Jimmy Kimmel mashes up Obama's Bin Laden speech and Trump's Baghdadi address
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The House of Representatives has voted to formalise the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump by 232-196, firmly along party lines, establishing key ground rules for the ongoing investigation and setting up a potentially explosive public hearing phase.
Before the ballots were cast, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff reminded members of the “solemnity” of the day before angry RepublicansDevin Nunes and Steve Scalise accused the opposition of “acting like a cult” and carrying out a “Soviet-style” operation. Mr Trump himself then raged at the result on Twitter, branding the inquiry: “The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!”
Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s top Russia adviser reportedly said the administration’s dealings with Ukraine gave him “a sinking feeling”, during testimony on Capitol Hill after lawyers for the president’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, said he will appear before the House panel next week should a subpoena be issued.
During his testimony, Mr Morrison confirmed that Mr Trump had sought a quid pro quo related to US security funding and an investigation into Joe Biden, but said he did not believe Mr Trump had broken the law.
The impeachment vote means that the House is moving into a new phase, with public hearings likely on the horizon as Democrats continue to pursue the president over potential wrongdoing.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
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And, shortly after the vote, Democratic congresswoman Katie Hill delivered a scathing resignation speech, in which she declared that she was the victim of a "double standard" because she had been accused of an inappropriate but consensual sexual relationship, and forced from Congress.
Mr Trump, she said, is meanwhile still the president after repeated accusations of sexual assault (he has denied doing so).
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo gave an interview to Fox News yesterday in which he defended the president's Zelensky call, saying it was "consistent" with administration policy.
The call was consistent with what I had a long set of conversations with President Trump on our policy for an awfully long time. Our policy has been very clear all along with respect to Ukraine.
I heard the president very clearly on that call talking about making sure that corruption - whether that corruption took place in the 2016 election, whether that corruption was continuing to take place - that the monies that were being provided would be used appropriately.
It was very consistent with what I’d understood President Trump and our administration to be doing all along.
He also, naturally, used the platform to denounce the impeachment inquiry as "deeply troubling".
We’re not allowed to have State Department lawyers in the room. That’s deeply troubling.
But my understanding is that every one of these individuals had the same Ukrainian policy that President Trump had.
Pompeo was also talking tough on China on Wednesday as he attended a gala dinner in New York at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank, stepping up recent US rhetoric targeting the ruling Communist Party, saying Beijing was focused on international domination and needed to be confronted.
Pompeo made the remarks even as the Trump administration said it still expected to sign the first phase of deal to end a damaging trade war with China next month, despite Chile's withdrawal as the host of an APEC summit where US officials had hoped to seal the deal.
Pompeo said the United States had long cherished its friendship with the Chinese people, adding the Communist government was not the same thing as the people of China.
They are reaching for and using methods that have created challenges for the United States and for the world and we collectively, all of us, need to confront these challenges... head on.
It is no longer realistic to ignore the fundamental differences between our two systems, and the impact that the differences in those systems have on American national security.
Last week in a major policy speech, vice president Mike Pence attacked China's record on human rights, trade and methods used to expand its global influence.
Pompeo said Trump had sounded the alarm about China from his very first day in office.
Today, we're finally realising the degree to which the Communist Party is truly hostile to the United States and our values... and we are able to do this because of the leadership of President Trump.
China has been consistently irritated by Pompeo, whether over his remarks on China's Belt and Road project or allegations of Chinese rights abuses in the far western region of Xinjiang, and in many other areas.
In a speech in Houston on Monday, China's ambassador in Washington Cui Tiankai signaled his country would not take any criticism of the party, which he said was "deeply trusted and widely supported by the Chinese people".
"To draw a line between the party and the people is to challenge the entire Chinese nation," Tiankai said. "Claiming to welcome a successful China on one hand, and defaming and working to overthrow the very force that leads the Chinese people towards success on the other, have you ever seen anything more hypocritical and outrageous than this?"
Trump's nominee to be the new US ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, had his confirmation hearing before the Senate yesterday and proved a candid witness, saying he had been aware of a "campaign" to outside Marie Yovanovitch as Ukraine ambassador this spring and that Rudy Giuliani was involved.
The president's lawyer did not like that at all, accusing a man nominated by his own boss of being part of an "orchestrated attempt to harass and hinder" him, which is nutty even for Rudy.
Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos said America has a "student achievement crisis" during an address to the National Press Club in Washington last night, blaming Big Government, overpaid administrators and bureaucracy for tumbling examing results.
"Government has never made anything better or cheaper, more effective or more efficient. And nowhere is that more true than in education," she said at one point, which makes you wonder what on earth ever motivated her to enter politics in the first place if she's as pessimistic about the prospect of achieving meaningful change as all that.
Outgoing California congresswoman Katie Hill will give her final floor speech in the House today after being forced out of office by a revenge porn scandal sparked by a right-wing blog, which in turn led to an ethics probe being launched against her over allegations she had an affair with a staffer in violation of congressional rules.
Disgraced ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos is eyeing her seat and, interestingly, appeared to know well in advance that the story would be broken by Red State journalist Jennifer Van Laar, who, we learned yesterday, previously worked on campaigns for Hill's opponents. What a rotten business.
As one of his top experts on Russia, Tim Morrison, starts giving what could be damning evidence to the impeachment hearings, and as Congress prepares to vote for the first time on the process that could remove him from office, President Trump could be forgiven for feeling nervy, as his latest tweet seems to suggest:
The president has repeatedly claimed that the partial transcript of his 25 July phone call released by the White House exonerates him and proves the whistleblower who complained about the call was wrong. How far this tactic succeeds remains to be seen: the whistleblower account of the phone call and the official version actually tally closely.
He has also claimed that what the White House released was a full transcript, although the document itself makes clear it is not.
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