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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  October 14, 2019 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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it's worth wondering, at least worth asking what they would make of a christian leadership message right there on the thorough live m thoroughly modern electronic beacon of american state craft around the world. that's our broadcast monday night. as we begin a new week, we're on tomorrow night the minute the cnn debate is over. thank you for being here with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. thanks, chris. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. the president personal lawyer, michael cohen, lives in jail. the president's former lawyer, rudy giuliani, has professed over the last several days to be bewildered and flabbergasted after multiple reports that
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after the prosecutor's office reportedly has mr. giuliani himself under investigation. a whole bunch of different news outlets have reported that over the past week or so. well, tonight "the wall street journal" advances that story considerably. the journal reporting that, yes, federal prosecutors in manhattan are investigating former mayor rudy giuliani for his potential role in the conspiracy that prosecutors have chashlgrged agt his clients? his associates? his dining come ppanionscompani. lev parnas and igor fruman are the two men. in addition to the question of whether or not mayor giuliani was involved in a scheme for which his buddies have just been arrested, according to "the wall street journal," prosecutors are also looking at mayor giuliani's
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business dealings in the nation of ukraine, including his finances, his meetings, his work for a city mayor there? this investigation at sdny, it reportedly includes investigators looking at mr. giuliani's bank records. and i imagine mr. giuliani's bank records might be a scary place to get lost. but the journal does spell out a little bit tonight why federal investigators might want to be looking there. for example, they describe a 2017 deal that mr. giuliani's security company did with a city in the pro-russian eastern part of ukraine. it was a contract with the city administration, according to the journal, to, quote, streamline municipal services. that seems normal on its face. even though the contract was
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with the city and the city should be paying him for that country, apparently the entity that paid for that is a guy named pavel fuks. in part mr. fuks had at one time tried to negotiate a deal with donald trump to put the trump name on a new trump tower in moscow city. and then it turns out a few years later once trump is president, rudy giuliani signs a deal that on paper looks like a city is hiring him to do something but the city is not actually paying him for that, it's really him getting paid by this guy who is trying to negotiate a trump tower moscow deal with donald trump. that guy is now just sending checks to rudy that are
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disguised as a city contract. why? why did they do that? also, do you think the city of krarkiv ever got its streamlined municipal services out of this deal? we'll see where this is going. not to put too fine a point on it, as the president is facing impeachment for something kind of simple, for trying to get a foreign country to help him against the democrats for his reelection efforts, which is legal, the president is facing certain impeachment for that, the president's first personal lawyer is already in federal prison. he's there in part for committing campaign finance felonies that prosecutors say the president did not only participated in but directed michael cohen to commit those felonies. the president's next lawyer is under investigation. rudy giuliani, the president's personal lawyer who is
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reportedly under investigation for a number of different strands of the scheme was pursuing his part of the scheme with a clown car full of citizens. he was working with our friends lev and igor, who are indicted for having funneled illegal russian money to politicians, including the pro-trump super pac and was reportedly working with the president's campaign chairman on this scheme, who is himself a federal prisoner, consulting with paul manafort on what they could get ukraine to cough up to help in the the president's reelection effort. and dimitri firtash has been arrested, he is out on bail, he
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is fighting extradition. he's wanted on felony charges related to a bribery scheme. these an upper echelon associate of organized crime. he's been providing material to rudy giuliani for help in this scheme for which the president is now being impeached. that looks to be the president's team here. this appears to have been pru's squad as he was trying to pull off this criminal operation for which he's now been caught. so obviously the president's side of this is going great. who wouldn't want to be the captain of this team? if you have a hard time keeping track of who all had been tapped to work on the president's behalf to pull off this scheme for which he's now being impeached, if you're having a hard time keeping track of these guys, it's sort of easy to remember them by their circumstances. the guys on the bottom are in
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jail, federal lockup, waiting arraignment later that week. the guy on top is arrested out on top, fighting extradition, the one on the right is convicted and in prison and the one on the left is under investigation by the u.s. attorney's office he's used to leave and having his banking records red through ad through prosecutors. we now know that pompeo not only had marc maria yovanovitch fire. it's hard to imagine that mike pompeo gets to stay on as secretary of state in these circumstances. well, tonight you can add plus one to that because just before getting on the air tonight, we
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learned that that recently reser resigned senior adviser to pompeo, michael mckinley is expected to testify in the impeachment inquiry to president trump. his deposition is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. at the same time we learned deputy assistant secretary of defense laura cooper has been scheduled to testify on the impeachment inquiry on friday this week. we know part of her remit within the defense department involved russia and ukraine. we don't yet know what they want laura cooper to testify about but she reportedly has been called. we know the white house has been trying to stop all different people from testifying. but it no longer seems to be
