And yet all of this is a distraction, an attempt to get us away from it. Whats also interesting to me, hallie, the president of the United States takes a lot of time trying to take down joe biden. That suggests to me that he believes biden is the strongest possible opponent. Weve had 70 headtohead matchups in polls. Biden has won every single one of them. In that sense its not a surprise the president is spending the time, using the power of his office to try to take down his number one opponent. Tony, thanks for being on. Im way out of town. I have to hand it over to craig melvin on what has been a very, very busy morning. Indeed, a Story Changing by the moment. Craig melvin here at Msnbc Headquarters in new york city. We pick up the breaking news. Huge implications for this president , the administration, the Justice Department, perhaps for the system of checks and balances in our country. The Trump Administration just releasing that memo detailing that controversial conversation between President Trump and
ukrainians president zelensky. Major revelations about what the president said about joe biden and hunter biden. Well break down the document with someone who understands what were looking at better than just about anyone. The man who ran the Situation Room under president obama who was in charge of preparing transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders. Hes going to join me in just a few moments. Also, we continue to get live reaction from the hill, including from a member of the house intelligence committee. That committee in talks right now with the attorney representing the whistleblower at the center of this firestorm. Theyre going to hear directly from the director of National Intelligence tomorrow. Team coverage this hour of that breaking news. White house correspondent Kristen Welker is in new york for us. Justice correspondent Julia Ainsley at the doj, Geoff Bennett on capitol hill. Kristen, let me start with you. We just heard from President Trump a few moments ago. What did he have to say . Reporter well, craig, not surprisingly he was defiant. He tried to argue this is an extension of the democrats witch hunt against him. He quickly pivoted to the economy. Well play his sound in just a second. Taking a step back, its giving us a preview, craig, into what we can expect to see from this president over the next several months as this inquiry gets under way. Were going to see a president who is going to argue theres nothing to see here, there was no explicit quid pro quo. Geoff is going to break down what the democrats will argue in the counter to that. Theyll tease out the fact that you do have him essentially pressing the president of ukraine to investigate his chief political rival, former Vice President joe biden. It just underscores the extent to which, politically speaking, this is going to be tricky for President Trump, craig. Here he is at the u. N. Holding
these critical diplomatic talks and yet answering very tough questions about all this, about these notes that were just released of his july 25th phone call with the president of ukraine. Take a listen to what President Trump had to say just moments ago. Just so you understand, its the single greatest witch hunt in American History, probably in history, but in American History. Its a disgraceful thing. The letter was a great letter, meaning the letter revealing the call that was done at the assistance of myself and other people that read it. It was a friendly letter. There was no pressure. The way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell. It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said i never knew you could be so nice. Reporter ive been talking to the president s republican allies on capitol hill, congressman peter king who just underscored that republican Talking Point, essentially saying theres nothing to see
here, this was a nothing call. Politically speaking, craig, i go back to this point. This could be problematic for President Trump. On the one hand, you have democrats saying, okay, fine, weve now seen some of the contents of this call. But we want to see the whistleblowers complaint. Theres going to be an ongoing battle for that. Remember, theres reporting that there are a number of other potentially troubling instances laid out in that complaint. We expect that the administration and the campaign, quite frankly, will aim to capitalize on this, will paint democrats as being obsessed with impeachment, not getting anything done on capitol hill. But how does the president feel, craig . I think its more complicated for him. He sees the potential political value in this. Hes, of course, a former reality tv star. He understands optics better than almost anyone. I think hes fundamentally bothered by the idea of being linked with those three president s before him who have
been impeached. So that is where we are at this hour. President trump will have a bilateral meeting with the president of ukraine and then hold a Press Conference later today. Craig. Kristen welker in new york city. Julia, i know you also have been sifting through this memorandum. Its important to use that language, memorandum. This is not a transcript, not a verbatim of that phone call. In fact, this is roughly five pages long. Were told the phone call itself was roughly 30 minutes long. Key takeaways, julia, for you. Reporter thats right, craig. We also had a chance to talk to Senior Justice Department officials about why they decided not to release the complaint to the Senate Intelligence committee and why they are withholding what would be a full transcript and decided that this did not come into the realm of a criminal Campaign Finance violation. They said it did not rise to the bar of the president soliciting
