Democrats hone in on Trump envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, President Trump asks China to investigate the Biden s, and CNN refuses to run Trump ads on the show. All that and much more on today's show from Ben Shapiro's show on The Ben Shapiro Show with Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro: Breaking News: Democrats Hint at a big meeting with the Trump administration s Ukraine envoy, and how it ties into the Joe Biden scandal, and why it's bad for President Trump and the rest of his administration. President Trump: Joe Biden's no quid pro quo, but there's no question that he's a criminal. What's the difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? What are the odds that Joe Biden is a crook, and that Donald Trump is just as crooked as Joe Biden was in 2016, and is doing nothing wrong? What does China have to do with the Biden scandal and what is China doing about it? Is China investigating the Bidens a political smear campaign, or is it a legitimate investigation? And what does China actually think about Joe Biden? Find out on this episode of the Ben Shapiro show with our special guest, Ben Shapiro! Subscribe to our new podcast, and let us know your thoughts and reactions on this and other breaking news stories coming out of Washington, D.C. and around the world! Subscribe, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to tell us what you think about it! and what you're listening to on your favorite streaming platform! Tweet us in the comments section! if you think it's good or bad, and we'll be hearing about it on the next episode of next week's episode of Ben Shapiro s or what you'd like to hear about the latest breaking news coming out! or your thoughts on the latest in politics or what's going on in your life! Timestamps: on the & more! on this ep? on our social media platforms! Thanks for listening! - Ben Shapiro @bencrane Thanks Ben Shapiro & Ben Shapiro and Jake Taffer Music: "Podcasts" - The Best of Ben Sondell "The Best of the Week? - "The Good, the Badest, the Good, The Bad, the Weirdest, The Worst, the Worst, The Most Beautiful, the Best, the Most Beautiful
00:00:10.000All righty, well, a lot of breaking news today.
00:00:18.000All of that breaking news starts with a big hearing that was happening on the Hill yesterday with the Trump envoy to the Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who's the former ambassador, former special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and he was communicating with other officials in the Trump administration, including one guy named Bill Taylor, who's the charged affairs at the U.S.
00:00:37.000Embassy in Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S.
00:00:42.000Andrei Yermak, who's an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the president's agent Rudy Giuliani, among others, is according to the Democrats.
00:00:50.000Volker was one of the people who's mentioned in the original whistleblower story.
00:00:56.000And Volker was one of the key players in trying to suss out what exactly was happening in Ukraine with regard to corruption.
00:01:03.000Well, yesterday Volker went to the Hill to testify and he testified at length and he also provided a bevy of text between himself and the other mentioned characters just now.
00:01:12.000People like Giuliani and Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland.
00:01:16.000And these texts are not great for President Trump.
00:01:19.000They're not good for the Trump administration.
00:01:21.000Now, they do leave open one very large question, as we will see.
00:01:24.000And that question is whether the Trump administration was indeed conditioning aid and presidential meetings and warm relations with the new Ukrainian administration on getting Joe Biden or whether they were doing so based on Ukraine demonstrating that it would fight corruption.
00:01:41.000If the latter, that's exactly what Joe Biden openly says that he did back in 2016.
00:01:44.000Joe Biden, there's that famous audio and video of him talking about how he withheld $1 billion in Ukrainian loan aid because he was attempting to fight corruption in Ukraine.
00:01:54.000And in 2016, we also know that the Obama DOJ was meeting with members of the Ukrainian government and trying to get them to root out corruption.
00:02:02.000And we know that in 2018, Three Democratic senators wrote letters to the Ukrainian government suggesting that their aid would be conditioned on whether they cooperated with the Mueller probe.
00:02:12.000So, in other words, conditioning aid on fighting corruption is not, in fact, a crime.
00:02:17.000Conditioning aid on going after your domestic political opponent, that looks like a quid pro quo that you are doing for personal benefit.
00:02:25.000The Democrats have now issued a letter updating everyone on their findings and updating everybody on the content of the text with Kurt Volker and here is what the letter says because we always bring you information first and then we break it down for you.
00:02:36.000So the letter is from the head of the Dear colleagues, we are writing to convey our grave concerns with the unprecedented actions of President Donald Trump and his administration with respect to the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.
00:03:00.000The President and his aides are engaging in a campaign of misinformation and misdirection in an attempt to normalize the act of soliciting foreign powers to interfere in our elections.
00:03:10.000Well, as we will see, the question here is whether Trump and company were soliciting a foreign power to interfere in the American election, or whether they were soliciting a foreign power to fight corruption internally, and that has an impact on American elections because it turns out that American officials are involved in Ukraine.
00:03:26.000That's exactly what the Obama administration was claiming in 2016, that they were trying to root out corruption in Ukraine, and that would involve investigating people like Paul Manafort, who would go on to be the campaign chairman for President Trump.