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working. ambassador yovanovitch's testimony on friday would have seemed to have been a key breakthrough on that point. and earlier, the senior official at the national security official with responsibility for russia and ukraine. she was president trump's tom adviser on russia and adviser. she was in that role when ambassador yovanovitch -- it's reported that fiona hill expressed strength you'vous opposition to yovanovitch's firing. she considered her firing an egregious abuse. we know that she did testify. we know that the impeachment committees did provide her a subpoena if she have been able
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to testify without it. what exactly that means. but she testified. fiona hill today did not release an opening statement. unlike the u.s. special envoy to ukraine, kurt volcker, she did not hand over any documents as a key adviser to donald trump. that's reportedly because she did not take any documents with hefr according to tiles today is expected to confirm there was a quid pro quo, that the ukrainian government was told by the trump administration they wouldn't get a white house meeting unless they made a commitment for some kind of investigations that the administration wanted. and we know what the president wanted investigated was joe biden. but while we've had a bunch of reporting of what fiona hill was expected to have said today, she
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only emerged from her deposition immediately before i got on the air tonight after ten hours of questioning. so we sort of are still waiting to find out what may have happened, what may have transpired over the course we expect that her deposition will eventually be made public. as to what he said today, we have only the bearest sense. they say they want public testimony. they don't like that these things are happening behind closed doors. democratic congressman denny heck was asked about that today by reporters after he stepped out of. fiona will hours and hours and hours. denny heck said the republicans are only complaining because they need some excuse to justify the white house not cooperating with the investigation. but i wanted to play you what congressman heck said in part
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because he also suggested republicans might want to be careful what they wish for in terms of this testimony becoming public. he's suggesting they probably wouldn't like if the american public got to hear what was being said behind closed doors. >> you want to know what i think about that? i think the iron. >> there they wouldn't invent another excuse for the administration not to cooperate. but here's what i really believe. they are down lucky these weren't public. >> to a man named michael
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mckinley is expected to testify on wednesday. ambassador gordon sondland, who was basically sent in to handle ukraine matters along with rudy giuliani after they ousted maria yovanovitch. sondland is expected to testify on thursday and on friday is laura cooper. she is a new addition. she's been interestingly a part of the public face of the administration in assuring ukraine we will all stand by them when it try to leverage from this. >> she and she reportedly is
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going to be testifying at the end of the week. so with all that on deck this week, we'll continue to be as nuts as things have been. that said the impeachment of the president at ielts core remains a simple thing. you can't ask a foreign power for assistance for your reelection kay pap. tushs out to have involved this amading' ray of true crime all stars. and he wasn't just demanding it, he was trying to to of foreign policy and u.s. defense policy e eand i want to get thatry and that part of what the president is imimpaefhimself it.
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he's used to shadow diplomacy conducted by all of these contribution. >> that's a if. from while it is collapsing into catastrophe. we're going to speak live with rivard engel in just a few minutes. the kurdish fighter who the u.s. military was lied with, president trump told turkey they were ef sense live free to come into the territory. so turk? they've turned for support and protection against turkey to their next best option, which is
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russia. and the syrian regime, which is propped up by the russian military. russia props up the syrian dictator, the kurdish fighters who have been our allies fighting against isis have now left us because u.s. troops in the region have been reportedly pinned down and bracketed by turkish a till rye fire, since the president's prize announcement that they have been deliberately targeted by there are serious questions as to to the. the defense announcement has in
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but we're still not even sure how all that happens with turkish troops and turkish-supported troops controlling a key road without the program. this is from david sangar. >> has in one week's time turned into a bloody and given an unanticipated victory to four american adversaries, railroad p where it has resulted as disas it he said, quote, the drama is no where near over. in the drama is now -- at the
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pentagon, again open ffrm and who are now preparing to retreat from their positions. those american and in case that's not unser offing enough. here health insurance something i completely forgot to panic about. quote, over the weekend, u.s. state and energy officials were ebut now that our supposed nato al lie is shooting a but our
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tack clear. theyors nrp out of a situation that the president per from your nuclear weapons, inside turkey. don't worry, though, rick perry and mike pompeo are tasked to figuring out a plan to get ul those nuclear weapons safely taken care of. i should mention that mike pompeo and rim are both tearings in the first place. maybe you wasn't ensudden. >> -- basically, nut into what
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is in(it will likely being controlled by assad and russia in some sort of goo. >> without support, with their supply lines cut off, with no clear way to retreat, without any clear indication of what they're supposed to be doing. without any clear indication that the president knew they were there and that they would be at risk if we suddenly green lit the second largest military in nato coming in and taking over that territory from our allies. u.s. troops stuck there at the sight of the abendin and it what the "times" described as a fast y you. >> wheen while 30 motor vehicle plus ifor not going to mary's
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that nsh and tr and we'll be watching for the continued development of lots of these stories that are still rolling tonight. stay with us. we'll be right back. tonight. stay with us we'll be right back. (vo) the subaru crosstrek. dog tested. dog approved. subaru establishes national make a dog's day. helping hard-to-adopt dogs find homes.