something of value for his campaign from a foreign leader. I want to go to key parts of the transcript that raise questions about that. For example, the first investigation that the president brings up with the president of ukraine, this is immediately following the Ukrainian President s mention of military aid and how he wants to continue with military aid from the United States, which we know at this point, a large portion of which had been suspended. Here is what the president says in response to that conversation. I would like to ask you to do us a favor because our country has been through a lot. Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowdstrike, i guess you have one of your wealthy people, the server, they say ukraine has it. Thats a little unclear. Is he talking about the Democratic National committee server, going back to Hillary Clinton three years ago. Is he thinking the root of that is in ukraine . He mentions in that same portion of the conversation that he understands the Mueller Probe had origins in ukraine and he wants to get to the bottom of that, potentially seeing mueller as a political rival. Then he gets to the Biden Investigation which is at the heart of this. Craig, he says, theres a lot about bidens son, what widen stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. Craig, right there hes talking about his Attorney General, and repeatedly in this memo, his conversation, he said he wanted the Attorney General, William Barks as well as Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, to be in touched with the Ukrainian President who put in a prosecutor who the Ukrainian President assured trump would do a good job investigating and they would be very open with the United States about their investigations. Here, of course, our national
question to the Senior Justice Department officials, well, did the Attorney General get contacted by the president. They say no, he was never contacted about carrying out an investigation in crew crane and he never spoke to the president of ukraine about this matter or any others. Lots of questions here including why Justice Department officials didnt talk to other people in the room who were witnesses to the phone call about whether or not the president may have directed them to follow up with william barr or Rudy Giuliani. Lots of questions still streaming around this. Again, as you point out, we do not have the actual transcript of the full phone call. Julia, stand by for me if you can. Geoff, its been roughly an hour. What are we hearing on the hill so far about this memo . Additionally there has been indication that democrats were considering issuing a subpoena to Rudy Giuliani asap. Any new details on that . Reporter ill take the first part of your question first, craig. Democrats say the theory of their case is simple and straightforward. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday said what already exists in the Public Record before the white house released this memo, she says what President Trump already admitted to doing she says crosses the line. That was the top line takeaway she saw to impression upon members of her caucus yesterday in that statement she delivered to the nation and again earlier today when she spoke to a group of us reporters. Take a look at this. The transcript is out now. Im wondering if you think Congress Needs to talk to Attorney General barr. The president seemed to offer i havent seen it. Ive just come from our own meeting. But the transcript is the fact is that the president of the United States in breach of his Constitutional Responsibilities has asked a Foreign Government to help him in his Political Campaign at the expense of our National Security
as well as undermining the integrity of our elections. That cannot stand. He will be held accountable. No one is above the law. Reporter so that is the message from House Democrats, that the minute President Trump invoked the name of joe biden and hunter biden in that phone call with his ukrainian counterpart, that the president crossed a line, he breached his Oath Of Office in trying to impression upon this foreign leader to, in fact, meddle in this election. Thats the case the democrats are making. On the other issue about the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, you have three committees who threatened to subpoena the Secretary Of State to get any documentation such that it exists between ukrainian officials and Rudy Giuliani and the State Department to bring to light the effort on the part of
the president s personal attorney, this is the president s personal attorney doing the personal work of President Trump in this ukraine trying to dig up discredited dirt on joe biden. Working at the behest of the State Department allegedly and the president. Julia, thank you, geoff, thank you. We put together a group of experts to sift through some of this. Jeremy bash, former Chief Of Staff of the cia and defense department, also an Msnbc National Security analyst. Susan page is the Washington Bureau chief for us a today. Matt miller, an msnbc justice and security analyst. Harry lit man former Deputy AssistantAttorney General in the clinton administration. Mr. Bash, let me start with you. Julia noting what has become easily the top line of this memo. You make an Interest Point about the president saying he would like he would like for you to do us a favor, the president saying, i would like you to do
us a favor because the country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about that. Immediately before is president zelensky who starts to talk about, on page two at the bottom, starts to talk about defense specifically. The whole structure of the call is the president of the ukraine requesting support from the United States of america. Specifically zelensky mentions they want more support in terms of sanctioning russia, more funding for ukraine. On the bottom of page two of the Transcript Zelensky says were prepared to buy defensive systems from the United States, were prepared to buy the javelin antitank shoulderfired, rocketpropelled system. Thats part of the package that the United States was holding up to ukraine. As soon as zelensky says we want to get these Defense Articles from the United States, trump says i have a favor to ask you, though. Then he lays out exactly what hes demanding of the Ukrainian President. Hes demanding support for his
