Nancy Pelosi accuses Trump of bribery after first public impeachment hearing – live | US news

Earlier today, Trump showed the transcript from his first call with the Ukrainian president to Republican senators, one of whom said it was not a very interesting document.

The White House reportedly plans to soon release the transcript of Trump’s first call with the Ukrainian president, which took place in April.

Trump teased the release of the transcript in a Monday tweet, claiming it was the “most important” of the calls he has had with the Ukrainian president. (It was Trump’s July call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy that initiated the impeachment inquiry.)

“In order to continue being the most Transparent President in history, I will be releasing sometime this week the Transcript of the first, and therefore most important, phone call I had with the President of Ukraine,” Trump wrote in the tweet. “I am sure you will find it tantalizing!”

The Republican National Committee reportedly plans to hold its 2020 winter meeting at Trump National Doral, the same Florida resort where the Trump administration initially planned to hold the G-7 summit.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced during a press conference last month that the G-7 summit would be held at the Miami resort, but the administration quickly reversed that decision amid a flurry of backlash from Democrats and Republicans.

Senator Bernie Sanders and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are holding a press conference on Capitol Hill calling for a “Green New Deal for Housing.”

The public housing plan is the first major policy proposed under the broader “Green New Deal” that Ocasio-Cortez has championed.

Presidential candidate Julián Castro has officially failed to qualify for the November debate, according to an announcement from the Democratic National Committee listing the participants in next week’s event.

Castro was widely expected to miss the Nov. 20 debate, as he had seemingly failed to meet the polling qualification laid out by the DNC despite crossing the donor threshold.

Castro will be the only candidate from the October debate not participating — with the exception of Beto O’Rourke, who suspended his campaign earlier this month.

The news comes days after reports emerged that Castro was laying off employees in New Hampshire and South Carolina while supporting staffers to look for other jobs.

Former president Bill Clinton called into CNN to offer his thoughts on the school shooting in California and the House impeachment inquiry against Trump.

Clinton, the last president to sign major gun-control legislation, accused Republicans of burying their hands in the sand on the issue. “But at some point, denial is no longer an option,” Clinton said. “The Congress is basically in denial of the consequences of doing nothing, or at least the people who are opposed to it.”

On the question of the inquiry, Clinton, who was impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate, encouraged Trump to focus on governing. “You got hired to do a job,” Clinton said. “Every day’s an opportunity to make something good happen.”

Matt Bevin, the Republican governor of Kentucky who narrowly lost his reelection race last week, has finally conceded to Democrat Andy Beshear.

Final results showed that Bevin, the most unpopular governor in the country, lost to Beshear by just 5,000 votes or 0.4 percent. Bevin announced in a press conference today that he would not contest those results.

Trump campaigned for Bevin in Kentucky, a state the president won by 30 points in 2016, but the visit was not enough to help the unpopular governor win another term in the deeply conservative state.

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has launched his first statewide radio ad in South Carolina, part of a $2 million media investment in the early voting state.

“This country cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump,” the Indiana mayor says in the ad. “We know that he is going to do everything he can to hold onto power. But if you nominate me, his playbook isn’t going to work this time around.”

Buttigieg has surged in the largely white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, but he has struggled to break through in South Carolina, which has a much larger African-American electorate.

A recent Monmouth University poll put Buttigieg’s support in South Carolina at just 3 percent, with only 1 percent of African-American voters saying they back his White House bid.

Mitt Romney was asked by a Capitol Hill reporter for his thoughts on Deval Patrick, another former Massachusetts governor, entering the Democratic presidential primary.

The Utah senator responded with a self-deprecating joke about his own failed presidential bid. “Delusion runs deep in the veins of Massachusetts politicians thinking of running for president,” Romney said.

Democratic presidential candidates offered their prayers and condolences to the families affected by the mass shooting in southern California, while also demanding legislative action to curb gun violence.

Kamala Harris, who serves as California’s junior senator, said the shooting was evidence of how communities are being “terrorized” by gun violence.

Other 2020 Democrats expressed dismay at children fearing their schools as gun-control legislation passed by the House languishes in the Senate.

During her weekly press conference, Nancy Pelosi accused the president of bribery and appeared to also insult his intelligence.

The House speaker was arguing Trump could defend himself in the impeachment inquiry by presenting evidence that contradicts the allegations Democrats have laid out.

“If the president has something that is exculpatory — Mr. President, that means you have anything that shows your innocence — then he should make that known,” Pelosi said, looking directly at the camera in the briefing room. “So far we haven’t see that.”