What Went Down On Day 1 Of The Impeachment Hearings

Trump seems to have been saying two different things about the aid, according to Taylor’s testimony. He told Sondland he wasn’t “asking for a quid pro quo” but then went on to say that Zelensky had to go to a microphone and say he was opening an investigation of Biden and 2016 election interference. Understandable why Democrats are moving away from emphasis on “quid pro quo,” since it’s easier to get stuck in arguments about the definition and whether Trump actually used the phrase, rather than what he seemed to be communicating in other ways.

Taylor has been very detailed and precise.

Chiming in from the sidelines to say I disagree with the idea that what matters coming out of the hearings is what’s new. We have seen what happened when these facts were first revealed and covered nonstop by the news media. They’re visible on our tracker. Democratic support of the impeachment hearing is now over 80 percent; Independent support is around 45 percent. The reiteration of these facts may nudge those numbers higher — at the minimum it seems unlikely to drag them lower. I understand that, as journalists, we get bored when we hear the same things over and over; but we are paid to pay attention to all this stuff the moment it comes out. Americans are not. What matters is what Americans tell us, not what we think they might.