00:03:38.000According to these three congresspeople, we've all now seen the summary of the call in which President Trump repeatedly urged the Ukrainian president to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden immediately after the Ukrainian president mentioned critical U.S.
00:03:50.000military assistance to counter Russian aggression.
00:03:53.000The president claims he did nothing wrong.
00:03:55.000Even more astonishing, he is now openly and publicly asking another foreign power, China, to launch its own sham investigation against the Bidens to further his own political aims.
00:04:03.000Hold on a second, we're gonna get to President Trump.
00:04:06.000And his supposed request to China, he did in fact say that the Chinese should open an investigation into Biden, but there's no quid pro quo there, that's just Trump mouthing off, because one of the difficult things about President Trump is that he says so many things.
00:04:20.000I've been saying for years on end that on his epitaph will be written, President Trump, 45th President of the United States, he said a lot of crap.
00:04:28.000And the problem is that some of that crap borders on the vulgar and the obscene, to say the least, and is politically Unwise, to be very mild about it.
00:04:38.000This China comment falls along those lines.
00:04:39.000It does not fall along the criminal lines, but we'll get to that in just a minute.
00:04:42.000More of this Democratic letter and these texts that the media are saying are incredibly damning, and they do raise questions.
00:06:14.000The Democrats continue this open letter, that's basically what it is, an open letter in which they inform the media and their supposed congressional colleagues, but it's about the media attention, about their investigation and their interview yesterday with Kurt Volker.
00:06:27.000Now remember, Volker really only came to light because Rudy Giuliani, the world's worst lawyer, it's amazing, he took that title from Michael Cohen when Michael Cohen went to jail.
00:06:35.000President Trump does have an inerring instinct in choosing the world's worst lawyer.
00:06:39.000He went to Michael Cohen and he's like, this guy'll be great, and then, He's like, you know, who could I replace the world's worst lawyer with?
00:06:48.000And Rudy decided, you know, it'd be a smart idea.
00:06:50.000I will hold up my phone on camera and say that I have texts from the State Department.
00:06:54.000No way this will go wrong in any cla- This is why, folks, I sort of think that everything is more easily attributable to comedy of errors stupidity than it is to deep, malign planning.
00:07:08.000And now, both could be true, could be a stupidly carried out scheme, but My general take on the Trump administration is that when things appear to have been planned nefariously, instead they are usually just a reflection of incompetence and stupidity.
00:07:33.000Even more astonishing, he is now openly and publicly calling for another foreign power, China, to launch its own sham investigation against the Bidens to further his own political aims.
00:07:43.000It is unethical, unpatriotic, and wrong.
00:07:45.000American presidents should never press foreign powers to target their domestic political rivals.
00:07:49.000I mean, I generally agree with that, obviously.
00:07:52.000I I don't think that you should be pressing the Chai Koms, the Chinese communist fascist government in Beijing, to be targeting domestic political rivals in the United States.
00:08:02.000Engaging in these stunning abuses in broad daylight does not absolve President Trump of his wrongdoings or his grave offenses against the Constitution.
00:08:08.000Now again, something can be wrong and also not illegal.
00:08:12.000Also, it could be just Trump mouthing off, which is, I think, what most Americans take this for.
00:08:15.000Over the past week, say these Democrats, new reports have revealed that other Trump administration officials may also have been involved in the illicit effort to get Ukrainian help for the president's campaign.
00:08:25.000For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has now admitted that he was on the call when President Trump explicitly pressed the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens, but failed to report this to the FBI or other law enforcement authorities.
00:08:37.000Well, yeah, because he didn't think that was a crime.
00:08:40.000He thought that was Trump mouthing off, because it probably was.
00:08:43.000But, say these Democrats you will recall, FBI Director Christopher Wray urged individuals to report efforts to seek or receive help from a foreign power that may intervene in a U.S.
00:08:53.000It matters whether we are talking about a broader attempt to target corruption, which is going to be the Trump administration's case, or whether that broad attempt to target corruption was really just cover for getting a political opponent.
00:09:04.000This obligation, say the Democrats, is not diminished when the instigator of that foreign intervention is the President of the United States.
00:09:11.000It is all the more crucial to the security of our elections.
00:09:13.000Instead, when asked by the media about his knowledge of or participation in the call, Secretary Pompeo dissembled.
00:09:20.000Likewise, we are investigating reports that Vice President Mike Pence may have been made aware of the contents of the call and his absence from the Ukrainian president's inauguration may have been related to efforts to put additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the president's demands.
00:09:32.000Well, that raises the question as to what the president's demands were.
00:09:35.000If Trump said, Mike, don't go to that inauguration for the Ukrainian president until he pledges to investigate Joe Biden.
00:09:44.000If he said, we are involved in an anti-corruption effort in Ukraine, don't go.
00:09:48.000That's exactly what Barack Obama said to Joe Biden about holding back $1 billion in loan aid.