reelection campaign in the form of derogatory information regarding joe biden and his son. The president repeats this over and over again and doesnt direct the ukrainians to work through official channels through the State Department. He directs him to work with Rudy Giuliani in conjunction with bill barr. What does bill barr and Rudy Giuliani have to do with defense support. What could they be doing talking about National Security relationships between the United States and the ukraine . Nothing. This is about the president personally benefiting from information that the Ukrainian President was to provide. We have, again, this memo, not a transcript jeremy, a memo, not a transcript. We expect at some point we will hear from this whistleblower. If you were questioning the whistleblower, jeremy bash, what would you ask him or her . I want to understand how is it that you came to know about this information and what else did you see . I think in some respects were kind of beyond the whistleblower complaint. The purpose of the complaint is to surface the issues. The issues have been surfaced. Congress is not only investigating, but actual opening an impeachment inquiry. Now the witnesses and the documents have to be brought to congress, probably have to be subpoenaed. There will probably be fights over Executive Privilege, and congress is going to have to dig into every single aspect of this so the American People have the whole story. Matt miller, were you at all surprised this is what the white house released, that they thought this was in some way going to help exonerate the president . Yeah, i am. The fact that this is what they released, makes you wonder what else is out there. Just this document by itself is a prima facie case for impeachment. Theres clear evidence of a president committing a high crime. Hes coercing or extorting a foreign leader to get involved in our election, to retaliate against one of the president s
political opponents. He seems to be enlisting the Justice Department, the sitting Attorney General of the United States in the scheme to do so. Weve seen more evidence emerge that not only was the Attorney General enlisted in this scheme by the president , but he also was involved in the coverup. I think Julia Ainsley reported that this call was referred to the Justice Department as a criminal referral for the president committing a crime. The Justice Department squelched that criminal referral. Not clear they conducted any interviews with people at the white house. They certainly didnt appoint Special Counsel despite the conflicts of interest by political appointees. We saw in the weeks that followed the arm of the u. S. Government that blocked the complaint from being sent up to the hill as the law requires. I think both what you see in the account of this call and the other information we found out over the last few weeks is not just the president committing an impeachable act, but people inside his administration, specifically at the Justice Department being complicit in the coverup of that act. Also, harry, as i continue to look over the document here, this memo, in the call President Trump says the Ukrainian President , i heard you had a prosecutor who is very good and he was shut down. Thats really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of new york city, a great mayor. I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Harry lit man, here you have the president of the United States asking the president of ukraine to reach out to Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General bill barr. Does this put bill barr in some sort of legal jeopardy . Does it put Rudy Giuliani in legal jeopardy . Yes and yes. The barr aspect, as matt says, is a total revelation. Theyre running away saying they had nothing to do with it. First, by all appearances, the highest levels of Foreign Policy is being carried out by this unholy trio of trump, giuliani and barr. Second, this is trump trying to say that its all very official here, and that was the basis for the dojs declination. Well, theyre just leling out on the transcript with an official investigation. There is no official investigation. Theres trump trying to arrest dirty information out of ukraine and say they better find it, thats the favor they need if they want the 400 million released. Rudy giuliani needs to be subpoenaed tomorrow. Hes tried to suggest it was the State Department ordering him forward. I dont think thats going to hold up. If he, of course, is acting as trumps personal attorney, nothing is going to be privileged. Everything he had to say with
zelensky is going to come out. And then, of course, as you say, the transcript, if you read it, is maybe 50 of the call. There are el lip sis in the transcript. Theres much more color and nuance that make it a lot worse. As matt says, boy, if they thought this was the way to staunch the blood, what underlies it and what will come out next. Do we know, harry, why there seems to be this narrow focus on Campaign Finance reform violation . Yeah. Well, that was just what the referral was. Intelligence officials happened to see this. The conversation is the 25th. Around mid august intelligence officials see this and refer it you refer it for a specific violation. Thats what they refer. As you know from the Stormy Daniels affair, you need to be trading for something of value. If you know the nuance here, of course, he was. Its a value to his campaign to
get dirt, especially Bogus Dirt On Hunter Biden and joe biden. But the conclusion was, we look at it and theyre not asking for something of value, just for assistance with an ongoing investigation. Thats not something of value. Thats the reason for the focus here. But it will turn out to be wrong on the facts. He obviously wants what he wants is obviously something of value for his campaign. Matt miller, in the simplest of terms here for people who perhaps have not been following every twist and turn, who have not read this fivepage memorandum, in the simplest of terms, what has the president engaged in that constitutes an Impeachable Offense . It is a gross abuse of liss oath to the nation and his power as president of the United States. He is coercing and i think actually extorting a Foreign Government to get involved in the u. S. Political system to provide information lets be clear. Its not just to launch an investigation. It is to smear one of his political opponents because we know the underlying information there is no there
