November 15, 2019

Today, Marie Yovanovitch testified publicly in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. James Melville, a career diplomat who knows her personally, can understand more than most what she has experienced – he himself quit as U.S. Ambassador to Estonia last year in protest over President Trump’s comments about European allies. He joins the program to assess Yovanovitch’s testimony.

Marie Yovanovitch describes vital U.S. interests as trying to help set up a stable, free and democratic Ukraine that could resist pressure from Russia. New Yorker columnist Masha Gessen has deep insight into how authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin function, and says she is “shocked but not surprised” by what we are learning in this impeachment inquiry. She joins the program from New York.

Historian and journalist Rick Perlstein has been called the “chronicler extraordinaire of American conservativism,” and he has studied what the Nixon and Clinton scandals can tell us about today’s hearings. Perlstein sits down with Alison Stewart to provide a historical lens and some much-needed perspective to the ongoing impeachment hearings.