00:09:53.000This week, current and former State Department officials have begun cooperating with the impeachment inquiry by producing documents, scheduling interviews and depositions based on the first production of materials.
00:10:02.000And it became immediately apparent why Secretary Pompeo tried to block these officials from providing information.
00:10:09.000Because the fact is, within a week, Volcker showed up.
00:10:12.000The other people who are asked to testify are going to testify within the next week and a half.
00:10:17.000But they have now released these text messages and the Democrats say these text messages reflect serious concerns raised by a State Department official about the detrimental effects of withholding critical military assistance from Ukraine and the importance of setting up a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian president without further delay.
00:10:33.000He also expressly directly expressed concerns that this critical military assistance and the meeting between the two presidents were being withheld in order to place additional pressure on Ukraine to deliver on the president's demand for Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations.
00:10:48.000Earlier today, selected portions of these texts were leaked to the press out of context.
00:10:51.000In order to help correct the public record, we are now providing an attachment with more complete excerpts from the exchanges.
00:10:57.000My favorite is that they're not going to release the whole exchange, just more complete excerpts.
00:11:20.000But the texts that were originally released yesterday were a small portion, and the Democrats are now saying, well, we'll release this slightly larger portion, but not the whole thing.
00:11:32.000The Democrats acknowledge that the additional excerpts we are providing are still only a subset of the full body of the materials, which we hope to make public after a review for personally identifiable information.
00:11:43.000Our investigation will continue in the coming days, but we hope every member of the House will join us in condemning in the strongest terms the President's now-open defiance of our core values as American citizens to guard against foreign interference in our democratic process.
00:11:54.000Now, as we'll see, the Trump administration case here is that they are trying to investigate foreign interference in our election process, that when President Trump is seeking to investigate What went on in Ukraine in 2016, that's because he actually is trying to stop foreign interference in our election process, and we need help from the current Ukrainian government in order to investigate that and come up with the information.
00:12:15.000And that is not a terrible argument, considering, again, that earlier this year, three Democratic senators sent a letter to the Ukrainian government, or last year rather, they sent a letter to the Ukrainian government specifically saying, cooperate with the Mueller probe or we're going to withhold aid.
00:12:29.000So, we're gonna have to determine what exactly was the Trump administration threatening over.
00:12:34.000So before, the question was, were they threatening?
00:12:36.000And I had suggested, well, maybe they weren't threatening at all.
00:12:39.000Maybe Trump wasn't really threatening anything on the phone call, since the Ukrainians, apparently, according to BuzzFeed and the New York Times, did not actually know military aid was being withheld at the time of the phone call.
00:12:48.000Now it appears that it was pretty clear to the Ukrainians that at least a presidential visit was being withheld or that perhaps there was some sort of warm relationship that was in the offing if they would do an investigation.
00:13:00.000So the question becomes an investigation into what?
00:13:03.000Was this really about Joe Biden and the cover for that was corruption talk?
00:13:07.000Or was this really just corruption talk and part of the corruption talk was talk about Burisma, which is in fact a massive Ukrainian company run by oil oligarchs.
00:13:15.000Okay, so now we get to the actual texts.
00:13:21.000We don't know what the entirety of the text says, so all we can do is go with the excerpts that we have in front of us.
00:13:27.000On July 19th, so remember the timeline here, President Trump decided he was gonna suspend military aid to Ukraine back in May, basically, and then he informed his own Office of Management and Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold that aid starting in mid-July.
00:13:44.000July 25th is the phone call with the Ukrainian president.
00:13:47.000The whistleblower files the complaint mid-August.
00:13:50.000Adam Schiff starts tweeting out the basic claims from the whistleblower late August.
00:13:54.000Early September, the whistleblower complaint's existence is made aware to Congress.
00:14:02.000And right after that, Trump restores the aid.
00:14:03.000So that is the timeline of events here.
00:14:05.000Okay, so a week before the phone call.
00:14:07.000After the military aid has been suspended, but the Ukrainians don't know it.
00:14:10.000A week before the phone call with Trump and Zelensky, there was a text between Ambassador Volker, who, remember, is, again, the special envoy to Ukraine.
00:14:21.000There's this text between Volker and President Trump's agent—they call him President Trump's agent, he's his lawyer—Rudy Giuliani, to thank him for breakfast and introduce him to Andrei Yermak, who's a top advisor to President Zelensky.
00:14:33.000Okay, well, getting Giuliani on the phone with Yermak doesn't necessarily mean that it's about Biden.
00:14:38.000It could also be about broader 2016 interference questions because Giuliani was, in fact, in Ukraine investigating all of that stuff.
00:14:43.000on Monday, maybe 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. Washington time.
00:14:46.000Okay, well, getting Giuliani on the phone with Yermak doesn't necessarily mean that it's about Biden.
00:14:51.000It could also be about broader 2016 interference questions because Giuliani was, in fact, in Ukraine, investigating all of that stuff.
00:14:58.000Now, Giuliani may also have been there investigating a bunch of bad theories, right?