according to everyone that has looked at it. He wants a Foreign Government to provide him with information with which he can use to target a political appointee. I think the key thing is, you dont need a quid pro quo for it to be an Impeachable Offense. But we have one here, in the face of this transcript and the other information weve seen. Most notably a Washington Post report last night about how the administration was withholding the aid that ukraine was depending upon. In that context you see the president willing to trade our National Security that aid was being sent to ukraine to check russias aggression in that part of the world. The president being willing to risk our National Security to coerce a Foreign Government against one of his political opponents. Its hard to think of a more serious abuse of his office than that. Susan, i want to play reaction from Top Republicans over the last few hours from the hill. Here is what theyre saying. If youre looking for a
circumstance where the president of the United States was threatening the ukraine withkuing off aid unless they investigate his political opponent, you would be very disappointed. That does not exist. So from my point of view, to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane. I did read the transcript. It remains troubling in the extreme, its deeply troubling. Its almost as if they read two different memos. Two contrasting responses from leading gop voices in the senate, susan page. Which one do you suspect wins out . I think this is the discussion to watch. With the release of this transcript today, President Trump has solidified Democratic Forces behind the idea of impeachment. Many House Democrats were a little reluctant to go to impeachment, starting with house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even yesterday not everybody was behind it. I think that has ended. Weve had dozens of members of the house, democratic members of
the house now move toward impeachment. I assume within days well be at 218, a majority of the house. I would doubt there would be more than a handful of House Democrats who do not move Forward Support moving forward with impeachment. The issue is how do republicans respond . If you look at history, we would expect republicans to respond the way we heard Lindsey Graham respond, providing a solid wall of support for President Trump as they have in the past. I think there is some question about that. You see mitt romney who has occasionally been critical of trump in the past raising serious questions. We heard pat toomey on sunday, the republican senator from pennsylvania also raised concerns. Weve had some republicans say, if true, these would be serious allegations. Now we have evidence that the president solicited the help of a foreign leader to find dirt on his political rival in the United States. And it seems to me that will be a tough question for some republicans to address. Susan page, do stand by. Matt and harry, please stand by if you can as well. As susan mentioned, right now 211 House Democrats, by our count, say they support impeaching the president. Those calls made in the wake of the reporting of trumps phone call with the Ukrainian President. Shawn malone voiced his support in the last 24 hours. He joins me now. He also sits on the intelligence committee. One of the six involved in the impeachment process. Ive told by my producers in the control room, over the last few minutes you were reading this fivepage memorandum. What is your reaction to what you just read . Well, first, there are two big headlines with this. One you just heard from your panel which is that this is evidence that the president was soliciting help from a foreign leader to drudge up dirt on his political opponent. Thats right there an
Impeachable Offense. It doesnt have to be the entire puzzle. Its a very damaging piece of the puzzle. It more than justifies an inquiry, which by the way is different than impeachment. What were saying is we need to have an inquiry and the whistleblower complaint. By the way, the other major headline out of this transcript or this summary of a conversation is that the Attorney General was involved. We didnt know that before. Remember, it is the Attorney General who provided the opinion that said you dont have to hand over the whistleblower complaint to congress. Thats a conflict. Thats a screaming red light. The Attorney General of the United States needs to immediately recuse himself. By the president s own words means when he ruled on the whistleblower complaint which contains that information would go to congress, he had a clear conflict of interest. He should never have been
involved and it cast the refusal to send that whistleblower complaint to congress in a very, very dark light. Thats the other headline from me. You sit on the cleanse committee. You guys will be interviewing the director of National Intelligence in a key hearing tomorrow. Whats going to be your first question to him . Well, im going to want to understand why hes the first director of National Intelligence in American History or since the creation of that office who refused to send a whistleblower complaint to congress. His answer is going to be that he was instructed by the department of justice not to do it. Now we know the head of the department of justice is implicated in the effort to smear the bidens using a Foreign Government and threatening with the withdrawal of american assistance as leverage. My god, that stinks to high heaven. Is it any wonder youve seen so many of us on the hill by the way, 100 of the senate in a
bipartisan fashion say we need that whistleblower complaint immediately. And can i please make one request of all of you . Please, for the love of god, dont buy into the republican Talking Point on this that the red line test is whether theres an explicit quid pro quo in one document, in one summary of a conversation. Thats not the test. The test is not whether the president was foolish enough to explicitly threaten in a quid pro quo fashion with withdraw of american assistance in exchange for his help to smear a political opinion point. The fact is hes soliciting it at all. We have an admission by the president of that conduct, we have evidence of it in aing dom thats an official record of that conversation. And this is, by the way, one day in. So imagine what a full inquiry will reveal. Until we see what the whistleblowers side of it is, we have no idea whats under the surface. The Attorney General needs to be out of it yesterday. Did you hear the president s explanation, shall we say, a few
