MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: "Bill Taylor contradicts Trump's claim."

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has known Ambassador William Taylor for over 20 years. NBC`s Garrett Haake caught up to her today and asked her about her reaction to his reported testimony, including some of his text messages about what Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani were trying to do to Ukraine.

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GARRETT HAAKE, NBC NEWS: What do you make of these incredulous text messages that have come out from him, questioning the administration policy on Ukraine from after he got back into the country?

REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D-OH): Well, he walked into a rat`s nest, and I think that the rats there are very big.

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O`DONNELL: Representative Marcy Kaptur is Co-Chair of the Ukraine Caucus. Now as Representative, she serves as Chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Energy, which was of course led by and is led by Secretary Rick Perry. Congresswoman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I want to get your reaction to what we`re learning today about Rick Perry`s role in this. It was not very prominent in William Taylor`s testimony, but he definitely had a hand in some of this communication about this. Is that something he should be testifying to your Committee about?

KAPTUR: He should. He should actually go before the Intelligence Committee, because I can affirm that Secretary Perry led the delegation to President Zelensky, the new President of Ukraine, to his inaugural, when President Trump refused to go, and in addition to that, has traveled to Ukraine probably more than any of the top administration officials in the Trump administration. The Secretary often would tell me that he was going, but quite frankly, he never reported back formally in his testimony before our Committee as to what he had actually accomplished. Now that I`ve heard his announcement that he`s leaving, I`m saying to myself, oh no, no, no, not so fast. I think that we need to debrief him to find out exactly where he went, who was meeting with him, whether it was just in Ukraine or an adjacent country such as Poland. Some of the other names that are being mentioned, Mr. Sondland, Mr. Volker. To what extent was Secretary Perry a very important member of that triumvirate?

O`DONNELL: So William Taylor now and Gordon Sondland are in a very direct credibility clash. William Taylor saying Gordon Sondland repeatedly laid out the very explicit exchange that Donald Trump had in mind, that an investigation of the Bidens was what was necessary to get the aid delivered to Ukraine, and/or to get a meeting with Donald Trump. Gordon Sondland said, absolutely, and said out under oath that no such understanding existed, there was no quid pro quo. What can we bring to our understanding of these two people, as we evaluate their credibility?

KAPTUR: Well I have known Ambassador William Taylor, I calculated at 27 years from the fall of the Soviet Union, a system of governance completely antithetical to our own, all the way up to the present day when he came out of retirement to serve our country in an embattled country called Ukraine, where - which really is the scrimmage line for liberty on the vast European continent, the largest landmass nation in all of Europe, and the doorstep to liberty in Russia someday I hope. And I have watched him work as an Ambassador, but also as a military genius. He was in Afghanistan, Iraq, he had fought for our country in the 82nd Airborne and 101st in Vietnam. He`s a West Point graduate, he`s a scholar, he was an Assistant Director at the Institute of Peace here in Washington, and he came out of retirement. This man has given a half century of his life to this country. He is a true patriot. And I don`t want to be too critical here, but I think I must - I cannot find a single veteran in the Trump family. And indeed, the President himself chose not to enter the military when he was asked during the war in Vietnam. So you have two very different individuals here. Someone who has selflessly served his country and someone who appears to be using his position to advantage some of his own personal interests and frankly jeopardizing liberty in a most tender part of the world where Russia has invaded Ukraine.

O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, thank you very much for joining us and I really appreciate it.

KAPTUR: Thank you.

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