00:15:35.000Where Volker is putting together Yermak and Giuliani.
00:15:39.000Now, Volker also testified yesterday in front of the Democrats that he was telling Giuliani at the time that there was nothing to the Biden allegations.
00:15:45.000The Biden allegations were being completely overblown and that there really was not a lot of there there, which suggests that he was helping out Giuliani because he wanted to help out Trump, but that he was not participating in any sort of quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government.
00:15:59.000In fact, Volker testified he was telling the Ukrainian government the opposite.
00:16:03.000Do not get into the business of interfering in domestic political arrangements in the United States.
00:16:07.000It's not going to redound to your benefit.
00:16:09.000Which means that what we may have here is another Mueller situation where Trump was informing people to do bad things and his own team was saying, no, we're not going to do that.
00:16:18.000That may very well be the case as well.
00:16:21.000Yeah, again, the president has impulses that are not good very often, and the people around him are constantly thwarting those impulses.
00:16:28.000Okay, we'll get to the rest of these texts in just one second.
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00:17:37.000Okay, so we know that Volker was working with Giuliani and having Giuliani meet with Andre Yermak, who is the aide to Zelensky.
00:17:46.000Or is that about the investigation into what happened in 2016?
00:17:51.000Because one of those things is of public interest.
00:17:53.000The other thing is based on rumor and hearsay and without a lot of evidence to support it.
00:17:59.000Now, the Trump campaign is going to make a bolder claim than I'm willing to make, and that is that the investigation into Biden is fully legitimate.
00:18:06.000Meaning that they still suspect that Biden was engaged in serious corruption over there.
00:18:11.000Mike Pence basically said that yesterday.
00:18:13.000He suggested that the American people have a right to know if the vice president benefited from his position.
00:18:18.000When you hold the second highest office in the land, it comes with unique responsibilities.
00:18:23.000Not just to be above impropriety, but to be above the appearance of impropriety.
00:18:27.000And clearly in this case, there are legitimate questions That ought to be asked.
00:18:32.000And we're going to continue to ask them, since the American people have a right to know, whether or not the Vice President of the United States or his family profited from his position.
00:18:45.000Okay, but the question is whether you withheld aid over that.
00:18:48.000Would it have been a sign of Ukrainian corruption if they didn't investigate the specific Biden angle?
00:18:53.000Now, it is true that today, the Ukrainians apparently reopened a bunch of old investigations, and the media are reporting this as, okay, well this is the other half of the quid pro quo.
00:19:04.000According to the Associated Press, Ukraine's Prosecutor General said on Friday that his office is reviewing all cases that were closed by his predecessors, including several related to the owner of a gas company where former VP Joe Biden's son sat on the board.
00:19:16.000Well, it seems to me that if they're reopening all the old investigations, and some of those investigations include Burisma, what's the big deal?
00:19:24.000I mean, there is a lot of corruption inside Ukraine.
00:19:32.000So, are we going to pretend that the corruption did not exist and that it's illegitimate to investigate?
00:19:37.000Now Burisma is clean as the driven snow, is the idea here?
00:19:40.000Ruslan Ryaboshapka's comments came amid an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, according to the AP.
00:19:47.000Ryaboshapka told reporters in Kiev that prosecutors are auditing all cases that were closed or dismissed by former prosecutors, including several related to Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the gas company Burisma that hired Hunter Biden in 2014, at the same time his dad was leading the Obama administration's diplomatic dealings with Kiev.
00:20:05.000Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there's no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former VP or his son, according to the Associated Press.
00:20:13.000Ryaboshapka says we are now reviewing all the cases that were closed or split into several parts or were investigated before in order to be able to rule to reverse those cases where illegal procedural steps were taken.
00:20:26.000When asked by a reporter if they are reviewing cases related to Burisma and Zlochevsky, the prosecutor said there are 15 cases where Zlochevsky and businessman Sergei Kurchenko are mentioned.
00:20:35.000He didn't specify how many were related to Hunter Biden's work at Burisma at all.
00:20:40.000Ryaboshapka was mentioned on that July 25th call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who assured Trump that Ryaboshapka was his man and that he would resume investigations into Burisma.
00:20:52.000Okay, so, on July 19th, 2019, Ambassador Volker, Ambassador Sunlin, this would be the ambassador to the EU, and Bill Taylor, who is the Acting Ambassador to Ukraine had the following exchange about the specific goal of that phone call that we've now all read the transcript to.
00:21:10.000Volker said, Can we three do a call tomorrow, say noon Washington?
00:21:14.000Sondland says, Gordon Sondland says, Looks like presidential call tomorrow.
00:21:18.000I spoke directly to Zelensky and gave him a full briefing.
00:21:45.000If at the heart of this lies President Trump's desire to get Joe Biden and not root out corruption, he got an impeachable offense.