minutes ago . Were you able to hear that . No, im not familiar with it. Here is what i want to do. Ill get the control room to queue that up, President Trump roughly 15, 20 minutes ago attempting to explain that. While they do that, i want to ask you about this quinnipiac poll, congressman, came out overnight, shows some 37 of voters say President Trump should be impeached and removed from office, 37 , again, important to know the question was asked just hours after a lot of this information came to light. How do you make the case for impeachment to your constituents . Look, if weve come to the point where all we do is look at a poll and decide whats right or wrong, weve got a real problem. What i saw from the Republican Party in my own state was they jumped on the politics of this and thats all they want to talk about. Oh, youre going to lose the house, lose your seat, this is going to be great politics. Well let hacks and pundits talk aboutpolitics. Were talking about the constitution, a duty thats bigger than your own self interest. I tell you what were going to do. Were going to do a fair and thorough inquiry of what the heck happened and whats right. The politics will have to take care of themselves. We have the sound cued up from President Trump explaining or attempting to explain what weve been talking about here. Congressman, here he is. Just so you understand, its the single greatest witch hunt in American History, probably in history, but in American History. Its a disgraceful thing. The letter was a great letter, meaning that the letter revealing the call that was done at the insistence of myself and other people that read it. It was a friendly letter. There was no pressure. The way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell. It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said i never knew you could be
so nice. Congressman, thats how the president is explaining it. Well, i think by the letter he means the Summary Member of the conversation. Assuming thats what hes talking about, he seems rattled to me, for one thing. If thats what hes talking about, what he must have missed in the document is that he is repeatedly asking that the president of a foreign country talk to Rudy Giuliani, his fixer, and the Attorney General of the United States about dredging up some bogus investigation that will smear his political opponents and their family members, private american citizens. Thats outrageous. Thats in black and white. Anything else in here is a distraction. The president cant hide from the plain language of this document. By the way, we need to see the whistleblower complaint which will round out why this person felt so urgently and why the Trump AppointedInspector General determined himself that this matter was critical, of urgent concern. Thats what the ig found and Trump Appointed him. We still dont have the whistleblower complaint and we know the Attorney General is implicated in this matter now and he was the one who gave the legal opinion to withhold it. Congressman, thank you for your time, sir, as always. My pleasure. Lets go back to the panel for just a moment. While were doing that, weve got this tweet in from the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee jerry nadler here. Nadler calling on, just as we heard from congressman maloney, the president dragged the Attorney General into this mess, at a minimum, ag barr must recuse himself until we get to the bottom of this matter. Matt miller, i would assume you would agree with this. What would the ag recusing himself from this matter look like . I think it would be a couple things. First it would be recusing himself from any further criminal referrals. It seems doj already got a criminal referral looking at just this call and whether the
call constituted a crime and they decided it did not. If theres any further referrals based on new evidence, because we know it wasnt just this call, but the attempts giuliani was carrying out. If theres a further request for doj to look at that, he needs to take himself out of the line of decision making. The second thing would be recusing himself from these questions over whether the whistleblower complaint should be turned over to congress and whether, if so, its redacted in any way. I would add a third thing. As these congressional investigations go forward, there are going to be a lot of issues for the white house where i would suspect the white house would claim Executive Privilege and you have the Justice Department providing the justification for that. Given bill barrs role in this, the way the president indiana voeks him, and given his refusal on whether hes asked him to investigate joe biden, hes refused to answer that. He needs to recuse himself from
anything connected to this going forward. Here is the thing, harry. The whistleblower complaint, reportedly, coffers multiple instances of moments like this. How real is the possibility that this is all perhaps the tip of the iceberg . Look, it seems pretty President Trump is not a subtle man. When he gets on his high horse about something, hes on it. And one other quick revelation from the transcript. This is day one of his war against bob mueller. It was the day after the report came back and he was starting to trash him. Trump is not a guy who operates in subtle suggestions. He comes right out as the praetsz and says i need a favor. We have every reason to think that the whistleblower is just a straight shooter who saw something alarming, and the number eight a has been bandied about. Its Something Like that. As the congressman says, rounding out is the minimum. It might really be actually filling in half or more of the inculpatory details. I think its going to come down to this transcript, as bad as it is, versus a much more fullbodied, real sort of recitation of a campaign, not simply a suggestion to force ukraine and lets be clear about this, by the way. They had already rejected this suggestion. When he says, i want you to investigate, hes putting pressure to come up with a certain conclusion that has dirt on his political opponent and thats i think well have to see, but thats the reason why we must see the whistleblower complaint in its fullest and i think it will happen in fairly short order. Theyre negotiating already with his lawyer. Harry litman, matt miller, susan page, thanks to you as