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well, this is direct and to the point. quote, in my 3 1/2 decades as a u.s. foreign service officer, i have never seen an attack on diplomacy as damaging to both the state department as an institution and our international influence as the one now under way. quote, the contemptible mistreatment of marie yovanovitch, the u.s. ambassador to ukraine who was dismissed for getting in the way of the president's scheme to solicit interference in election series the latest example of the president's dangerous brand of diplomatic malpractice. his is a diplomacy of narcissism, bent on advancing private interests at the expense of our national interests. quote, for dictators, trump is the gift that keeps on giving, a nonstop advertisement for western self-dealing. so much for enlightened self-interest. so much for the power of our example. so much for our credibility. to clean up the institutional wreckage in the state department will take many years. the damage to our influence and reputation may prove to be even longer lasting and harder to repair. that's from ambassador william burns, former deputy secretary of state, former u.s. ambassador
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to russia. he's got more than 30 years of experience in the u.s. foreign service. joining us now is ambassador burns. he is currently the president of the carnegie endowment for international peace. he is also author of "the back channel: a memoir of american diplomacy and the case for its renewal." thank you for being here. >> rachel, it's great to be here. >> this is not very diplomatic. you were speaking in very blunt terms. >> no. and i didn't write those words lightly either. we've seen a lot of highs and lows and i'm deeply worried today. not just about the hollowing out of my old institution, but about the fact that the united states is digging a deep hole for itself in a very competitive and complicated international landscape. >> secretary of state mike pompeo appears to be quite enmeshed in this scandal that has led to these impeachment proceedings against this president. i am sort of -- it sort of struck me. i wasn't reading it at the time. i didn't even think i was thinking about the impeachment scandal when it finally occurred
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to me that mike pompeo was on the line listening, when the president said to president zelensky of ukraine, that ambassador, that woman, she was bad news. she's going to go through some things. mike pompeo did not allow it to be known for a couple of weeks that he had been on that call. he professed ignorance about what had happened there. and then when we found out he had been on that call, we know that's one of the things he sat through. how -- what does that do to a secretary of state for everybody who serves in the foreign service, everybody who serves in the state department to know that he abided that? >> it does a lot of damage, for a few reasons. first, you expect the leadership of the state department to stand up for its people. >> yeah. >> in the face of unfair and unfounded accusations. and second, you have another obligation to the constitution. you know, when you have the president of the united states clearly trying to use public office and the leverage of the united states not to promote the national interests, but to promote private political interest, that's also a big problem. >> we've learned just tonight that a senior adviser to secretary of state pompeo, michael mckinley, who is a career diplomat, very well
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respected, has served ambassador posts all over the world, on thursday, he resigned. and according to "the washington post," he resigned in protest about the way that secretary of state pompeo has behaved towards state department employees through this process. we have now learned he is going to testify as part of these proceedings. first of all, do you think there is any technical reason that they could block him from testifying if they tried to? >> i think they could try, but i think mike mckinley, like masha yovanovitch is a terrific professional, an honest, honorable person. i suspect he is going to do just what ambassador yovanovitch did. >> as ambassador yovanovitch testifies as we as fiona hill testified today, i wonder if you see that testimony as something they're required to do and they don't have a choice and it's just part of the job. or do you think it does take bravery? are they taking risks? >> it does reflect a lack of
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decency that is sorely lacking in the political appointees in this administration that you've been talking about. >> we're also seeing foreign policy blow up right now under the trump administration. not only in terms of the way it's being misused, but whatever is happening with northern syria, whatever happened between president trump and president erdogan with this sudden decision, this u-turn. obviously, it's an ongoing and very dangerous situation there. but i wonder with the state department having a crisis of credibility, the type of hollowing out they described. >> right. >> facing a political crisis around this impeachment and the implication of the secretary of state in that while also facing these very real disasters. >> right. >> caused by u.s. misuse of our foreign policy power, i mean, who is going to do the cleanup? who is going to be the steady hand? >> oh, it's a mess. and it's chaos right now. and you're going to see other adversaries and rivals i think tempted to test us. because one crisis oftentimes multiplies as well. and there are no shortage of places around the world today where you could see that as well. >> we're going to speak with richard engel live from northern syria in just a moment.