00:21:51.000If it turns out that at the heart of this was President Trump seeking to root out corruption, and as an aspect of that, he's saying you need to investigate Burisma, then it's not impeachable.
00:22:01.000On July 21st, Ambassador Taylor flagged President Zelensky's desire— Notice that none of these texts actually mention Biden, right?
00:22:07.000Not one of these texts mentions Biden.
00:22:09.000They all mention investigations, Most of them mentioned corruption.
00:22:14.000On July 21st, 2019, Ambassador Bill Taylor flagged Zelensky's desire for Ukraine not to be used by the Trump administration for its own domestic political purposes, according to Democrats.
00:22:24.000Taylor said, One thing Kurt and I talked about yesterday was Sasha Daniliuk's point that President Zelensky is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington of domestic re-election politics.
00:22:37.000And someone said, absolutely, but we need to get the conversation started and the relationship built irrespective of the pretext.
00:22:45.000Okay, so does that text message suggest that the Trump administration is withholding aid based on the Burisma stuff, or does it sound like what Sunlin and others in the administration are saying is, tell Zelensky that he should just try to butter Trump up, basically.
00:23:00.000And that we will make the relationship warm based on anti-corruption efforts.
00:23:04.000And then, we've got Giuliani advocating for the Trump-Zelensky call.
00:23:09.000Apparently Yermak and Giuliani agreed to speak on the morning of July 22nd.
00:23:13.000Later that evening, Volcker informed son Lyndon Taylor that Giuliani was now advocating for a phone call between Trump and President Zelensky.
00:23:21.000I'll get to the content of that particular text exchange.
00:23:24.000Remember, all of this is ahead of this phone call between Trump and Zelensky.
00:23:27.000We'll get to this particular text exchange.
00:23:29.000We're going through all of the evidence that is available, because you get information first here on this show.
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00:25:20.000In other words, it looks as though they are trying to get Rudy Giuliani to sign off on Trump talking to Zelensky on the basis of Rudy is now convinced that the Ukrainian government is going to look into the 2016 election stuff.
00:25:35.000Or, according to Democrats, Rudy is now convinced that Ukraine will act as a cat's paw in going after Joe Biden.
00:25:41.000That part is yet unclear, which is why all of this is going to come down to, in the end, Rudy Giuliani getting up and testifying in front of Congress.
00:25:48.000That's what this is all going to come down to.
00:25:50.000If Rudy gets up and he says, yes, I was there, yes, my only mission was to go after Joe Biden, yes, I tried to force the Ukrainians to go after Joe Biden, not as an aspect of corruption, but just because Joe Biden is a bad man and I don't want him elected.
00:26:04.000And then this looks very much like an impeachable offense.
00:26:07.000If, however, Rudy just says, listen, I was there to investigate the 2016 election stuff.
00:26:12.000One of the aspects of that was Joe Biden and Burisma and corruption over there.
00:26:17.000And they made some sort of moves in that direction.
00:26:56.000And right now, the Democrats are trying to push him off that ledge.
00:26:58.000Now, does that look like a political hit?
00:27:00.000Of course it does, because the Democrats are politically motivated.
00:27:03.000And as it turns out, Paul Sperry, the reporter, he is reporting now that the whistleblower in this particular case was not only a registered Democrat, he was a CIA analyst who was detailed before the 2016 election to the Obama White House, where he worked on the NSCs at Ukraine desk and met with anti-Trump Ukrainian officials before being sent packing by the Trump National where he worked on the NSCs at Ukraine desk and met with anti-Trump Ukrainian officials This is Paul Sperry reporting.
00:27:26.000So, he says, the Democrat whistleblower who complained about Trump digging up dirt in Ukraine was himself helping dig up dirt in Ukraine against Trump and Manafort while working in the Obama White House during the 2016 campaign.
00:27:36.000So I'm sure more will come out about that.
00:27:39.000So does it look like a political... Two things can be true at once.
00:28:17.000On the morning of July 25th, 2019, Ahead of the planned call between Trump and Zelensky, the Ambassador Volker advised Andrei Yermak, he said, good lunch, thanks.
00:28:26.000Heard from White House, assuming President Xi, Zelensky, convinces Trump he will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016.
00:28:34.000Okay, so this is the text that the Democrats are focusing in on.
00:28:41.000Because this one obviously has a quid pro quo right in it.
00:28:44.000Right, that if Zelensky convinces Trump he's serious, they'll nail down a date for a visit to Washington.
00:29:34.000In fact, Democrats were pressuring the Ukrainian government to work with the Mueller probe with regard to what happens in the 2016 election only directed at Russia.
00:29:42.000So directing that same question at Ukraine is not illegitimate.
00:29:47.000That text actually just adds to the lack of clarity about what exactly is the investigation we are talking about.
00:29:53.000By Volker's own testimony, it's not Biden.
00:29:55.000He said he was downplaying the Biden stuff to Giuliani.
