What A Day - What To Impeach When You’re Impeaching

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

The Trump impeachment made its TV debut on Wednesday, featuring a colorful cast of characters and one shocking Shyamalan twist. We discuss the very biggest moments and the very best bow-tie (hint: George Kent’s). And in headlines: Starbucks goes big, University of Hong Kong lets out early, and former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick says “Why not?”

It's Thursday, November 14th. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, the anti-Byriana of daily news podcasts. One of these news stories was originally written by Tame Impala. On today's show, we'll bring you the biggest takeaways from the first day of nationally televised public impeachment hearings. Started from a phone call, now we're here. The first two witnesses in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump testified before the House Intelligence Committee. The stars of the day were Bill Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and George Kent, a senior State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy. The hearings lasted nearly six hours and were full of incriminating information

about Donald Trump and Congressman Jim Jacketless Jordan sweating through his men's warehouse best. So let's get into the key moments of the day. First up, we got a big new revelation about the Ukraine scandal from Bill Taylor. Gideon, what do we learn? Yeah, so Taylor was talking about a new phone call that further implicated President Trump in the Ukraine scandal. It was the first time that he had brought it up after his closed door testimony in October. Here is the clip of Taylor talking about that from his opening statement. Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26. While Ambassador Volker and I visited the front, as a member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland, Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. Yerbach.

Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff, at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kiev. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kiev. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations. Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. That's a couple of things. President Trump obviously talks really loud on the phone. He just said they were in a restaurant and someone could hear him talking through the receiver and they weren't even on the phone with him. So, I mean, I guess if you would ask me what I assume Donald Trump talked like on the phone, I'd assume loud. But glad we have that cleared up.

But the second thing that was really interesting to me about that is that Kiev is actually pronounced Kiev. So apparently that's the Ukrainian pronunciation Kiev. Kiev is how Russians say it. And it's a holdover from the Soviet days. Anyway, Gideon, this is a new piece of information that we didn't know before. So yeah, that's right. Taylor is basically saying here that the member of his staff accompanied Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, the day after Trump's July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, the one that has been in the transcript that Trump released, the one that is sort of set off this entire inquiry. Taylor is saying that the staff member overheard a phone call

between Sondland and Trump, and that Trump was talking about the, quote, investigations. Now, that's referring to this persistent push from Trump to have the Ukrainian president look into the 2016 presidential election and into Hunter Biden's role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company. Now, Taylor also said there Trump cared more about those investigations than the issue of Ukraine itself. Now, when we look at this and sort of dissect it, why is it important? Trump had previously said that he barely knew Sondland. And this is another piece of evidence linking him directly to the action and loudly talking to him, apparently, in a restaurant.

Oh, and by the way, that staffer whose Taylor said heard that call is set to testify behind closed doors on Friday. Oh, spicy. I mean, it's also behind closed doors, so boo. But the rest of what Taylor had to say publicly basically backed up what we knew from Taylor's private testimony, though. Yeah, that's right. I mean, he said that his understanding of the situation was that Trump appeared to be withholding a meeting with Zelensky and military aid from the country until Zelensky announced publicly that he was launching the investigation into the Bidens. Okay, let's move on to the next big recurring theme of this impeachment,

that there was a secondary so-called irregular foreign policy channel led by Rudy Giuliani acting outside of the normal State Department channel in dealing with Ukraine. Right. So this came up a few times throughout the day. George Kent in his testimony talked about how he viewed it as inappropriate. And essentially, the idea is that it would create confusion to have two of these tracks. And the secondary irregular channel, as it was being called, was working on behalf of Trump's personal interest to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, which was outside the scope of the United States national interest. And then you add on the fact that it was Giuliani who was kind of orchestrating the whole thing. a lawyer for the committee's Republicans, questioning Bill Taylor about this irregular policy channel, or I guess more accurately, it could be described as him trying to play a fun thesaurus game with Taylor. Taylor, I want to turn to the discussion of the irregular channel

you described. And in fairness, this irregular channel of diplomacy, it's not as outlandish as it could be. Is that correct? It's not as outlandish as it could be. I agree. Yeah, it's funny that they keep using the word outlandish. I mean, what are some other ways that irregular foreign policy channels could be more outlandish? Like, I guess they could have done it all on a banana phone. Yeah, or all the guys sent cute emojis to one another. Yeah, or they could have just met exclusively in a treehouse in Rudy's backyard. But again, what I mean, yeah, what's the point of that question? Could have been a lot worse. Yeah. So, all right. Big takeaway number three.