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before we speak with him, i wonder if you have any insight, thought you can share on why the president did what he did in that phone call with the president of turkey. we don't know his motivation. i certainly -- i can't imagine this is what he intended to happen, including u.s. troops being in grave danger. do you have any way for to help us think about why he did this? >> i think he is impulsive. he is dismissive of expertise and he doesn't pay attention to consequences, whether intended or unintended. the middle east is the land of unintended consequences. and so not to handle this carefully and think through what is a very complicated choice to make i think is a huge embarrassment, and it's going to cost us in a lot of ways. it already. is. >> do you agree that the ultimate beneficiary of this chaos right now is russia, syria, iran? >> and isis, right. that's quite a foursome. >> ambassador william burns is former deputy secretary of state, former u.s. ambassador to russia, long-time u.s. foreign service veteran. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much.
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i am honored and impressed and more than a little worried to tell you that richard engel, nbc news' chief foreign correspondent is live in northern syria tonight where he joins us from on the ground. richard, my friend, i am happy to be talking to you. i'm a little bit sorry that you're there. but thank you for doing what you're doing to cover this story. get us up to date in terms of what you know as of tonight.
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>> well, it's good to be with you. and what we're seeing right now, it may sound very, very complicated with all of these different factions. we're talking about the kurds and the syrians and the russians and the turks, but what is actually happening, if you break it down is fairly simple. what happened a few days ago, it seems like a long time ago was president trump in this phone call gave turkey a green light to invade northern syria. they say they didn't do it. president trump is going on and on, says he didn't do it. the white house issued a statement after their phone call saying that u.s. troops would be pulling back, and that the turks would be moving in. so that is the green light. the turks moved in. but as you said earlier, this is a major nato country. turkey has an enormous army, but it is not using its army entirely. it is also using these arab militias, and the arab militias are critical to this story, because part of these arab militias, these shock troops that have been coming in, attacking the kurds here in
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northern syria, they include isis and al qaeda members, according to multiple u.s. officials. and it was these shock troops, as they've been moving through this area, killing civilians, that is what caused the kurds to panic. that is what caused the kurds to change sides. so in this panic, as these atrocities were taking place, they reached over and they made a deal with the assad government, which is backed up by russia and said come in and help us. and as they were making this deal, the u.s. is leaving. so the kurds saw shock troops coming in. militias, backed up by extremists. they see the americans are leaving, and they made a deal. they reached out to assad and said come and help us. and right now, tonight, we're seeing this land grab with the assad forces trying to take as much territory and the turks trying to take as much territory so that they can come up with some sort of deal, but each have something in their hands to
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negotiate with. so that's where we are. the americans are stuck between these two colliding forces, trying to figure out how they carry out what they call their deliberate exit. they don't want the get into a fight. they want to get themselves safely out of the country in a slow and dignified way. but they want to do it and not leave their allies behind totally stranded. so now their allies have made the deal with assad. so everyone here is saying president trump started this. the turks moved in with this brutal force that i think really shocked a lot of people, and now there is potentially some effort from the trump administration to fix this. just in the last few hours we hear that vice president pence is going to come here on a diplomatic mission, and he is going to save the day and work out some sort of agreement between now the kurds and the syrian government and turkey. so that's what happened.
