In an lengthy “exclusive” interview with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, fresh off her presiding over a full House vote on impeachment rules, Late Show host Stephen Colbert gently challenged the Democratic leader on where the investigation of President Donald Trump goes from here.

Pelosi repeatedly invoked the Constitution and her regret over having to pursue impeachment, but cited a Thomas Paine quote that “the times have found us” as her explanation for the necessity of the inquiry into the Trump’s Ukraine scandal. As the impeachment inquiry has kicked into gear, Pelosi has seen her favorability reach a new high, per a recent Fox News poll, and her net favorability (-6%) now tops any Congressional Republican leader as well as Trump.

And while Pelosi was careful not to tip her hand to Colbert that her caucus had already made up its mind about voting in favor of actual articles of impeachment, the famous House tactician made it quite clear she had no intention of being outmaneuvered.

“Madame Speaker, now, every Republican has rolled the bones that you don’t have enough to impeach the president,” Colbert said, alluding to the House GOP’s unanimous opposition to Thursday’s full House vote on the procedures for the inquiry going forward.

“Bah, no, no,” Pelosi said, scoffing at the notion and turning her head away from Colbert.

“They’ve all voted against her and said she’s got nothing, they don’t have what it takes to impeach the president,” Colbert said of the Republican spin, turning the screws as Pelosi politely smiled. “Are you looking at Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the Republicans and saying, ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?'”

After a brief giggle, Pelosi turned more serious and stuck to her talking points. “The thing about this, again, it’s about the Constitution,” she insisted. “We’re honoring our oath of office, we’re there to strengthen the institution in which we serve, and if [Republicans] don’t want to do that, that’s their problem. But it’s interesting because they have been talking process, process, process because they know they can’t really go near the substance issue.”

“If you’ve got the goods on President Trump, or,” and here Colbert paused to head off the coming boilerplate answer, “if the Constitution has the goods on President Trump, to put it in your vernacular, it’s already a rough political landscape, are you prepared for how rough it’s going to get? Because you know the guy’s not going easy.”

“Can you street fight?” he added.

“I got this beautiful honor last night. The [President] Lyndon B. Johnson Award,” Pelosi recounted. “When I was accepting it, I told two stories, and one of them is — I’ll be quick — one of them was what advice would you give people who want to run for office? And I told them they have to have their vision, knowledge, strategic thinking and connection to the aspirations of their constituents. But I said this is not for the faint of heart. So if you want to go into the arena, you have to be prepared to take a punch. But you also have to be prepared to throw a punch.”

Watch the video above, via CBS.

Comedy Central’sTrevor Noah joked with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about her role as perennial boogeyman for right-wing conspiracy theories, at one point mockingly asking her: How, exactly, “did you kill Jeffrey Epstein?”

Clinton, appearing alongside her daughter, Chelsea, came on The Daily Show to promote their just-released publication, The Book of Gusty Women, which the pair co-authored. But Noah couldn’t resist getting the former First Lady and 2016 presidential candidate’s take on being a longstanding evil mastermind and threat to the country, at least according to untold number of conservative pundits and Congressional Republicans.

“I have to ask you a question that has been plaguing me for a while: How did you kill Jeffrey Epstein?” Noah asked, eliciting laughter from both Clintons while highlighting one of the more recent right-wing myths about her.

“Because you’re not in power but you have all the power,” he continued, milking the absurdity of the many myths surrounding Clinton, as she nodded along. “I really need to understand how you do what you do, because you seem to be behind everything nefarious, and yet you do not use it to become president.”

“Honestly, what does it feel like being the boogeyman to the right?”

“Well, it’s — it’s a constant surprise to me,” the former Senator said, as the crowd laughed. “Because the things they say, and now, of course, it’s on steroids with being online, are so ridiculous, beyond any imagination that I could have. And yet they are so persistent in putting forth these crazy ideas and theories. Honestly, I don’t know what I ever did to get them to upset.”