well. In terms of how Congressional Republicans appear to be prepared to push back on this impeachment inquiry, this is what House Minority leader kevin mccarthy, this is what he said about that this morning. It was a dark day for the rule of law that the speaker of the house would claim a president violated the law without ever having any information to judge it on. We know that House Democrats have been indulging their impeachment obsession for nearly three years now. A neverending impeachment parade in search of a rationale. Msnbc political analyst alleys jordan is with me, former aide to the jork w. Bush white house. Thank you for being here. It would seem as if the argument that the leadership is making so far is an argument about procedure. What can we glean, if anything, from that being the argument right out of the gate from republicans . Its going to be very hard to defend a president who is using his official position for personal gain. Were not discussing what was released in this memorandum from the white house. Were discussing procedure, decorum, a very funny topic to discuss in relation to donald trump who is constantly blowing everything up. But right now republicans want to keep the emphasis on the democrats having made a, quote, rash and radical decision, and they are rushing to a conclusion without seeing the underlying evidence. Mora, the senate, as was pointed out a few moments ago, they voted unanimously, a rare show of Support Calling for the president to release the whistleblower complaint. You at the New York Times says
congress steps up trump blinks. It turns out President Trump can push fellow republicans too far. Senate republicans stuck up for themselves and their institution. It goes on to say the rare display of institutional solidarity in defense of American Democracy May prove after femoral. This week mr. Trumps outrages seemed to be stirring lawmakers from their state of political rigidity and passivity. Do we get the sense that this is a water shed moment, that the dam may be breaking or is this one of those situations where three days from now were on to the next . Well, we dont know yet is the answer. I think my greatest concern is listening to republicans in the house, like kevin mccarthy, talk about not the substance as you said, elise, but just spouting Talking Points to the American People. I think thats traubling to me because it suggests theyre not
taking their responsibility seriously. Theyre actually acting as partisan actors first rather than members of a branch that has a responsibility and duty to serve as a check on the Executive Branch no matter who is in office. I think we can actually look to the moderate democrats yesterday for the best argument about how to proceed which is we need to understand the facts. We need to take a case to the American People, and we need to be able to convince members of congress to look at the facts rather than just viewing everything through a partisan lens. I dont think its a rational argument to say the democrats rushed to impeachment. I think nancy pelosi was dragged kicking and screaming that way. Has been for months. Thats right. Im also very curious to see to kind of hear those moderate democrats continue to articulate their argument for impeachment. Yesterday they said this is a very clear case of breach of
conduct by the president that is easy to explain to the American People. They said it was important to them that it was looking forward to an election that hadnt occurred yet. I think im looking to them to see what they do. In the past few moments, weve also gotten word that adam schiff, the Intelligence Chair in the house, of course, he is going to be speaking at noon, roughly 20 minutes from now. Congressman schiff will be speaking on camera taking some questions, were told. Well, of course, bring that to you when it happens. This is also one of those moments, ladies, where i found myself doing this two hours ago, you think, gosh, what would the reaction have been if this had happened when president obama was in the white house . What would the reaction have been . With mitt romney or bill clinton to do with with bob dole. Barack obama as the first
black president , i think its unfathomable. I think every Black American today understands the double standard here is pretty appalling. When we hear from the whistleblower and we have every indication well hear from him or her, do we think that may be enough to jar some republicans, or do we think this is another instance where republicans with going to dig in no matter what . Again, we just heard from Lindsey Graham a few moments ago, basically saying this is all much ado about nothing. I think the strategy for republicans dealing with the memorandum of the phone call is to try to move past it as quickly as everything goes in the trump news cycle. If they can take the initial heat, say its nothing and then roll along. However, its going to depend on what the whistleblowers strategy is here. If this whistleblower has a few more bombshells to drop about a
sustained pattern of misuse and abuse of the position of the president by donald trump, then thats going to have continued impact. You look at how this has been rolled out. It has been a pretty savvy infighter strategy to go initially to the Washington Post ed board and air these complaints. And then the way the fight came about with the ig, with the Justice Department, then going again to the press. Its been a slow trickle, but its gathered momentum. So the whistleblower, were just going to have to see what actually is the meat of those accusations. I want to talk to you about Rudy Giulianis reported role in this. If you havent read this Washington Post article, i would encourage you to do that. Well come back in just a moment. Apparently we have California Democratic congressman ro khanna, one of the Six Committee members with speaker pelosi
