Rick Santorum smacked down for claiming Sondland testimony helped Trump

On Wednesday's edition of CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) tried to argue that the testimony of E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland actually helped President Donald Trump — and was promptly challenged.

"I think the Democrats had a good morning. I don't think they had a good afternoon," said Santorum. "I think what when the Republicans actually started questioning Sondland about the details, I think it fell apart a little bit."

"How so?" asked Chris Cuomo.

"He said the president never said any of these things to him," said Santorum. "In fact, what the president said, he quoted what the president said is, no, there's no quid pro quo. What he says is, well, I'm surmising, this is what I'm just sort of gathering. Did anything come from the president? No, it came from Rudy Giuliani."

"And Mulvaney," cut in Cuomo. "With the knowledge of Pompeo. He said exactly that, and then pulled it back."

"The reality is, I'm just trying to play out where I think the public is, where I think Republicans are, is this just another example of someone giving their opinion as to what the president's position, was, but the president's position, clearly stated in the May meeting, was, and clearly stated period, which is he doesn't like foreign aid, he thinks the Ukrainians are corrupt and he's tired of NATO not paying fair share, and those are all legitimate reasons not to provide the aid," said Cuomo.

"If you look at the emails and the text messages, none of that is mentioned," pointed out legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. "All that's mentioned are Burisma and the server. That's the only thing any of these people cared about. I mean, the whole idea that the president is worried about burden sharing, which was last week's talking point, yes, it's true, but it had nothing to do with this decision. It was not in any of the papers."

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