Joking aside, the younger Clinton pointed out that the cumulative effect of so much disinformation does have an impact on our democracy. “It is effective,” she noted. “I’ll never forget reading an article after the 2016 election where the reporter interviewed someone who had been undecided voter and he said you know, he thought my mom had won all three debates, she clearly had a greater command of the subject matter, and yet he just kept reading that she had murdered more than 50 people, and he said, somewhat nonchalantly, ‘I don’t think that she murdered fifty, but, like, what if she murdered two?”

As her mother and Noah giggled at the sad absurdity of it, she added: “And, so, you just think it’s like this constant erosion of truth and sanity.”

Watch the video above, via Comedy Central. 

CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon got positively giddy at the prospect of President Donald Trump doing a live TV “fireside chat” readout of his infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “It would be so amazing.”

The unorthodox, to say the least, ideas came from Trump himself in a new Washington Examiner interview, in which the president slammed the impeachment inquiry as a “con job, a sham” and pledged zero cooperation. As part of the White House counter-programming strategy, Trump floated the idea of a live TV retelling of the call summary.

“At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call,” Trump told the Examiner, while also teasing the idea of selling T-shirts with “Read the Transcript” printed on them, as a way to fight back against the House Democrats’ impeachment investigation. Trump did not elaborate if, in this potential fireside chaat, he would also be reading Zelensky’s portion of the call.

But just the idea was absurd enough for Cuomo and Lemon to lose their composure during their Thursday night on-air handoff.

“Can we please have a fireside chat? I want a fireside chat,” Lemon begged, putting his hands together as if in prayer.

“What is the president’s ability to read the whole transcript without pausing to comment?” Cuomo chimed in, giggling.

“You’re reading my mind. It would be so amazing,” Lemon said while laughing.

Breaking into a terrible, (Italian?) Trump impression, Cuomo parodied the president’s rambling speaking style: “And I say, I would like you to do us a favor. You know, a favor, a favor, I didn’t expect anything. Let me go on…”

“What I meant there, when I wrote this book, by the way, I wrote 12 books and they were all great,” Lemon said, matching Cuomo’s horrendous impersonation of Trump with one of his own, while Cuomo cracked up.

“This is where we are right now. It’s crazy,” Lemon said.

“So I said to him, Z, cuz you know I call him that because he loves me, they all hated Obama, they love me,” Cuomo continued as Trump, sending Lemon in a fit of laughter. “And I said, Z, you know, you don’t do much for us, we do a lot for you. But now, you should, you got bad problems there.”

“So I said to myself, ‘Self,'” Lemon replied, as Cuomo broke up yet again.

Perhaps shockingly, Anderson Cooper hosted former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on AC:360 Thursday night. Less shockingly, the two clashed almost instantly — and the debate devolved into a garbled mess by the end.

The conflict began when Cooper tried to get an answer from Bannon on a generic question.

“In general, is it okay for a president, any president, to ask a foreign leader of a country fighting a war against our adversaries in need of aid to do a political favor and investigate his political opponent and withhold aid over it?”

Bannon told Cooper “your premise is wrong.” He then claimed that President Donald Trump sought to have Ukraine investigate corruption as a whole in his phone call with that nation’s president — a call on which he directly asked for Joe Biden to be looked into.

“I don’t buy the assumption — see, you have this premise that it’s about a political opponent,” Bannon said. “What they’re investigating is the corruption overall—”

Cooper interjected

“Oh, come on, give me a break,” Cooper shot back. “You’re a smart guy. You know very well that that’s just bull.”

He added, “If you’re concerned about corruption in Ukraine, I’ve been there. There’s a lot of corruption. The only example of corruption in the Ukraine the president can say is Joe Biden, the guy he happens to be running against?”

Bannon replied by noting that Trump also asked Ukraine to look into the 2016 campaign — a reference to the debunked Crowdstrike conspiracy theory. Cooper promptly called him on this. Bannon then teased further information to come — completely avoiding Cooper’s question.

“We’re going to get in this process, you’re going get to see all the information,” he said. “It will all be laid out.”

Watch above, via CNN.

Tucker Carlson opened his show with a very weird and surreal attempt at satire targeting the “ecstatic” House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, whose alleged impeachment obsession he compared to that of a disturbed stalker’s, bizarrely claiming the Congressman has written it in “steamy, unhinged letters using his own body fluids.”

