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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview With Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA); Marie Yovanovitch Testifies; Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) is Interviewed About Ousted U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch's Testimony Today. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired November 15, 2019 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:00]

REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D-CA): So, there's over 400 members doing all kinds of work within their jurisdiction and under their job description right now.

So, again, it's a phony argument, but the Republicans are really having a difficult time trying to come up with some kind of message that works for them.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: So, one of the theories of the case that we hear Democrats suggesting is that the reason Ambassador Yovanovitch was asked to leave her post, was fired, was that she was somehow going to be an obstruction to President Trump, to Rudy Giuliani, in their attempt to push to -- the president of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens and into the discredited, debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

Where is the evidence that that's the reason why she was pushed out?

SPEIER: I don't actually know, Jake, if that's the reason.

I think that Lutsenko, who was the prosecutor general, was offended by the fact that she was critical of him and speaking out about the fact that there was still a great deal of corruption in Ukraine. This was in early March of 2019.

And then they ratcheted up the efforts to get her fired. But that really started back in 2018, when Lev Parnas went to fund-raisers for the president in April and then was at a private dinner with the president in May of 2018, and then contributed $325,000 to the president's campaign later in May of 2018.

So I think all of this has to do with money. Now, why the Ukrainian oligarch, whomever that might be, wanted to transfer money into a phony company in the U.S. and use Parnas and Fruman to dispense it, particularly to the president, I don't know.

They certainly wanted to have her out. And so the president obliged them.

TAPPER: And let's say, you are referring to Parnas and Fruman, who have been indicted for alleged campaign finance violations. You just referred to the actual incident it was, that it was concealed that all this money had been donated to a pro-Trump super PAC.

So you're about to go into this closed-door testimony with David Holmes, who's an aide to the top diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor. And, according to Taylor, Holmes overheard this phone call between President Trump and Ambassador Sondland.

What are you expecting to learn from him?

SPEIER: Well, I -- we want details about what he heard and the conversation he had with Ambassador Sondland after the phone call, and more about the nature of the lack of security associated with that phone call, a terrible breach of security, it would appear.

And I would like to hear more about that as well, because probably more than anyone else, the Russians probably have the full content of that phone call.

TAPPER: Do you know if there was anyone else on that call or if anyone else overheard? I have seen other reporting from the Associated Press and others that there is at least a second U.S. Embassy employee in -- who was also present at that restaurant in Kiev who overheard the call.

Do you know anything about that?

SPEIER: Well, there has been a second person that has come forward. We certainly haven't interviewed that person.

I don't know that we will interview that person. We will see how this interview tonight goes with Mr. Holmes.

TAPPER: Congresswoman Jackie Speier, thank you so much. We always appreciate your time.

SPEIER: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: We're going to take a quick break.

Or are we going to talk about this with the panel? We're going to talk with the panel about this. Apologize.

So let's talk about what we just heard from Jackie Speier.

And, Nia, what do you think? She seemed to not understand why the House Republicans are making such a big issue out of process issues, given that the rules are pretty well-established.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. In this case, you had Devin Nunes trying to kick off -- give him some of his time to Eliese Stefanik, when you really supposed to give it to the lawyer.

In that instance, I thought, oh, well, he doesn't have much confidence in the Republican lawyer at this point if he wants to give some of his time to Stefanik.

And you saw the lawyer who got criticized from his -- or his questioning on Wednesday...

TAPPER: The Republican lawyer, Steve Castor, I think, is his name.

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: Exactly. Steve Castor, you saw him get criticized on Wednesday.

And I think he probably got a lot of criticism today, too. I think he doesn't have a lot to work with in many -- in many instances. And you see over these last two days, Wednesday and Friday, Democrats are methodically building a case, Bill Taylor laying out a pretty methodical timeliene of what he heard and what he saw over these -- over months of a regular foreign policy and an irregular foreign policy.

And then Yovanovitch today essentially saying, this is when it started, right? This was part of their effort of removing her -- this is Adam Schiff's argument -- removing herself sort of allowed the bribery scheme to continue.

And then I think you see from the Republicans sort of standing in place, talking about the whistle-blower, talking about Hunter Biden, talking about process.

[16:05:07]

And it is unclear where they're going to land, right? I mean, they're just all over the place, but in the same place, not really building a case, not really defending the president, not really tearing down the case that the Democrats are laying out.

