CNN’s Erin Burnett Calls Out Senate GOP ‘Covering For’ Trump Over Ukraine Phone Call to Investigate Biden

CNN’s Erin Burnett called out Senate Republicans for “covering for” and “protecting” President Donald Trump for his call with the Ukrainian president reportedly asking him to investigate his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden.

The CNN primetime host dedicated a segment of her Monday night show to Senate GOP reaction about the latest revelation, by Trump, over the weekend did he bring up Biden with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The call is reportedly part of a whistleblower complaint filed by a high-ranking intelligence official involving multiple acts by Trump that raised “urgent concern,” according to the intelligence community’s Inspector General.

“New tonight, Republicans covering for President Trump over his phone call with the Ukrainian president where he talked about Joe Biden,” Burnett said to introduce of Republican Senator Marco Rubio talking with CNN Congressional reporter Manu Raju.

“Bottom line is I don’t think he should have done it but that’s a far cry from what people around here claim to know as fact, that frankly we don’t know as fact,” Rubio said.

“The president, if he’s withholding military aid in exchange for Ukraine doing something, is that not an impeachable offense?” Raju pressed.

“There’s no evidence of that. People are alluding to that or asserting that or obviously the partisans are arguing that. But there isn’t,” Rubio responded.

“He doesn’t like Trump’s behavior, but as of tonight he is protecting him,” Burnett summed up, in reaction, before turning to CNN reporter Lauren Fox, who gave a round up of other Senate Republican nonchalance at the Trump-Ukraine news.

“It’s really just more of the same that we’ve heard from Republican senators any time there’s a controversy with President Trump,” Fox explained. “I’m hearing from a lot of Republicans who say, there’s not much to see here. Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican from North Dakota, told me ‘This reaction is a lot of hysteria over very little.’ You saw Senator Rubio there. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, told one of my colleagues essentially that he talked to the president earlier this summer about withholding that money from Ukraine, and that what the president told Johnson was essentially he was concerned about corruption in the country. Johnson said, you know, I think that’s a valid concern, and something that the President of the United States has the authority to question. So, Republicans really giving the president a lot of excuses and room to explain himself tonight.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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