I want to talk about how the Republicans responded throughout the hearings. Yeah. So the big argument for Republicans on Wednesday was that neither of these witnesses had had direct interactions with Trump. They were saying that all the information was secondhand and that was their way to undercut the testimony that was actually presented. You testified in your prior testimony that you have not had any contact with the president of the United States. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. Ms. Taylor, Mr. Kent, have you had any contact with the president of the United States. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Kent, have you had any contact with the president of the United States? I have not. Ambassador, you weren't on the call, were you? You didn't listen on President Trump's call

and President Lindsey's call? I did not. You've never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney? I never did. You never met the president? That's correct. You're their first witness. Mr. Jordan.

You're the guy. You're the guy based on this, based on, I've seen I've seen church prayer chains that are easier to understand than this. Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told him again, this is I guess I'll like plead Judaism here that I'm not sure I completely follow that. But this whole theory of thought is obviously a convenient argument for now. I mean, just as things are starting in this whole process. But Sondland, who is said to have had direct contact with Trump, is expected to testify next week. So immediately the argument is going to change once again. Right. I mean, like you said, you want public hearings. They're giving you public hearings. You have them now. Like you said, you want firsthand testimony, but you can't do that

because you won't let those people show up. It's actually like that Marilyn Monroe song. After you get what you want, you don't want it. I realize all of our references on this show have been just very old movies. Honestly, we live in L.A. now. Hollywood, the golden era. So that's one part of it. But the other thing is, like, I kept seeing online all day yesterday that Republicans were calling the testimonies boring. Specifically, Eric Trump, who was saying repeatedly how boring it was. He even tweeted, this is horribly boring.

Hashtag snooze fest. Good one, Eric. Yeah, really witty. Hashtag snooze fest. The thing that requires a hashtag. What an idiot. What happens when you click on hashtag snoozefest, a thing that requires a hashtag. What an idiot. What happens when you click on hashtag snoozefest? It's probably just a lot of tweets from him calling things snoozefest because no one else does.

Manual, our tweet from at MAGA6949. Yeah, the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, she called the hearing boring in a tweet. Trump called the Democratic debates boring. It's interesting to me that Republicans love. Trump called the Democratic debates boring. It's interesting to me that Republicans love to call this part of it boring. First of all, they asked for it. So like, just shut up and eat your food. But the other part of it is like, yeah, sorry, your dad commits boring crimes. All right, this is about a phone call. How exciting is it gonna be? People are just talking about what they heard. That's enough. Like,

it doesn't have to be exciting. It's still a crime. I wonder, too, if they would call it boring if the impeachment was about Trump and Stormy Daniels, or if they would say, no, that's very enticing. I would love to hear about my president having sex, actually. Yikes. I hope they don't say that. They could. For the next big moment, it comes courtesy of Jim Jordan. Yes. So Congressman Jim Jordan, fresh off his latest accusation of negligence to collegiate abuse, was in the House and really thought he was doing something by repeatedly bringing up the whistleblower's identity being hidden. Well, Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, clapped back so hard the laughter is still reverberating off the walls.

Now there is one witness, one witness that they won't bring in front of us. They won't bring in front of the American people. And that's the guy who started it all, the whistleblower. Thank you. I say to my colleague, I'd be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there.

Yeah, so to be clear, they were laughing at Jim Jordan, not with him. Trump did start this and also the whole where's the whistleblower? It feels like as tired as where's the beef like we get it. You're going to keep asking that you're not going to get it. Get over yourself. I just want to point out it's illegal to intimidate witnesses. And it's also, you know, constantly calling to reveal the whistleblower's identity has a negative effect on other people who are considering coming forward with, you know, their exposition on corruption. Like they should be able to do that. So I don't know. I feel like it doesn't really track when Donald Trump is saying, well, I'm trying to get rid of corruption and that's the whole point of this.