So it'll be interesting to see over these next days -- we will have testimony next week. Are they just going to sound like a broken record over and over again?

TAPPER: Michael, and you heard Congresswoman Speier actually -- I don't know if contradict is the right word, but she had an alternate theory to the case as to why fire Ambassador Yovanovitch.

She thinks that all has to do with these two individuals who are now under indictment, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani. I think that they were clients of Rudy and Rudy was a client of theirs as well. And somehow that made sense to somebody.

But where they were trying to make money, and they might have thought that Ambassador Yovanovitch was going to be an impediment to their efforts to do whatever.

MICHAEL GERHARDT, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: Yes.

There's a lot we can learn about what they were doing in this whole situation, including what -- again, what Rudy Giuliani was doing. The person that seems to be responsible for their presence in this situation is the president. And the Republicans didn't talk about that at all. They also didn't talk about the president's conduct. It may be helpful to remember two questions that were repeated time and again during the Watergate hearings. What did the president know and when did he know it?

But he seems to been involved in the situation for a fairly significant period of time, trying to create a shadow government that was going to take care of Ukraine, apparently, to help his reelection.

TAPPER: Although, Gloria, I should point out that this -- the shadow government, as Jim Jordan pointed out, Congressman Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, consisted of three individuals who had been confirmed by the Senate, Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, and Rick Perry, the energy secretary, as well as President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

So he seemed to be suggesting the president has every right to use them to pursue whatever foreign policy he wants.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

I think the question -- and Jen would know a lot about this -- is, what is Gordon Sondland doing in that triumvirate there?

TAPPER: We should point out Ukraine is not part of the European Union.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: ... ambassador to the European Union.

BORGER: That's right.

And he is a political appointee. That's fine. But his area of expertise, such as it was, was really not Ukraine. So what was he doing there? Why wasn't Taylor a part of this conversation?

The president can make that choice, obviously, but those are legitimate questions that I think everybody can ask. And maybe Sondland will be answering them sometime next week when he testifies.

HENDERSON: And Mike Turner, I think, tried to make the point...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Another Republican congressman from Ohio.

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: Yes, one of the Republican congressmen essentially saying, listen, he is the ambassador to the E.U. And people who -- or countries that are aspiring to join the E.U., that would be under his purview as well.

She pushed back on it. (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: That's an interesting interpretation.

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: She kind of pushed back on it and said, well, it wouldn't be normal he would have such control...

(CROSSTALK)

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, and, also, Ambassador Sondland, he's not a normal diplomat.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: He's not a career diplomat. He's a political diplomat.

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: He's a political appointee. There are certainly political ambassadors.

But he is somebody who gave a million dollars to the Trump transition. That's in part how he got this position.

TAPPER: He is a hotel magnate.

(CROSSTALK)

PSAKI: He's a hotel magnate. He wanted to impress President Trump.

He may have had larger aspirations. So the likeliehood or the possibility that he was taking direction from President Trump, somebody who would give him a bigger job, is not hard to leap to.

Obviously, we need to hear from him next week. But he's probably the most interesting witness.

BORGER: But he's the one who seemed to have an awful lot of access to the president, who was...

TAPPER: The one who called him up on his cell phone.

BORGER: Exactly, and was considered the Trump whisperer to a great degree, aside from Rudy Giuliani, when it came to policy regarding Ukraine.

Can I just ask one question here? One thing I didn't hear today from Republicans is: I don't blame the president for firing you. You should have been fired.

Nobody defended the president, not only on Ukraine policy, the military aid being withheld, et cetera. But nobody said: The president was right to smear you. And I don't blame him for firing you because you weren't doing your job. Did anybody hear that today?

TAPPER: No.

But I would say -- Congressman Rogers, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

They don't feel like they have to because all these people serve at the pleasure of the president. And they feel like that's one that they can just say, well, the president gets to pick his own team.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And I think that's the case that they tried to make over and over and over again, including the president by tweet.

BORGER: But they didn't say, you should have been fired.

ROGERS: But you can change policy midstream. You're allowed to tap out, and same with the U.S. attorney, same with the ambassadors.

So the president is allowed to do that. I'm not even sure that would have made a great case for them, honestly.

HENDERSON: What they did try to do was say that President Zelensky didn't want her there. That's what they said.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGERS: Yes.