charged with carrying out this impeachment inquiry. Congressman, we know oftentimes members of congress, especially certain committees, know a bit more than what has been reported in the newspapers, than what has been shared on cable news. Is this one of those instances where you and your colleagues know even more than whats been reported so far about the phone call and about this whistleblower complaint . Craig, this is an instance when the entire American Public knows what we know in congress because the president has admitted that he pressured the Ukrainian President to get dirt on joe biden. The president is broadcasting that he abused his office. Its not that were privy to any additional information. The president has made it clear that he flauted the constitution and did it in plain daylight. In terms of the inquiry, whats the first order of business for your committee . Well, well be assisting the
Judiciary Committee, tasked as the lead committee on the impeachment committee. The Oversight Committee has jurisdiction over the Inspector General. Weve been focused on why the director of National Intelligence didnt, as required by the law, within seven days hand over the complaint to congress. Why was there an obstruction in that process . Were going to get to the bottom of that issue. Whats the benefit of having these Six Committees, congressman, instead of one select committee that just conducts the entire inquiry . The Judiciary Committee has been working on the Mueller Report and the investigation into the president for months. They are the primary committee tasked with the impeachment inquiry. It would be starting all over and delay the process if a mu committee were created at this point. Congressman, the white house in fact, we just heard
from President Trump a few moments ago, top of the hour. They appear to be positioning their defense as theres no explicit quid pro quo here in this memo on the phone call. Whats your response to that . Thats irrelevant. First of all, we dont know the facts and we need to investigate that. This is a clear abuse of office. I dont think Many Americans believe the president of the United States should be able to enlist the help of a foreign power to interfere in our democracy and dig up dirt on a political opponent. Alexander hamilton warned about this in federal list 68. He said the biggest threat to american democracy is getting help from outside foreign influences. That in itself is abuse, sledding the constitution. Thats what the committee will be focused on. Is the Committee Also going to spend time on focusing on Rudy Giulianis role in all of this, the president s personal
attorney who typically appears to be more of the president s tv attorney . Are we looking at Rudy Giulianis connection to ukraine . We are. Its deeply concerning that a president s personal lawyer would be conducting american Foreign Policy. What expertise does Rudy Giuliani have about ukraine or russia . Why is the president having his personal lawyer conducting some of the most sensitive National Security negotiations for the United States . And committees will call Rudy Giuliani to understand why he is even engaged in Foreign Policy conversations and what specifically he was pressuring the Ukrainian President to do and under whose direction was he pressuring him to do that. Congressman ro khanna on the hill. Congressman, really quickly, a timeline. There has been some talk about how quickly all of this will need to get done so as not to interfere in the campaign primary season that kicks off in iowa the monday after the super bowl. I agree we need to move expeditiously. Partly, we cant have interference in the 2020 election. Some of my colleagues and i have been calling forgetting this done before thanksgiving. At the very least it needs to be done by the end of the year. We shouldnt have this unresolved before we begin the 2020 election. Congressman ro khanna, thank you. Stay close, please. Thank you. Thank you. Elise and mara, let me bring you back into the conversation. Going back to this giuliani angle. We have the headline from the Washington Post. But i would encourage folks, if you get a chance, read this thing. Giuliani pursued shadow ukraine agenda as key Foreign Policy officials were sidelined. Here is the key thing, paul manafort, President Trump, Rudy Giuliani. What do we know about their interest in ukraine . Here is whats interesting about ukraine, and i am not a
Foreign Policy expert but ive learned a lot. Essentially what we have is a proxy war fought on the global stage. Ukraine has sought to join nato and the Western Alliance for some time now, and Vladimir Putin sees that as a threat and does not want them to do so, does not want them admitted to the Western Alliance. Essentially the United States has an interest in strengthening Western Alliances to make the world safe for democracies like hours. Its in our interest to have a strong ukraine which is key to understanding why these allegations against the president are extremely serious because the idea that we would withhold aid to ukraine is really dangerous. Thats actually against our national interest. Its also in the interest of Vladimir Putin. And i think that is the context that sometimes we miss from these conversations. You crane has been in a kind of
lowkey war now for years. There are about 13,000 people who have died, with russia. That started with the annexation of crimea, and it has continued to this day. So when you actually look at the transcript of the call, and i would urge americans to read the actual its not a transcript. I want to be clear. Excuse me. A memo put out by the white house. Put out by the white house. I think its important we see the entire whistleblower complaint. The president of ukraine is flattering President Trump to no end, talking about how when he came to the United States he stayed at trump tower. Thats right. He is in a position in which he desperately needs, you can sense the desperation, he needs american support to maintain the independence of ukraine in the face of russian aggression. The president of the United States, the idea that he would put his own political interests