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and that's how it's unfolding, and we are seeing the map that the lines in the sand, the map of the middle east redrawn as we speak. >> and richard, so in terms of those two onmarching forces in which both the kurds and u.s. forces are in trouble, do you anticipate that actually the turkish military and the arab militias that are fighting with them and the syrian army with the russian forces that are backing them up, that they will actually come into military conflict in terms of trying to figure out where the border is between syria and turkey? or do you feel like between the syrian and russian side and the turkish side, they'll actually negotiate something that prevents a war between those two very well armed sides? >> it's very hard to know. on one level, they shouldn't come in to contact with each other because both are aligned with russia. russia, as the u.s. is pulling out physically from this area is the new power broker.
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so in theory, they shouldn't come into conflict because they have both this russian interest, but their long-term interests are very different. syria wants to regain control of all of its territory. syria lost control of this region because of the civil war and then because the kurds were helping the americans and the kurds managed to carve out an autonomous zone where i am right now. syria's long-term goal is to regain control of all of its territory. kurdish areas included. and now the kurds have said fine, we'll do that. we'll go along with the program. just don't let these turkish militias carry out ethnic cleansing and genocide against us. turkey, however, has a different agenda. you have president erdogan, who effectively wants to become the great leader of turkey. he wants his name to be more remembered than kamal ataturk. he wants to be the person who
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conquered a new province for his country and regained ottoman glory and correct the wrongs that he sees were imposed on his country after world war i. so turkey's objective is to carve all a little piece and to put about one to three million syrian refugees in the pocket that it captures. and therefore erdogan would be able to go home and say that he's a hero. he's a national leader, and he got rid of the refugee problem. and that's the way turkey is selling this. they're selling this around the world as they're doing a service to the world, not using a terrorist-aligned militia to carry out atrocities against the kurds. they say they are doing a service to the world by allowing syrian refugees to go back to their own homeland. so will their mutual alliance with russia keep them from fighting right now in the short-term? perhaps. but long-term they both have very different interests. >> richard engel, nbc news chief foreign correspondent live for
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us at o dark 30 in northern syria. richard, stay safe. thanks for being with us. i really appreciate it. all right. we've got more to get to tonight. stay with us. but now... it's thursday. good thing they discovered gain flings, with oxi boost and febreze odor remover. smelling is believing and gain flings can hiyah karate stink too. gain flings. seriously good scent and if you love gain flings, you gotta try the dish soap. is eh, not enough fiber.al? chocolate would be good. snacking should be sweet and simple. the delicious taste of glucerna gives you the sweetness you crave while helping you manage your blood sugar. glucerna. everyday progress.
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the former top adviser on russia and ukraine to president trump, fiona hill, answered questions on capitol hill today for more than ten hours. ms. hill did not release a public statement, but she reportedly had high praise for former u.s. ambassador to ukraine who was fired by the president earlier this year, reportedly, because she was in the way of his plan to leverage ukraine into helping with his reelection effort against the democrats. a cnn source said tonight that fiona hill in today's testimony, quote, made her opinions known about ambassador marie yovanovitch's removal. now in advance of her testimony, as she was heading into that testimony today on capitol hill,
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"the new york times" had reported that hill would confirm that the administration leveraged a white house invitation for ukraine's president in exchange for a commitment by ukraine to investigate corruption, which was seen as code for investigating democrats. in other words, "the new york times" reported in advance of her testimony that hill would confirm that the trump white house made it a quid pro quo that they could not get a white house invitation for zelensky unless he went along with the scheme for election help. congressman jamie raskin of maryland came out of fiona hill's testimony tonight and said that fiona hill and ambassador marie yovanovitch will be remembered as the heroes of this story in u.s. history. well, tomorrow, a new deposition is scheduled for a man named george kent. these
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she's a distinguished public service and is a resident of maryland's 8th be congressional district, which is even better. she's a very powerful and effective witness who has a lot to contribute to this investigation. i'm not going to get into anything that she talked about, but rudy giuliani has clearly been a leading force for the administration in defining a shadow foreign policy in ukraine. there was an official foreign policy and then there was rudy giuliani and, you know, the gang who couldn't shoot straight o who worked for him, who were involved precisely in connecting with corruption in ukraine and promoting corruption in ukraine. so you and everything and
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he is a current high level state department official with responsibility for ukraine policy. documents turned over to congress by the state department inspector general last week included emails from george kent where he pushed back against rudy giuliani and the president's conspiracy theories in realtime. you can see george kent doing that in emails like this one, a rundown for other state department officials of the, quote, daily update of the fake news driven smear out of ukraine. the fake news driven smear is what giuliani and trump were trying to leverage ukraine to do in exchange for a white house visit and potentially military aid. there is also this email in which george kent dismisses the false allegation that ambassador yovanovitch had given ukrainian prosecutors a do not prosecute list. george kent in this email calls that idea, quote, complete poppycock. so it seems like george kent was one of those inside the state department, again, a veteran career official who was not going along with what they were trying to do with ukraine. stay with us. ♪ all around the b
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last week this started appearing on facebook.