And there was some reference in the transcript...

(CROSSTALK)

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TAPPER: Of the second call, yes.

ROGERS: In the second call.

But this is why I think -- and I agree with Jen -- Sondland is the most important witness that they will have. He was in the meetings. He talked to the president. He talked to Zelensky.

He was there with Perry. And he was there with Volker. And that makes him the most important witness.

TAPPER: And a reminder to Gordon Sondland, if you're watching.

Look at the result of the Roger Stone trial, and think about what he's about to go through when you think about the answers that you deliever to Congress next week.

We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHRIS STEWART (R-UT): Do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?

MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: No.

STEWART: Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?

YOVANOVITCH: No.

STEWART: I think that public support for impeachment is actually going to be less when these hearings are over than it is when the hearings began, because finally, the American people are going to be able to see the evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's a little clip from earlier today.

Congressman Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, talking to and asking questions of the former ambassador, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Yovanovitch, with a line of questioning that seems to suggest if you don't have any evidence that the president committed a crime, the public is ultimately going to turn against impeachment.

Gloria, let me turn to you. How about that? I mean, the fact that the president has knocked over a bank. I mean, is that evidence that this impeachment proceeding shouldn't be going on?

BORGER: No. And I think that there are new revelations every day in these hearings and the question was carefully worded. He said, do you have any evidence that the president accepted a bribe? Not that he offered a bribe, or attempted a bribe. That was not the question. And she said, of course, she had --

TAPPER: Because the allegation is not that he took a bribe.

BORGER: Right. It's that he offered a bribe.

So I think the congressman was very, very careful in his wording. Now he's entitled to believe what he belieeves, which is that these hearings are not going to change anyone's mind, and that may well be true.

But they are painting a consistent portrait of what was occurring in Ukraine. And today, I think would be difficult to watch these hearings, without thinking wait a minute, this woman was smeared, she was removed from her job and yes, the president has a right to appoint and remove ambassadors at his will, but lots of this was done for personal gain. The president can do a lot of things, but he can't use American foreign policy for his own personal or political gain, and that is I think the theme of all this. Of course, happening as Roger Stone gets convicted as a whole circle of moment.

TAPPER: And let me ask you -- go ahead.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Further to Gloria's point, the way the congressman asked that question of the witness was such a cheap lawyer's tactic, right? It's not her job to have evidence. She's not the prosecutor.

She's not building a case. She is the evidence. She's part of the evidence. It's up to ultimately Congress whether there's been bribery or not.

So, it's such a cheap trick. I've seen it in trial.

BORGER: Have you done it?

HONIG: One witness, do you know whether my client committed this crime. She's part of the story. It's not her job.

TAPPER: But it's interesting you say that because Congressman Ratcliffe yesterday, the Republican who briefly was President Trump's nominee to be the director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe did that not yesterday, but Wednesday, with Taylor and Kent basically saying like where's the impeachable offense and Kent and Taylor trained diplomats, one of them, both in the State Department and other in Ukraine right now, said, we're not here to do that, and both Ratcliffe and President Trump have cited that as some sort of evidence they didn't have an answer about impeachment.

HONIG: Exactly the same cheap trick, twice repeated. Go ahead.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: No, no.

Listen, they're trying -- the Republicans have to make this case and with all pointed out this is not a court of law, so the typical evidentiary procedures do not apply, right? Check that box.

So the Republicans are trying to make a point. I just don't think they did a great job today. We learned nothing new. No one's disputed the facts about the call.

Now, it is, how do you interpret the call? Is it an impeachable thing that the president did or is it not?

So I think all of this is trying to make that point, so when they ask that question, they want people to see these witnesses saying, no, I don't have any evidence that the president did anything wrong, and that's what they're -- this is all about the court of public opinion. That's what they're doing.

TAPPER: All right. We're going to squeeze in another quick break. It was dramatic, but did Democrats strengthen their case for impeachment at all today? We'll talk to a key member of the House Intelligence Committee next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:24:18]

TAPPER: Welcome back.

We're back with our politics lead. The dramatic testimony of ousted Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, just second public hearing we've seen in the impeachment inquiry.

I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee. He's the chief deputy whip for the House Majority.

So, Congressman, thank so much for joining us. What to you was the most important part of today's testimony?