I should be rooting out corruption. But then, you know, they're doing all this corrupt shit. But mostly, I just like watching old white dudes dunk on each other. Like it should be its own TikTok meme. And Peter Welch definitely practiced that and it shows. Okay, the last thing that we want to touch on was Devin Nunes' opening statement. He's the Republican ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. So Nunes basically said the Democrats were putting on a show and that everyone had been out to get Trump since he got elected. Yeah, I mean, it was all pretty over the top, but there was one part of the statement that stood out. We should also forget about them trying to obtain nude pictures of Trump from Russian pranksters

who pretended to be Ukrainian officials. The them that Nunes is talking about here is the Democrats. This is obviously a crazy statement to make in the halls of Congress. And the fact checkers say what actually happened is that Congressman Adam Schiff got a call from Russian pranksters who said they had compromising photos of Trump. And while Schiff thought it was bogus, he did pass it along to the FBI. So you can believe that story if you want, or you can believe my story and help me get a deep and terrible secret off my chest. I was the devilish prankster. You know, me, Gideon, and a few of our naughtiest friends. You know, we were having a sleepover.

We got so hopped up on Diet Dr. Pepper that we wanted to commit rude pranks. And after crank calls and ding-dong ditch, all that was left was getting nude photos of our commander-in-chief. I mean, we made a fake screen name, Soccer Babe X Christina Aguilera 9000, and we reached out to President Trump via AOL Instant Messenger. But then our friend's mom came in to bring us Hot Pockets, and she saw everything that was on our laptop screen. We had to call Trump personally to apologize. Mr. Trump, we're super-duper sorry we tried to prank you, sir.

We don't have internet privileges anymore. And that was the first day of the televised impeachment hearings. The next hearing is Friday, where we're going to hear from Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, more testimony that the Republicans said they wanted to be public, but will probably complain about. Marilyn, take it away. Because after you get what you want, you don't want what you wanted at all. I know you. Let's wrap up with some headlines.

Headlines. Lawyers for Rodney Reed have filed seven new witness testimonies to help prove his innocence. This comes just a week before his set execution date, which is November 20th. Reed was sentenced over 20 years ago for the murder and assault of Stacey Stites, a crime he maintains he didn't commit. His case recently gained traction from lawmakers, religious leaders, and celebs like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna petitioning to get him off death row. Universities in Hong Kong are cutting their fall semester short due to escalating clashes between student demonstrators and police on the fringes of a college campus. Protesters have been asking for amnesty for those who have been arrested and an independent inquiry into police brutality.

In recent days, a 22-year-old student became the first fatality linked to police action during the protests. Less than three months from the Iowa caucuses, former governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick is adding his name to the list of nearly two dozen Democratic candidates running for president. According to the New York Times, he told some Democratic officials that he thinks none of the current candidates have political momentum and feels that there's room for someone who can unite liberal and moderate voters.

Don't read into this, but the last former Massachusetts governor who worked at Bain Capital to run for president was Mitt Romney. He's not the president. The world's largest Starbucks opens its doors in Chicago on Friday, featuring five floors and 35,000 square feet of people asking you to watch their laptop for them while they're in the bathroom. Floors have individual themes, including a cocktail bar, a bakery, and an experimental coffee bar where you can watch the deranged and perverted new ways the coffee can be made. It's a Starbucks reserve, which basically means all the baristas wear fedoras. I can't wait to see those exotic hats.

Unicorns exist, and they're little dogs that have tails hanging off their foreheads. A puppy from a shelter in Missouri was adopted on Wednesday, and his small head tail strikes a perfect balance between adorable and disconcerting. The pup was named Narwhal and became an internet star overnight. Look forward to a live-action Narwhal voiced by Aubrey Plaza to hit theaters in Q2 2020. Also, I know that you're wondering, and no, that head tail doesn't wag. Thank God.

And those are the headlines. That's all for today. We're new, so if you like the show, make sure you subscribe, give us a rating, leave a review, yank on your head tail, and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you're into reading and not just riddles on cereal boxes that you can expertly decode in seconds like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash newsletters.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's how you make a perverted cup of coffee. What a day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tunn is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.