Carlson’s comments came in reaction to the passage of a full House procedural vote authorizing a new public phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. That the Fox News host, a vocal supporter of Trump, would single out Schiff was not surprising, since the California Congressman’s leadership role in the impeachment process has made him a favorite boogeyman among White House defenders.

“It was nearly perfect party line vote, every single Republican voted against it, all but two Democrats voted in favor of it,” Carlson noted, before he rolled out a number of disturbing analogies to attack Schiff.

“The congressman from Burbank was ecstatic, he has spent years obsessing over impeachment like it was a young Jodie Foster,” Carlson said, making a not-so-subtle comparison between Schiff and John Hinckley Jr., the mentally disturbed, would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan, who infamously tried to murder the president to impress the teenage actress.

“Colleagues say he has pictures of impeachment taped to the walls of his bedroom, he’s believed to have written it steamy unhinged letters with his own body fluids,” Carlson continued, upping the gross factor in his supposedly satirical narrative. “So, for Schiff, today’s vote was thrilling, in ways that only a court-appointed psychiatrist could fully appreciate.”

As proof of Schiff’s elation, Carlson said: “Watch him here pretend it was not the happiest day in his entire adult life,” teeing up a video clip where the Intel Chair spoke at an impeachment vote press conference and never once smiled or displayed any signs of smugness or happiness.

“We take no joy in this,” Carlson said after the clip, acidly mocking Schiff’s somber remarks. “Of all the many lies told at public expense in Washington, D.C., and there are many, that might be the most hilariously brazen of all in at least a generation for those of you keeping track at home. In fact, for Democrats, impeachment is like winning the lotto on Christmas.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he would be ‘really rich’ if only his dad were former Vice President Joe Biden: “I could go abroad and make millions off my father’s presidency.’

The Trump scion’s real-life, unironic comment came at the end of Hannity’s Wednesday show, during a segment in which the Fox News host was again pushing the baseless theory that Biden engaged in an improper quid pro quo when he urged Ukraine to fire an incompetent prosecutor — as every other Western nation and even the Ukrainian parliament wanted — in exchange for US aid.

“Imagine if that wasn’t your name, Hunter Biden,” Hannity asked, pointing to Biden’s son’s lucrative role as an adviser to a Ukrainian natural gas company, despite having work experience in the energy industry.

“I wish my name was Hunter Biden because I could go abroad and make millions off of my father’s presidency,” the son of President Donald Trump told Hannity in what appeared to be not insignificant Freudian slip. as Biden has never been president.

“I would be a rich guy. It would be incredible,” Trump Jr. continued, seemingly unaware of the implications of the arugment he was making. “But because my name is Trump come if I took 1.5 dollars from China, not $1.5 billion like Hunter, but $1.5, their heads would explode.”

The Trump Organization, run by Trump sons Donald Jr. and Eric, have had extensive dealings in foreign countries, worth untold millions, since 2016 and Trump’s sister, Ivanka, has had dozens of lucrative trademarks approved by China since her father was elected to the White House.

Attacking Biden’s son for nepotism, Trump Jr. said if he had done the same thing “[the press] would have an aneurysm with fake news problems.”

“That is the double standard that we are living under right now,” Trump Jr. concluded, speaking the truth. “That is the double standard the American people are sick and tired of.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News. 

Moments after furiously backpedaling on his smear of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman earlier in the week, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo all but called Rudy Giuliani, and others in President Donald Trump’s circle, suckers over their dealings with Ukraine.

Speaking with Chris Cuomo on CNN Wednesday night, Yoo said that the Ukrainians and Russians have engaged in espionage by going outside of proper diplomatic channels.

“To try to call an intelligence official on the National Security Counsel, on their part, sounds to me like espionage,” Yoo said. “I think the Russians and Ukrainians have been up to all kinds of things throughout this investigation to our national detriment. I think we’re being played sometimes for fools by them. And I have no doubt that what they’re up to is espionage.”

“Do you think that could be a component of what’s going on with Mr. Rudy Giuliani,” Cuomo asked. “That all of a sudden he winds up working with two people to advance the president’s interests who are now indicted? And have all these connections to Russian funny money? And were getting wires money that oddly resemble the amounts they gave him?”

