectively acquiesce to this strong arming from the Trump administration. Do we know what stopped him from going on CNN to do this interview? We don't know. But Zelensky is a comedian turned president, and he came to prominence promising to end corruption in Ukraine and completely change the style of politics. And so there's a good chance that the people around him or even himself were kind of like, if I do this, I'm kind of playing into the U.S. hand. I'm kind of playing into the corruption thing. Plus, this Burisma thing has been done.

I don't need to do it. We just don't need this. But even so, it looked like for a moment, Trump was going to get what he wanted with Zelensky announcing an open investigation on CNN. And here's how important the CNN thing was to the administration, or at least the idea of it. From Taylor's testimony. Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelensky and Mr. Yermak, who's a top Ukrainian official, and told them that although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate. And I, this is Taylor, I understood a stalemate to mean that Ukraine would not receive the much needed military assistance. Ambassador Sondland said that this conversation concluded with President Zelensky agreeing to make a public statement in an interview with CNN.

So, like, this was part of it, right? That you have Sondland saying, you want the aid? You got to say it openly. You got to say it. Otherwise, we're going to be right where we're at. And so then you had Zelensky being like, all right, fine, I'll say it on CNN. But he didn't say it on CNN. The Trump administration seems pretty clearly implicated here in trying to get something out of this deal that will benefit them in the 2020 election.

Ukraine seems pretty clearly invested in getting military aid and a meeting with the president. Where does Bill Taylor fall into this? What are his motivations? Taylor has been very, very clear that the U.S. should provide lethal assistance to Ukraine in order to help them fight off the Russians. Like, let's not forget the stakes here. This is the first fight that we see. This is the first battle that we see, and it's the first priority

for the United States while I am here in Ukraine. The stakes here is that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. And there are still Russians in Ukraine. The stakes here is that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. And there are still Russians in Ukraine today. And there is a war happening there. Thousands have died and more will. And Taylor kind of took the job saying, like, I'm going to support lethal aid to Ukraine. So the fact that it was being held up and he didn't know why clearly would have irked him.

The other reason Taylor seems to get caught up in this and cares about it so deeply is because he worries that, like, look, if Ukraine can't fend off Russia, if Russia ends up kind of taking over Ukraine, then this whole idea of Ukraine becoming a European country of like a continent whole, free and at peace, it's over. And so this is massive geopolitical stakes. And Taylor is trying to both walk this line of like following U.S. foreign policy as it usually is and pushing off the Russians while also trying to manage this nonsense of like, oh, you will only get the money if you do what Trump wants and looking into the Biden. So like he's clearly conflicted in what's going on. But Taylor has a plan.

Get them the money. Help save Ukrainian lives. And he pulled that off in the end. Whether he did it or not, like personally, we don't know. But yes, the hold on the aid was lifted on September 11th. Taylor is now still overseeing a policy in which the U.S. is giving lethal support to Ukraine in order to defend off Russia. If Taylor delivered some sort of smoking gun yesterday, where does that leave him in this position, in this diplomatic position with Ukraine as part of the Trump administration's State Department.

It's hard to see how effective he'll be because he just called out Trump, right? He implicated Trump in this entire thing, effectively laid out a quid pro quo. Trump was involved, that everyone in Trump's orbit, the Giuliani's, the Sondland's, the Volcker's, have either lied or not told the full truth about what they were doing. And then you had the White House and Trump effectively called Taylor out. The White House tonight says this about the testimony by the top diplomat in Ukraine. Quote, President Trump has done nothing wrong. This is a coordinated smear campaign from far left lawmakers and, unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.

There was no quid pro quo. So how do you continue to represent the United States? Remember, ambassadors, yes, they're part of the State Department, but they really are like the figurehead for America in that country. And they report to the president. But Taylor here is saying there was something corrupt and bad happening here. And I'm going to call you out because I have the gravitas to do it. I've seen it happen.

And he's not part of Trump world here, right? Like, Volker was a part-time special envoy that Trump gave the job to. Sondland is a Trump donor who got this cushy job representing America in the European Union. Yes, Taylor was picked by Pompeo to take over, but Taylor is a career official. He is not a Trump guy. And so he saw something bad, he called it out. And it is a reminder that there are Bill Taylors out there, that there are people whose only job is to represent America and to do what they feel is the right thing for the government and for the country and that they will rise up and stand up when they feel like they need to.

And this is very clearly Taylor's stand-up moment. Are you ready for it? Before we go, KiwiCo. Projects for kids. I know you know. Learn about math. Learn about snow. Learn about art and how trees grow.

Learn with your sis. Learn with your bro. Try it for free at kiwico.com. Slash explained.