00:29:59.000But if you are Trump, what makes you nervous right now is that Rudy Giuliani will be called to testify and that man has no filter whatsoever and just says stuff.
00:30:07.000And we'll get to more of these texts and all of the rest of the evidence, President Trump in China, CNN canceling Trump ads.
00:30:13.000We'll get to all of that in just a second.
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00:32:28.000In the pic, Jordan's elite beverage vessel has been commandeered by her pet snake, Soba, oh my god, who is sticking its head out just above the rim, smiling for the camera, just like a true leftist would.
00:32:40.000The caption reads, Soba soaks in the leftist tear's Tumblr, the salty tears to stain her and soften her old skin.
00:32:45.000She's dazed away from shedding and in full zombie mode.
00:32:47.000She refuses to leave the Tumblr, and I fear for my hand's life if I dare try to remove her.
00:33:29.000So Yermak apparently gave sort of an informal readout of the Trump-Zelensky call.
00:33:35.000After the call, Ambassador Volker received a readout from the Ukrainian presidential advisor Yermak and confirmed his intent to meet Giuliani in Madrid.
00:33:51.000Please remind Mr. Mayor to share the Madrid dates.
00:33:53.000Volker said, great, thanks and will do.
00:33:56.000Then, on August 9th, 2019, this is the other text message that people are honing in on.
00:34:00.000So there are really two in this whole exchange people are honing in on.
00:34:03.000One is the obvious quid pro quo, but for what?
00:34:07.000That is the Volcker message saying that if Zelensky convinces Trump he'll investigate and get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we can nail down a date for a visit in Washington.
00:35:04.000So what exactly is supposed to be in that Ukraine statement?
00:35:07.000What exactly is this brokered agreement, basically?
00:35:11.000What is the deliverable that the president wants and is mentioned there by Sumlund?
00:35:16.000Well, on August 9th, 2019, after Giuliani met with President Zelensky's aide, Andrei Yermak, Volker asked to speak with Giuliani about the Ukrainian statement.
00:35:35.000Sunlin said good idea Kurt, I'm on Pacific Time.
00:35:37.000And Giuliani said yes, you can call now going to fundraiser at 1230.
00:35:41.000The next day, President Zelensky's aide Yermak pressed Ambassador Volker for a date for the White House visit before committing to a statement announcing an investigation explicitly referencing the 2016 election in Burisma.
00:35:52.000So that is the democratic description.
00:35:56.000So Yermak says, Hi Kurt, please let me know when you can talk.
00:35:59.000I think it's possible to make this declaration and mention all these things, which we discussed yesterday, but it will be logic to do after we receive a confirmation of date.
00:36:06.000We inform about date of visit and about our expectations and guarantees for future visit.
00:36:26.000Once we have a date, we will call for a press briefing announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for a reboot of US-Ukraine relationship, including among other things, Burisma and election meddling in investigations.
00:36:39.000Okay, so here is where you start at the first time in any of these texts, the explicit mention of Burisma, right?
00:36:46.000And Burisma is mentioned in the context of election meddling in investigations and corruption that is happening in Ukraine.
00:36:52.000Biden isn't mentioned here, but It's pretty obvious that the mention of Burisma is meant to be about Joe Biden.
00:36:59.000So if you're a Democrat and you're looking at this, you're saying, okay, this is starting to look like a smoking gun, right?
00:37:02.000It's starting to look like Trump asked Yermack and Zelensky to mention that they would investigate Burisma, and in return, they'd get to visit the White House.
00:37:11.000If you are the Republicans, if you're Trump and his administration, what you're saying is President Trump has a wide variety of things he thinks are corrupt in Ukraine.
00:37:19.000Those things include Burisma, but are not restricted to Burisma.
00:37:23.000And the President is trying to fight corruption, and thus, he is asking for some sort of guarantee about reopening investigations into a wide variety of topics, including Burisma.
00:37:31.000Right, so the question is, is now the Biden-Burisma stuff its own thing that Trump is specifically asking for and focusing in on, and the corruption stuff is just an excuse, or is it under the broader rubric of anti-corruption?
00:37:43.000And that one is, you know, it's, frankly, it's hard to say.
00:38:01.000I don't think we have conclusive evidence, but the text messages are sure not good for the Trump administration.
00:38:06.000Following the August 9th, 2019 outreach to Giuliani, Volker and Sondland had an exchange regarding the proposed Ukrainian statement.
00:38:13.000Volker said special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States, especially with the alleged involvement of sub-Ukrainian politicians.
00:38:22.000I want to declare that this is unacceptable.
00:38:33.000So, we are talking about the broader rubric of corruption because I'm explicitly ruling out Ukrainian interference in the American election process, right?
00:38:40.000He says, I want to declare that this is unacceptable.
00:38:42.000We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 US elections, which in turn will prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future.
00:38:54.000And someone says, perfect, let's send to Andre after our call.