“Oh, yes,” Yoo said. “I think part of what’s going on is that people in our government, or actually in the circle of private people around the president, are getting played by the intelligence services of other countries. I think that’s an inescapable conclusion.”

Watch above, via CNN.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo pulled no punches in his segment with former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, blasting Fox News as “state TV” and challenging Yoo’s recent appearance on that network in which he baselessly suggested Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was conducting “espionage” for Ukraine.

Yoo and Fox News primetime host Laura Ingraham have been forcefully and thoroughly and roasted over the past two days for their not-so-subtle attempt at character assassination of the combat wounded Army officer Vindman, who works in the Trump White House. During the segment in question, Ingraham repeatedly implied that Vindman’s Ukrainian background — he immigrated from that country to the US as a child — could have had a nefarious influence on his judgment, after which Yoo echoed her toxic insinuations, saying “some people might call that espionage.”

Cuomo, seemingly anxious to call out those outrageous comments, wasted no time in firing back on his show.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Trump judicial nominee Lawrence VanDyke, who was given a ‘Not Qualified’ rating by the American Bar Association (ABA), cries at a hearing after being confronted on his views toward the LGBTQ community pic.twitter.com/yCDTcblOVM

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 30, 2019

A Trump administration federal judge nominee openly wept at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing after being confronted with an American Bar Association letter that recommended he not be confirmed because of his alleged incompetence and homophobia.

As reported by Reuters and others, nominee Lawrence VanDyke quickly lost composure after being questioned about the ABA letter by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).

VanDyke, who is the former solicitor general of Montana and Nevada, has become a controversial pick after the American Bar Association published its damning letter Tuesday, on the eve of VanDyke’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Based on 6o interviews with VanDyke’s colleagues and judges who have interacted with him, the ABA said if found “strong evidence” arguing against appointing VanDyke to a federal judgeship.

Concluding that VanDyke was “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to- day practice including procedural rules,” the ABA also noted that “Mr. VanDyke would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community.”

“Did you say that you wouldn’t be fair to members of the LGBTQ community?” Hawley asked, citing that passage from the letter during the hearing, while slightly altering the ABA’s language.

“Senator, I — that was, that was the part of the letter…” VanDyke began, before pausing for several seconds, breathing heavily, and shaking his head.

“I did not say that,” VanDyke insisted, as he began crying. He then paused for several more seconds, exhaled deeply again, and leaned back in his chair. “I apologize.”

“No I did not say that, I do not believe that,” he continued, while openly weeping. “It is a fundamental belief of mine that all people are created in the image of God and they should all be treated with dignity and respect, Senator.” VanDyke then pledged to treat every litigant fairly, including members of the LGBTQ community.

It’s not clear that the ABA’s letter will have much of an impact on VanDyke’s prospects of confirmation. Last week, Senate Republicans pushed though on a party-line vote the confirmation of a 37-year-old law professor with zero trial experience to a lifetime federal judgeship, despite the ABA rating him “not qualified” as well.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tonight dismissed the concerns raised by Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman about President Donald Trump‘s call with the president of Ukraine.

After discussing the successful raid that took out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum asked Pompeo about the “parade of State Department officials” testifying through Congress and the testimony yesterday from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who reportedly testified that some key words and phrases were omitted from the Ukraine call transcript, including another reference to Joe Biden and a separate one to Burisma.

“I don’t know what any of the witnesses actually said,” Pompeo responded, “we’re reporting on leaks from Democrats who have a mission set to take down President Trump. What I know is I was on the call, I listened to the call. I thought the way the president handled it was appropriate. We were incredibly focused on a couple of simple things with respect to Ukraine strategy, we’ve executed on that.”

“I couldn’t tell you why, I couldn’t answer if it’s because of Hunter Biden that Barack Obama and Vice President Biden didn’t give defensive weapons systems to Ukraine, they’ll have to answer for that,” Pompeo continued. “Maybe I just don’t have the full story.”

MacCallum brought up concerns raised by a number of people within the State Department about feeling like there was a two-track policy on Ukraine.

