Trump Compares Impeachment Inquiry To A Lynching
KEILAR: We have new details about the testimony of a key witness in the impeachment inquiry, the diplomat who called the president's Ukraine policy crazy in text messages. And our Manu Raju is there on Capitol Hill following this breaking news. Tell us what you're hearing, Manu.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We're now learning a little bit more what Bill Taylor has testified to this morning and throughout the morning. This is the first, the top diplomat in Ukraine testifying about why Ukraine aid had been withheld and whether it had anything to do with the president's push for investigations into his political rivals. Now, we are told from multiple sources from both parties that he actually testified today that the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told him in a phone call that, in part, that is the reason why the aid was delayed, was because of those investigations, politically-tinged investigations that the president and that Giuliani were seeking. Now, those investigations, of course, have to do with looking into the company, Burisma, which is what Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, had been sitting on as well as looking into the Democratic National Committee as part of what the Republicans were pushing, what the president has been pushing, looking into the Russians, the origins of the Russia investigation, and this theory that perhaps Ukraine could have been involved in that. Now, what we're told from sources familiar with Gordon Sondland testified last week, that it is not inconsistent with what he said. And according to the source, he says that Sondland had testified last week that there were multiple reasons why the aid could have been delayed, it could have been the investigation, it could also have been what the president had been concerns about. It was about Europe not contributing enough, as well as corruption, more generally. But he said that, according to Gordon Sondland's testimony, that he was just speculating that the reason why the aid had been delayed was perhaps one reason why was because of these investigations. But we're told today Bill Taylor laid out a very detailed case about what happened about the -- led to the delay of the aid and getting a first glance about those conversations that occurred between Taylor and Sondland, Taylor revealing that perhaps one reason why was because of these investigations, according to what Gordon Sondland told him. So we're still getting more in this investigation. This hearing is still ongoing, it's behind closed doors, but sources from both parties making it very clear to us that this is consistent with what they had been hearing from other witnesses as well, the one reason why this aid could have been delayed is because of this ask for Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that could help the president politically. Brianna?</s>KEILAR: And how long, Manu? Was it 15 pages was his opening statement, right? Take us inside the room as it's been described to you about what it's like. Eric Swalwell told us there were about 75 people inside the room. Tell us what it was like.</s>RAJU: Yes. Three committees are questioning this witness, and that includes members and staff are leading the questioning. They're rotating hour by hour, Republican and Democrat, and they're trying to glean more information. Now, what this -- the statement, very detailed, it was about an hour long it took him to deliver. I'm told that he was someone who has a meticulous memory, provided a lot of information, what members believe was essentially corroborating information of what previous witnesses testified about. But the fact that he did reveal that, in a phone call conversation with the president's ambassador to the European Union that the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, suggested that perhaps this ask for investigations was a reason why this aid was delayed is a significant thing that has people talking up here on Capitol Hill. Democrats not referring to this specifically, but publicly, he said that what they heard today was absolutely alarming, in their view, something they believe could be a game changer, in their view. Republicans, however, dismissing this and saying, look, this is all similar to what we've heard before. Nothing is really that much different. They say there is no explicit quid pro quo, which was, of course, has been the defense of the White House. So it may not change many Republican minds here on Capitol Hill, but Democrats say that what they've heard so far has been revealing about he reason why that military aid that had been approved by Congress had been delayed. Brianna?</s>KEILAR: All right. Manu Raju, excellent reporting from Capitol Hill, thank you. And we'll have more on this key testimony in these impeachment inquiry hearings in just a moment. But first, President Trump is taking his rhetoric about this impeachment inquiry to a whole other level. Instead of phrase, witch hunt, which, this time, he used a much more incendiary word talking about the investigation. Here is what he tweeted. He said, all Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here, a lynching. This is a word associated with a period of horrific racial violence in the United States from the 1880s to almost 1970. The NAACP says there were 4,743 lynchings in the United States, and roughly three-quarters of those victims were African-American. I want to talk now with Michael Eric Dyson about this. He's the author of What Truth Sounds Like. He is also a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. What's your reaction to hearing the president tweet this?</s>MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, CONTRIBUTING OP-ED WRITER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It's astonishing. Not only does it indicate his lack of familiarity with black history. We've seen that he thought Jackie Robinson basically was a second baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, that he's Frederick Douglass. And he has events no serious engagement with that history now to take one of the most extraordinary and horrific periods in African-American life, the incident of lynching, castrating murder, tossing black bodies into rivers because of white supremacy means that this president has not only reinforced the vulnerability of African- American people by his policies, he's gotten on the wrong side that he's on. He is a man who has reinforced neo-Nazism, racism and anti-Semitism. And now he extracts from his history this particular example of racial tyranny and terror to his defense. And using lynching, people who had no appeal to law, people who had no recourse, lynching, by its definition, was avoiding the legal remedy for an ostensible crime and taking a vigilante approach to justice in one's own hands. So President Trump is wrong on so many counts.</s>KEILAR: You seem to be saying that he is ignorant of this history. Do you think he is ignorant of what a nerve he touches when uses this word? He hasn't used it before. This is the first time.</s>DYSON: Yes. He is ignorant of history but he's not ignorant of the fact that black people were lynched and murdered in this country. He is deliberately --</s>KEILAR: So do you think he's deliberately using that word?</s>DYSON: Of course. I mean, he understands that using the word lynching appealing to a very fashion of racial justice that was meted out in this country that was wholly unjustified and unwarranted. And so for him to identify with the powerless, when he is, by virtue of his office, the most powerful man in the world, he's not only misunderstanding the power dynamics, he is appropriating a bit of black history that he has conveniently left aside for the most part and the seized upon our own suffering and aggrievement for his own political purposes.</s>KEILAR: Let's look at how Republicans are responding to this. On one hand, you have South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who defended the president's tweet.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I can only imagine if this were a Democratic president, what you would be saying to me right now. So it shows a lot of things about our national media when it's about Trump, who cares about the process as long as you get it. So, yes, this is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American.</s>KEILAR: The South Carolina senator. Then you have, in contrast, though maybe not as vociferous as you might hear from some people, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy didn't defend Trump. He said, I don't agree with that language. It's pretty simple. What do you make of these reactions?</s>DYSON: Well, Senator Graham is a feckless, spineless moralize, who, at his own convenience, will evoke a strong history of identification with the Constitution and democracy and holding forth against presidents who wield their power out of order. And then at this point, he is spinelessly complicit with white supremacy. Here is a man who is amplifying what Trump has said by excusing him. At least McCarthy had the conscience and presence of mind to say, I don't agree with that language. That's weak on its face. Disagree with it? How about it's wrong? How about it's extraordinarily manipulative of a president who is identified with white supremacists now the pretend that he is a victim of what white supremacists did. Lindsey Graham is especially horrendous here because his fecklessness and spinelessness not only makes him complicit in white supremacy, it really undercuts any moral authority he might have. He is now a caricature of his former self and has refused to take up the bully pulpit of the Senate in a way that would benefit the people of his state. And in South Carolina, there were many African-American people who were victims of this heinous crime and now especially egregious for him to not even understand or acknowledge that.</s>KEILAR: Michael Eric Dyson, thank so much. We always appreciate your perspective. And we have more on our breaking news which is explosive testimony from a key diplomat in the Ukraine scandal saying that politics was suspected in the hold-up of aid to Ukraine.