00:38:58.000Right, so obviously Trump's team Is saying basically the Burisma is part of the broader corruption inquiry just as Manafort was brought part of the broader Obama corruption inquiry into Ukraine in 2016.
00:39:09.000On August 17, 2019, Volker and Sunlin had an exchange in which they discussed their message to Ukraine.
00:39:15.000Sunlin says, we still want Zelensky to give us an unequivocal draft of 2016 in Burisma.
00:39:19.000Volker says, that's the clear message so far.
00:39:21.000I'm hoping we can put something out there that causes him to respond with that.
00:39:30.000On August 28th, Zelensky's aide, Yermak, texted Ambassador Volker a news story titled, Trump holds up Ukraine military aid meant to confront Russia.
00:39:50.000And so this has led to some suspicion that Bill Taylor was either working with the whistleblower or that Bill Taylor was basically trying to create a narrative that this was all about Biden, not merely about anti-corruption. - Bill Taylor said, Volcker said, hope the vice president keeps the bilateral and tees up a White House visit.
00:41:13.000One is that supposed quid pro quo over Biden, but it may in fact be over generalized investigations.
00:41:19.000One of them is the conversation about the possibility of withholding a date unless there is some sort of press statement that mentions the 2016 elections in Burisma.
00:41:28.000And here's the third one between Bill Taylor and Gordon Sondland.
00:41:31.000Taylor says, the message to the Ukrainians and Russians we send with the decision on security assistance is key.
00:41:36.000But to hold, we've already shaken their faith in us.
00:41:50.000Taylor says, as I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.
00:41:55.000And someone says, Bill, I believe you're incorrect about President Trump's intentions.
00:41:59.000The president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.
00:42:03.000The president is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms President Zelensky promised during his campaign.
00:42:09.000I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.
00:42:11.000If you still have concerns, I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly.
00:42:46.000Now, in another piece of news that Democrats are jumping on today, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump ordered the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including Rudy Giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kiev to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.
00:43:07.000There's always that anonymous sourcing.
00:43:09.000The recall of Yovanovitch in the spring has become a key point of interest in the House impeachment inquiry.
00:43:14.000A whistleblower complaint by a CIA officer alleges the president solicited foreign interference in the 2020 elections.
00:43:20.000The complaint cites Yovanovitch's ouster as one of a series of events that paved the way for what the whistleblower alleges was an abuse of power by the president.
00:43:29.000State Department officials were told this spring Yovanovitch's removal was a priority for the president, a person familiar with the matter said.
00:43:35.000Secretary of State Pompeo supported the move.
00:43:37.000Yovanovitch was told by the State Department they couldn't shield her from attacks by the president and his allies, according to people close to her.
00:43:44.000In an interview, Rudy Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal, in the lead-up to Yovanovitch's removal, he reminded the president of complaints percolating among Trump supporters that she had displayed an anti-Trump bias in private conversations.
00:43:55.000In Mr. Giuliani's view, she had also been an obstacle to efforts to push Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.
00:44:02.000So again, this is why, if Rudy testifies, it's a real problem for Trump.
00:44:06.000Because it sounds like in this interview that Giuliani is telling the Wall Street Journal that Trump fired an ambassador because she was not attempting to push forward the Biden investigation in Ukraine.
00:44:21.000So, you know, all of this doesn't look fantastic for sure.
00:44:25.000However, the Wall Street Journal also reports that when Yovanovitch left her post in May, the State Department said she was concluding her assignment as planned.
00:44:34.000She was recalled three months before the end of her customary three-year diplomatic tenure.
00:44:39.000Giuliani told the Journal that when he mentioned the ambassador to the president this spring, Trump thought that she had already been dismissed.
00:44:46.000Giuliani said he subsequently received a call from a White House official asking him to list his concerns about the ambassador again.
00:44:51.000He then gave Pompeo, the Secretary of State, a nine-page document dated March 28th that included a detailed timeline of the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine and allegations of impropriety against Yovanovitch, including that she was very close to Mr. Biden.
00:45:05.000In other words, if Giuliani is saying that Yovanovitch is basically a Democrat appointee and that she is very close to Trump's political opponent and that that's a problem, Trump does have plenary power over the executive branch.
00:45:17.000That doesn't mean that they are firing her for holding up an investigation into Biden.
00:45:22.000If you believe that somebody is stacked against any of your interests because you are a Republican and that person's a Democrat, this is why, for example, it's pretty customary to fire all of the U.S.
00:45:30.000attorneys when you enter office as President of the United States.
00:45:35.000So, the question in this story is, again, whether this was about the Biden investigation in Ukraine and Yovanovitch not participating in it, or whether it was about she was a Democrat, Trump's a Republican, didn't like her.
00:45:47.000Okay, now all of this is exacerbated yesterday because President Trump then decides to go out publicly on the South Lawn of the White House and call on China to investigate the Bidens, which of course adds to the miasma and fog of complaints that President Trump keeps going out there and asking foreign countries to investigate Biden.