“They sound very disappointed things got pulled away from them, they are all pointing to the common thread of Rudy Giuliani here,” she said.

“My understanding is that every one of these individuals had the same Ukrainian policy that President Trump had. This is a Ukraine policy that wanted to provide javelin weapon systems, we did that,” Pompeo said. “This is Ukraine policy that wanted to ensure Mr. Zelensky had resources he needed to push back against corruption we all know has existed in Ukraine. I actually think the policy every one of my officials was trying to achieve is same one President Trump and I were trying to get the outcome on.”

Bill Taylor testified in his opening statement that he was troubled by how, in addition to the formal channel of U.S. policy-making with respect to Ukraine, there was a second “irregular, informal channel.”

Taylor wrote, “When I first arrived in Kyiv, in June and July, the actions of both the regular and the irregular channels of foreign policy served the same goal — a strong U.S.-Ukraine partnership — but it became clear to me by August that the channels had diverged in their objectives. As this occurred, I became increasingly concerned.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham tonight covered the testimony of Lt. Col. Alex Vindman after her much-criticized coverage Monday night.

Tonight Ingraham said, “While we of course salute Vindman’s service to this country, that service does not insulate him or any member of the armed services from criticism or scrutiny, especially when they’re still on active duty. And let’s face it, if the lieutenant colonel had been on the call and dismissed any wrongdoing by the president, Democrats and the media probably wouldn’t sound like this.”

She showed clips of others on cable news praising Vindman, saying there are others who “served in uniform who the Democrats found plenty of fault with over the years.”

Last night Ingraham questioned Vindman’s background based on this paragraph in the New York Times:

While Colonel Vindman’s concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani, though they typically communicated in English.

Ingraham remarked, “Here we have a U.S. national security official, who is advising Ukraine while working inside the White House apparently against the president’s interest and usually, they spoke in English. Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on this story?”

You can watch her comments tonight above, via Fox News.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman excoriated Congressional Republicans and other conservatives who have attacked career diplomats and government officials raising red flags about the alleged misconduct of President Donald Trump: “This is so dangerous. This is so despicable.”

Speaking with Anderson Cooper on CNN, the centrist Times columnist noted that the career officials serving in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic corps — who were instrumental in pulling off the successful al-Baghdadi raid — are now coming under fire for daring to speak out against Trump.

“Same agencies, same people, same work ethic, same oath to protect and preserve the Constitution,” Friedman noted. “You can’t say in one place they’re traitors and ignoramuses,  and in the other place, they’re the wonderful heroes. They’re the same people.”

“[Lt. Col.] Alexander Vindman, who served two decades in the military, has shrapnel in his body while serving in Iraq, he’s being accused by President Trump as being disloyal to America because of his impeachment hearing inquiry,” Cooper said. Pro-Trump surrogates on Fox News and CNN have also joined in the chorus smearing Vindman, prompting Cooper to ask: “Does it go downhill from here? I’m not sure how much lower it can get.”

“I worry about the future of my country today more than any time in my life,” Friedman responded. “We’re seeing a group pf Republicans, who know very well, that what Trump engaged in on that phone call and well beyond it, was an impeachable offense. And instead of calling that out, getting to the bottom of it, and instead of attacking that, they’re attacking the process and the very system of our government. This is so dangerous. This is so despicable. These are people who every day run around boasting and bragging and praising all these American soldiers, who make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom. And these people, these people wouldn’t make the tiniest sacrifice, not the tiniest sacrifice to just fulfill their Constitutional oath to see this impeachment process to its true and honest end. They are disgusting and they are hurting our country.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins called the prospect of former National Security Adviser John Bolton testifying before the House impeachment inquiry the “$64,000 question” of Washington and warned that Bolton’s corroboration of other White House officials’ accounts was “potentially devastating” for President Donald Trump.

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Filkins noted that Bolton’s name continues to come up in the testimony of other White House and State Department officials who have testified about alleged misconduct by Trump. Filkins offered context about Bolton and the effect his testimony could have based on his time with the conservative firebrand for a long, New Yorker profile from this past spring.

“You spent time with Bolton. Based on what you know about him, do you think he will testify willingly? If so, what kind of witness would he be?” Cooper asked.