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it said, breaking news, mark zuckerberg endorsed donald trump for reelection. it's not true. facebook is trying to do something about their ad policy. as it stands, politicians are allowed to run totally false ads, anything they want, as long as the check doesn't bounce when facebook goes to cash them. last week former vice president biden asked that facebook remove a trump ad based on this nonsense. it was totally false. but facebook refused to take it down. they told biden in a letter that under their new political ad policy, false is fine with them. it doesn't matter. that letter, interestingly, was signed by katie harbaugh, global director at facebook. prior to that, she was chief digital strategist for the national senatorial committee. before that she worked for rudy giuliani's presidential campaign. i'm sure she has everybody's interest in mind when it comes to the 2020 election. no reason to worry about that. the dark and increasingly partisan truth at the heart of facebook's political rhythms is
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that facebook's algorit gor rigs engagement. positive or negative, they favor engagement, which means the most provocative, most offensive material will circulate widely on the site. now they're telling politicians that not only will they get awarded for posting provocative, false content, they also have nothing to worry about when it comes to pushing overtly false claims. president trump is going wall to wall with ads over why impeachment is horrible, and he never asked ukraine to do anything, and if he did, it was good, not illegal. the president and the rnc have already launched a $10 million ad campaign telling those very points. there is nothing to match on the democratic side. they are completely spent on this issue. there are the first signs that democrats may be trying to change that a little bit. progressive groups like indivisible and move on.
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they are considering media campaigns acronym is out with a million dollar online buy. they are focused on five swing states, arizona, michigan, north carolina, pennsylvania and wisconsin. they are using ads like this one. >> the president admits that on a phone call with the president of ukraine, he requested that the president of ukraine investigate his 2020 political rival joe biden. is that a crime? >> it is a crime for the president to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government. >> so that to which the president has admitted is, in and of itself, a crime. >> yes. >> some of the democratic ads starting to air on facebook on the impeachment issue. the trump campaign is launching $10 million worth of ads.
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the democratic campaign so far is about this big. you can see why they might see facebook as contested territory to even try this, but they have started trying. i'll be right back. there's a power in listening; it's what gives audible members an edge. it opens our minds, changes our perspective, connects us, and pushes us further. the most inspiring minds, the most compelling stories: audible.
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-you're not gonna make it, you're not gonna make it! ask her if we can do her next wedding too! -so we'll design the insurance solution that fits your business. -on second thought, don't...ask that. it's only monday but it already feels very, very busy, doesn't it? today it started with the president's top advisor on russia and ukraine, national security director fiona hill testifying before the impeachment committee. she was there for ten hours today. tomorrow we expect george kent, deputy assistant secretary of state who has responsibility for ukraine. he is expected to appear to also be deposed before the impeachment committees. there is some sign that george kent was among those who were also sort of in the way of what president trump and rudy giuliani were trying to do.
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and after that, he is the one who resigned his post in protest last week. and on thursday it is the ambassador to the eu, gordon sondland's turn. he was stuck in to ukraine alongside rudy giuliani to try to accomplish et president's efforts thereso the committees will have to get them from state rather than from him. sondland reportedly leaned on the ukrainian government to come through with the, e, difficult -- and reportedly said there was an overt deliverables
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for is expected to testify this week that the ambassador to ukraine who president trump fired, gordon sondland, news tonight is expected to testify this week that as far as he could tell, she was, and i quote, great at her job. and he knew of nothing wrong with her job performance, despite a fact that she was, of course, drop kicked by president trump and ordered to take the next flight home. as i said, jam-packed week. it's only monday. stay hydrated. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. nbc news is reporting some very, very important breaking news. u.s. ambassador to the european union gordon sunlen will tell congress on thursday that he