00:46:04.000They were honest about it, they'd start a major investigation into the Bidens.
00:46:11.000They should investigate the Bidens, because how does a company that's newly formed, and all these companies, if you look at, and by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens.
00:46:25.000Because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.
00:46:32.000Okay, so people are jumping on this and they're saying, well, now Trump is just throwing out their quid pro quos.
00:47:16.000I mean, what is more troubling is Trump told Xi he'd remain quiet on Hong Kong protests as the trade talks progressed, which is in and of itself a moral problem, but that is not a moral problem that goes to the heart of the criminal activity alleged.
00:47:32.000By the way, why exactly is Trump mentioning China?
00:47:37.000Well, because Hunter Biden formed an investment consulting firm called Rosemont Seneca with a relative of John Kerry.
00:47:44.000And then he met with two top executives of China's sovereign wealth fund, social security fund, and largest banks.
00:47:50.000They're not going to meet with Hunter Biden unless Joe Biden is his daddy.
00:47:55.000Now does that mean that Joe Biden is involved in the corruption there?
00:47:58.000Not really, but it does mean that Hunter has been taking advantage of daddy's name and he's been doing that for a very long time.
00:48:05.000Jim Garrity at National Review says, It's fair to wonder just what Rosemount Seneca had to offer huge institutional investors beyond the stepson of a top Democratic Senator turned Secretary of State John Kerry and the son of the Vice President.
00:48:25.000Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, Jonathan Lee, other business partners formed BHR Partners in June 2013.
00:48:30.000Hunter Biden was an unpaid member of the board, received his share of the money after his father left the White House, but obviously his name being attached was not unhelpful, was not unhelpful on any of that.
00:48:42.000And so, here is where things currently stand.
00:48:52.000Was all of this merely an attempt to get Joe Biden via Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine with a quid pro quo?
00:48:57.000Or was this just an extension of the same efforts that the Obama administration was making to ferret out corruption inside Ukraine and fight that corruption by withholding aid?
00:49:05.000That's what Joe Biden was doing and what Barack Obama was doing.
00:49:08.000And again, I mentioned that Hillary Clinton was in fact involved in election shenanigans with the Ukrainian government in 2016.
00:49:17.000And so, that does not justify the president's behavior.
00:49:21.000But it does provide a backdrop for the possibility of impeachable offenses.
00:49:25.000Because if Obama did not commit an impeachable offense, and Trump did the same thing, then presumably that's not an impeachable offense.
00:49:31.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I like, and then we'll get to a thing that I hate.
00:49:36.000So, thing that I like, You know, as I say, over the weekends I tend to read lots of books.
00:49:41.000One of the books that I read in the non-Jewish realm, because it was Rosh Hashanah, I was reading a lot of Jewish books, but one of the books that I read as sort of a break is a really terrific tennis book called Strokes of Genius by L. John Wertheim about the rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
00:49:56.000I have to admit that I am a Federer fan.
00:50:30.000There's this clip that is going around last night in which some woman gets up and suggests that the only solution to global warming is to eat babies.
00:50:37.000She does this at an AOC town hall meeting.
00:50:40.000And again, you know, I want to be fair, believe it or not, to AOC.
00:50:45.000This lady who's speaking to her is either crazy or, in my humble opinion, a troll or prankster.
00:50:50.000She immediately starts saying to AOC that the only solution to global warming is to physically eat children.
00:52:04.000I don't know what Medicare for all has to do with anything, but again, when you watch that clip, I kind of agree with AOC's take on this.
00:52:10.000She says, this person may have been suffering from a mental condition and it's not okay that the right wing is mocking her and potentially making her condition or crisis worse.
00:52:18.000Well, I don't think the right wing is mocking her.
00:52:20.000I think they're pointing out that she's probably pranking you.
00:52:25.000Just be a decent human being and knock it off.
00:52:28.000As far as the quote-unquote right wing's reaction, not really super into it.
00:52:36.000I don't think that AOC is characterizing the right properly, and I also don't think that Donald Trump is characterizing her response properly.
00:52:43.000Everybody faces down when they're in public events.
00:52:45.000Everybody faces down people who are kind of crazy who get up and say things.
00:52:49.000And the best thing you can do is sort of tut tut it until it goes away.
00:52:53.000Honestly, I'm not going to get on AOC's case about that.
00:52:55.000I also am not sure why she is getting on everybody else's case about it.
00:52:58.000Okay, other things that I hate, one quick thing.
00:53:29.000Okay, be cool, be normal, and then not.
00:53:32.000not produced at all not funny at all my My goodness, that is some terrible, terrible stuff from Samantha Bee, but it is the horror to which we've grown accustomed.
00:54:01.000Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours, all the updates.
00:54:04.000Otherwise, we'll see you here next week.
00:54:06.000I'm Ben Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:54:12.000The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Robert Sterling.