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): I guess there are two things, and they're really more of a big picture. One was the sort of calm and dignity that Ambassador Yovanovitch conducted herself with, in spite of the fact she has been berated by this president in multiple ways, that there was this effort by Rudy Giuliani, the president's fixer, to undermine her when she was trying to represent the United States.

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And the fact she was able to portray that picture with a lot of class and a lot of dignity I think was really important, and I think the American people will note that. But it's hard to miss the most stunning moment and it had nothing to do with what was happening in the room, and it's this bizarre, unhinged, deranged president attacking a witness while she is sitting in the witness chair testifying to potential wrongdoing by that president.

We have to just occasionally remind ourself exactly how far off the rails this president has gone. In fact, so many of my Republican colleagues treat everything he does as if he's performing some sort of holy sacrament when what he's doing is undoing hundreds of years of norms and decency in our political system and also intimidating a witness that's testifying in a case that is being formed against him.

TAPPER: So --

KILDEE: This is thuggery on his part.

TAPPER: -- Congressman, she said she felt intimidated by the tweet. Do you think that House Democrats will potentially include witness intimidation in the articles of impeachment should they be filed, based on what happened today?

KILDEE: I think it's very possible. The president is clearly engaged in a number of activities to try to obstruct this investigation, including now potentially intimidating a witness.

So I think he ought to think carefully about how he behaves. Of course, it's almost a joke to say that anymore. But no -- in no real world except the world that Donald Trump has created and that the Republicans seem to be endorsing, in no real world is any of this OK. It's not OK to ask a foreign government to investigate your opponent.

It's not OK to intimidate witnesses even while they're sitting in the witness chair. It's not OK to try to out a whistleblower because you don't like the underlying information that he has revealed. This is, this is painful. And it's sad.

TAPPER: Congressman, President Trump was asked about it today. He said he doesn't think his tweets are intimidating. This has been the pushback from several of your Republicans colleagues. It's just a tweet. Who cares?

KILDEE: It's Donald Trump saying this. I mean, Donald Trump is a person who lies to his own benefit at every single turn. Of course, he thinks everything he does is just perfect. Just like the call was just perfect.

You know what? A tweet is communication just like anything is. And when it's directed at a person who is in the chair testifying about his behavior and derisive to her, minimizing her public service, minimizing what she did as our representative in Somalia, a dangerous place where her life obviously was in danger.

Shame on this president. Shame on him for doing that.

TAPPER: Let me ask you a question because we've heard two different things from Chairman Schiff, who said that he thinks that Yovanovitch was fired because she was getting in the way of President Trump's shadow foreign policy, trying to get the president of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens, but we just had your colleague, Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, on and she says she thinks it might actually have to do with Giuliani's two indicted associates, Parnas and Fruman, talking about maybe they had some sort of monetary aspirations that they thought Yovanovitch would get in their way.

What do you think? And what you have proof of?

KILDEE: It's hard to figure it out. Rudy Giuliani seems to have an amalgam of interests and the president seems to endorse that by allowing him to both serve in a political and a private way at the same time or carrying the president's water. So, it doesn't surprise me that it's confusing as to what Rudy Giuliani's motions are and who associates himself with toward what end. We need to get to the bottom -- we need to get to the bottom of it.

TAPPER: What do you say to people who say you don't have any firsthand witnesses in the sense other than Congress than Ambassador Sondland, who will testify next week. You don't have Mick Mulvaney, you don't have Rudy Giuliani, you don't have John Bolton. And the case will not truly be proven unless you have those individuals.

KILDEE: Well, first of all, if people who are defending the president are criticizing the fact that we don't have those witnesses coming forward, it's the president that is ordering those witnesses to stay silent when they're being asked to testify in this really important moment, number one. Secondly, we do have witnesses that are going to be able to testify.

Obviously, Mr. Sondland is now going to have to answer questions about the telephone call. He may try to deny that call took place. It would be interesting whether or not cell phone records would be something he would be willing to offer as evidence of that. That's just a thought that we ought to consider.

These facts are going to come out. And I'll tell you -- I think you made this point earlier, Jake -- Mr. Sondland ought to take a bit of a lesson from what happened to Roger Stone. The truth ultimately is going to come out and those who deny the truth or bend the truth or try to avoid the truth could end up taking the same path that Roger Stone is taking.

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