“That’s the $64,000 question,” Filkins replied. “Everyone in Washington is wondering about that. I think, on one hand, he knows everything. He had total visibility and he left on bad terms with Trump. Trump said: ‘I fired him.’ He said: ‘No, I quit before you could fire me.’ But on the other hand, he’s always been — you know, he’s a partisan. He’s always been a stalwart Republican and he came from Fox News, he came from that whole thing. So, it’s really hard to tell. Potentially what’s so interesting is if he does testify, to what other people have said that he did, and he believed and he said, then I think it’s potentially devastating for the president because of [Bolton’s] stature as one of the premier Republicans in the Republican establishment.”

Among other blockbuster revelations, Bolton is reported to have privately blasted the efforts of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, to extract a political investigation of Joe Biden, calling it a “drug deal,” based on the testimony of former State Department official Fiona Hill.

“I think what’s interesting here is that from the very beginning, from day one when he got hired by Trump, they never saw eye to eye on anything,” Filkins explained. “He’s not a Trump ally. He’s not Trump’s friend. This is what’s so beguiling to people in Washington right now. Nobody can really figure out what he’s going to do. He’s a smart guy. He’s a Yale lawyer. He’s really smart. He was in the middle of it, so he knows everything.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

As the impeachment inquiry continues, President Donald Trump has continued to point to the transcript of his call with the president of Ukraine, calling it “perfect” and continuing to defend himself by saying people should just read it.

Why are people that I never even heard of testifying about the call. Just READ THE CALL TRANSCRIPT AND THE IMPEACHMENT HOAX IS OVER! Ukrain said NO PRESSURE. https://t.co/VYmW8bYcgS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019

Where’s the Whistleblower? Just read the Transcript, everything else is made up garbage by Shifty Schiff and the Never Trumpers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019

The Do Nothing Democrats are working hard to make everyone forget the Best Economy Ever, the monumental weekend raid, Tax Cuts, the Rebuilding of our Military, etc. The Impeachment Hoax is a disgrace. Read the transcript!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019

How many more Never Trumpers will be allowed to testify about a perfectly appropriate phone call when all anyone has to do is READ THE TRANSCRIPT! I knew people were listening in on the call (why would I say something inappropriate?), which was fine with me, but why so many?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019

Supposedly, according to the Corrupt Media, the Ukraine call “concerned” today’s Never Trumper witness. Was he on the same call that I was? Can’t be possible! Please ask him to read the Transcript of the call. Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2019

The president has claimed it’s an “exact transcription” even though the document explicitly says “A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion.”

Tonight the New York Times reports that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that the transcript “omitted crucial words and phrases” that he tried to restore in the transcript but was unable to.

And per the Times, the omissions included references to Joe Biden and Burisma:

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.

Vindman was on the call, and as he said in his opening statement, he was so concerned by what he heard that he reported it to a superior.

House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff briefly spoke tonight after the lengthy hearing with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and heralded the “example of patriotism” he set.

“I want to say also how deeply appalled I was at the pernicious attacks on him last night on Fox. The suggestion that because he’s of Ukrainian origin that he has some duel loyalty, this Purple Heart recipient deserved better than that scandalous attack,” he said.

Schiff also addressed the whistleblower who started off this whole chain of events, given reporting today about arguing that broke out in the room today between Republicans and Democrats over the whistleblower.

“The president would love to punish the whistleblower. The president’s comments and actions have jeopardized the whistleblower’s safety,” Schiff said. “The president’s allies would like nothing better than to help the president out this whistleblower. Our committee will not be a part of that. We will not stand for that and I would hope that more of my GOP colleagues throughout the Congress on both sides of the Capitol would express their support for whistleblowers who have the courage to come forward and expose wrongdoing.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

Photo credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP/Getty-Images.

Former Trump 2016 campaign aide George Papadopoulos, recently released after serving 12 days in prison for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, has filed campaign paperwork to run for Congress in the California House district now vacant after Democratic Rep. Katie Hill’s resignation.

