Sen. Rand Paul Demands Media Reveal Whistle-Blower's Identity
CAMEROTA: President Trump and his allies are ramping up their efforts to unmask the whistle-blower, whose report you know sparked the impeachment inquiry. Here is Republican Senator Rand Paul with President Trump last night.</s>SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): The whistle-blower needs to come before Congress as a material witness, because he worked for Joe Biden at the same time Hunter Biden was getting money from corrupt oligarchs. I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name.</s>CAMEROTA: Joining us now, Joe Lockhart, CNN political commentator and former Clinton White House press secretary; and Margaret Talev, CNN political analyst, and politics and White House editor for "Axios." Ooh, that sneaky, sneaky senator, Joe.</s>JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: He's trying to get us to do his dirty work and say the name of the whistle-blower, which is illegal. He -- if he knows the name, if he thinks he knows the background, I mean, he's giving all this information that is not proven. There's no evidence of anything he's saying. If he knows it, why doesn't he say it? Because -- I'll tell you why he doesn't say it. Don't answer that. Because it's illegal, and he knows that.</s>BERMAN: He's a small man. I have to tell you, what he just did there is small and cowardly right there. If he's got something to say, if he wants to break the law, do it. But to sit there on that stage and say oh, others should do it right now. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Others should do my work for me. That's small. That's small.</s>LOCKHART: But I think it's part of a broader Republican strategy, particularly this week, when you've got all of this testimony coming out, which really just nails down, you know, what happened with Ukraine and all the different players. They are desperate every day to light a bonfire someplace to say, look over here. Don't look at the substance, look over here. And that was last night's edition. You know, I don't know what we'll get today today, but that is their strategy. Their strategy is every day to take any norm, any law. They'll do anything to make sure that we don't stay focused on what's in this testimony.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>BERMAN: I mean, I will say, Margaret, there are consequences, though, to this, and those consequences include the safety of the whistle- blower. Those consequences include the sanctity of whistle-blowers in general --</s>CAMEROTA: Law.</s>BERMAN: -- going forward. And the law.</s>MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. John and Alisyn, good morning. I mean, my news organization decided at the outset that the whistle-blower has legitimate protections and we weren't going to be in the business of attempting to oust this person. I think most major mainstream news organizations obviously feel the same way. That's --</s>CAMEROTA: CNN does, as well.</s>TALEV: Yes. So there is -- There are laws protecting whistle- blowers. There's not as strong as the lawyers for whistle-blowers want those laws to be. But the laws are in place for a reason. And the whistle-blower has been found to have not only used legitimate avenues to bring these concerns forward but to have done it in an appropriate way. And the other thing I'd note is that the whistle-blower's sort of initial raising of the flag has kind of been bypassed by all the other people who have come forward in these depositions and some of whom are volunteering to speak publicly as the investigation moves into the next phases. So I think you can also question how crucial the whistle-blower's initial complaint really was. One last bit. Rand Paul, you heard him talking about how the whistle- blower supposedly worked for Joe Biden. Obviously, it's complicated, because in order to put that in context, one would have to say who the whistle-blower was. But there are thousands of people who work in the federal government, and many of them have worked across multiple administrations from both parties. So I think that's where we are.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. You could say the whistle-blower works for Donald Trump.</s>BERMAN: Yes.</s>TALEV: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: The whistle-blower is in the government. You could say, well, the whistle-blower works for Donald Trump. Clearly, he's a partisan. He works for Donald Trump, if you were going to make such an intellectually dishonest argument. But to your point, the whistle-blower's information has been corroborated seven times over. We see the transcript ourselves now. It's been released of the phone call. And there are all sorts of diplomats who have come forward to corroborate. The whistle-blower is a red herring at this point. And so you don't need that whistle- blower anymore.</s>LOCKHART: Yes. You'll remember the first Republican reaction to the whistle-blower was it was hearsay. You can't pay attention to what he's saying because -- he or she is saying, because they weren't firsthand. And then when all the firsthand information came in, and it was more devastating than they thought it could be, they all of a sudden had to go back and change their attack on the whistle-blower. And you know, the laws are the laws. The intent is clear. The intent is to allow people in the government to, without fear of retribution, without fear of having their lives disrupted, to come forward and pass on information. There's no doubt about that.</s>BERMAN: And Rand Paul knows the law.</s>LOCKHART: Yes.</s>BERMAN: He knows the law, and that's why he did. And that's why I said he was small right there, because he's trying to get others to do the dirty work for him. The transcripts yesterday that we poured through had some really interesting developments. No. 1, Marie Yovanovitch saying she was pressured to send out tweets praising the president to save her job. And then Michael McKinley, who was seen as working closely with Mike Pompeo for a long time, explained why he quit. He said he was disgusted with the politicization of the State Department, and also said that he had asked three times-- three times -- before Marie Yovanovitch was pulled from her ambassadorship in Ukraine for a statement of public support to her, which flies in the face of this careful gymnastics language that Mike Pompeo used, not under oath but in an interview about that. So listen to this.</s>POMPEO: From the time that Ambassador Yovanovitch departed Ukraine until the time that he came to tell me that he was departing, I never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision that was made.</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: So you were never asked to put out --</s>POMPEO: Not once, not once, George, did Ambassador McKinley say something to me during that entire time period.</s>BERMAN: You know why Mike Pompeo was saying during that time period? Because McKinley talked to him before that time period. And when George Stephanopoulos asked a follow-up, you were never asked to put out a statement in support of Ambassador Yovanovitch, there was a word salad, Margaret, right there. So what we have, again, from Pompeo here is misleading. I think misleading statements about an episode that he clearly knows about. Why is the dismissal of Yovanovitch a sensitive subject for Mike Pompeo?</s>TALEV: Well, that's a complicated question, because in part, Mike Pompeo would like to have a future beyond the White House, and his handling of this situation may affect that. But it is also because it is one of those sort of pivotal building blocks that goes to the question of what was the sort of state of mind, not just in the White House but throughout the administration? As testimony continues we know increasingly that there are a number -- a number of officials who complained, both to Pompeo and to Gordon Sondland about her treatment, about Rudy Giuliani's involvement, about the president's behavior. And -- and we're seeing emerge a picture that a lot of those concerns were sort of tamped down or said, well, you know what? This is up to the president. And so this is more evidence of that. I think in Mr. Sondland's case, we are also seeing some contradictions between the testimony that we believe that he gave and what others experienced. And so as that transcript comes out also, there's going to be a real scrutiny to compare what has already been said from various people.</s>CAMEROTA: I mean, and luckily, people who want to read more can go online, CNN.com. There are the top takeaways from all of this boiled down. Because it's really important, I think, to understand that Yovanovitch knew that Rudy Giuliani saw her as an impediment, and she was an impediment to him getting what he wants, though he's not in the State Department. Margaret, Joe, thank you very much. It is election day here in the U.S. OK, not presidential election, but there are some crucial votes, and some of these races will perhaps tell us how voters are feeling heading into the 2020 race. So we have reporters in several of these pivotal states, next.