According to Roll Call, Papadopoulos filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC on Tuesday. However, if Papadopoulos follows through and launches an official campaign, he faces long odds of success in California’s 25th district,

First off, Papadopoulos will have to navigate an already crowded GOP primary. After Hill’s abrupt resignation following revelations of her intimate relationship with a campaign aide, former Congressman Steve Knight, who Hill defeated in 2018, announced he’s considering a run for the seat again. In addition, two other established Republicans, Navy veteran Mike Garcia and Lancaster City Council member Angela Underwood-Jacobs, have already launched campaigns and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Even if Papadopoulos were to become the Republican candidate, winning back the district would be difficult. California’s 25th district in suburban northern Los Angeles, a one-time Republican enclave, has been rapidly trending blue of late — in 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by seven percentage points over Donald Trump. And in 2018, Hill defeated incumbent Republican Steve Knight by nine points.

It is my personal belief—and I am absolutely not wrong about this—that November 1 is the worst day of the year, and here’s why: It means there’s a whole year until next Halloween. And all sane people know that Halloween is the best day of the year!

Read more...

Lou Dobbs and several of his guests tonight tore into Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman over his testimony today in the impeachment inquiry voicing his concerns about President Donald Trump‘s Ukraine call.

Dobbs brought up Vindman in his discussion with Ed Rollins, mocking him for implying he had “superior opinion and judgment” on national security compared to the president.

He read sections of Vindman opening statement, calling it “arrogant” and “chilling” and saying, “What you are seeing and hearing there is a reference to the deep state, to the permanent bureaucracy, and a lieutenant colonel who obviously believes he has superior judgment to the President of the United States!”

Rollins dismissed him as a “clerk” and said he should kicked “out of the White House.”

In the next segment, Dobbs again brought up Vindman, and Hans von Spakovsky said that disagreeing with Trump’s foreign policy is “not his place to do is an army office.”

Dobbs swiped at the Democrats “that [don’t] care what they do to this poor lieutenant colonel,” before saying Vindman “looks delusional” to be talking about his concerns in this way.

Sara Carter said his statement shows people are “actively spying and listening to President Trump.”

“Prior to 2016, Lou, the Democrats, as well as those former senior Obama officials that have been targeting President Trump are continuing to target him and they are look for anything and everything. It’s as if President Trump has a police officer following him illegally… everywhere he goes just trying to find him doing anything, anything at all that they can try to pin on him,” Carter added. “I think that he should actually be removed if he has not been removed already, and that the president should clean out the NSC and clear out the White House of people that he suspects are working for the people that had formerly been in office.”

You can watch above, via Fox Business Network.

Fox Business host Trish Regan condemned House Democrats for announcing a full impeachment vote so soon after the successful raid that resulted in the death of ISIS terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: “They could have let this wait a little bit.” Two weeks ago, however, Regan had expressed her frustration at the Democrats’ procedural delay, and hailed the prospect of holding a full House vote on impeachment as a “alleluia” moment.

During a Monday night discussion about the raid with Fox Nation contributor Tomi Lahren and Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor, Regan criticized both the media coverage and the juxtaposition of the Democrats’ announcement on impeachment just a day after the news of the terrorist leader’s death.

“[The media] can’t bring themselves to cheer because to say that this is a good thing, somehow that justifies Donald Trump being in the Oval Office,” Regan said, before castigating Democrats for trying to steal the president’s limelight. “The other big story going on, Tomi, is the Dems are trying to divert attention away from the extraordinary news that the head of ISIS is taken out under this president. And then they announce they are seeking to move forward on articles of impeachment. We in this business know what they are up to. They could have let this wait a little bit. Or were they that desperate to get right back to impeachment?”

Speaking with Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz two weeks ago, though, Regan sounded more than ready for the full House vote to take place when Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a press conference on impeachment that ultimately was about something else.

“When I heard the news about this press conference, it was quite possible that she was going to say: ‘Look we have the votes and we’ll have the vote on impeachment.’ I thought ‘Alleluia!, right?” Regan said. “Because that feels like that’s a more democratic, fair process. The president already said, and we can show the viewer here. If it’s a fair process. If they actually took a vote. he would be willing to turn over whatever he needs to turn over.”

Watch the video above, via Fox Business Network.