in front of that of ang ally and that of the American People, thats whats at stake here. Thats what is actually the zauns of the concern. This needs to be investigations as does Rudy Giulianis role separately needs to be investigated as well. What also continues to fascinate me about Rudy Giuliani is he continues to show up and do interviews. He pops up all the time, and half the time contradicts himself in the span of 30 or 45 seconds. Its as if no one has said to him, mayor, you dont have to go on tv. It continues to boggle the mind. He is distracting, deflecting, as long as Rudy Giuliani is taking incoming, thats less incoming that donald trump himself is taking. Another point i would make about ukraine and how it just keeps popping up in this National Domestic political conversation is there is a whole lot of money
to be made over there. The country has dealt with smouch corruption for so many years and so you have american lobbyists and former officials going back and forth. Some working on the pro democracy side, some working on the pro russia side. So going after that pot of gold in ukraine has been quite a mission for a certain element of the Political Class in america that donald trump was supposedly going to drain. It is i guess also perhaps unsurprising considering the conversation we just had that ukrainians the leadership in ukraine, theyve already put out a statement pushing back on this idea that President Trump was trying to pressure them or that there was any quid pro quo, in fact. Thank you both, mara and elise. We want to dig more into what we know about this phone call with the Ukrainian President. The call about 30 minutes in length, took place in the white house residence in july. We have the perfect guest to
join us for analysis. Larry pfeiffer has had decadeslong career, Chief Of Staff of the director of cia michael hayden. Also the guy that managed calls like these hayden. He managed calls like these with Heads Of State in the Situation Room under president obama. Larry, thank you so much for carving out a few minutes. Forgive my ignorance here. If its a 30minute phone call how can the memo be just five pages . Theres a very good chance they were using translators on both sides of the call, thats going to slow things down quite a bit. That would be my best guess as to the brevity of the text. Also, larry, there are some ellipses in the memo as well. What do we take away from that . Some people are questioning will that is removing some of the language of the conversation. Its customary by the Situation Room staff that if they dont quite hear something correctly, they would actually indicate inaudible or three words unknown or something along those lines. To have an ellipses there suggests to me it was a pause in the consideration. Probably not a removal of text. If they were going to remove a text, i think they would just put a period there and not put ellipses which raises questions. Anything stand out to you in this memo . It looks an awful lot like the kind of memos that were put out by the nsc of Phone Conversations during the obama administration. The language is a little bit more elegant than perhaps the raw transcript of the Phone Conversation would be. As you can imagine, the starts and stops of a normal telephone
conversation dont appear to be being captured in there. Thats generally standard procedure in a white house, to make the language clear, make it flow a little bit better. The phone call took place from the residence, so the odds that somebody was in the room with the president himself is probably slim. But there could very well have been others on the phone call besides the Situation Room, perhaps sitting in their office spaces, perhaps the National Security adviser, deputy, senior director of the nsc, would be my guess. Larry, President Trump, u. S. Know, quoted in this memo, is saying in part, this is the quote thats getting the most attention right now, i would like you to do us a favor, i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowd strike, i guess you have one of your wealthy people, ukraine has it, there
are a lot of things that went on, i think youre surrounding yourself with some of the same people, i would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and i would like you to get to the bottom of it. Is that an unusual exchange, in your experience, having heard calls with Heads Of State before . Its quite tactical and quite explicit. Normally president s talk in more general terms. It was a bit tactical and precise in its language. Paint a picture for us here. What do these calls usually look like . What do they usually sound like . It doesnt seem like in your opinion this is a phone call that should raise as many red flags as some are raising. A normal Head Of State Congratulatory Phone Call would normally be shorter. It would focus on the individual congratulating on the election, it would include broad Strategic Elements of the relationship we have. Perhaps there might be one or two troublesome spots a president might raise but not usually to the explicit nature that this conversation is. Before that quote i read, the president of ukraine, president zelensky, said in part, i would like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate to the next step, specifically were almost ready to buy more javelins from the United States for defensive purposes. Then the president says, i would like you to do us a favor. Larry, does that sound like quid pro quo for you . I would leave that to smarter people to make that judgment. Thats good spot to leave it. Thank you so much, larry pfeiffer, for helping us sift through that. We want to talk about, just a few hours ago President Trump will be meeting facetoface with the Ukrainian President , volodymyr zelensky. Nbc news correspondent Erin Mclaughlin is in ukraine. Im also joined by Senior Editor ryan heath. Now that the memo has been released, how difficult of a position to say this put the Ukrainian President in . President zelensky finds himself in an extremely difficult position, craig, compounded by the release of this memo, due in part because of the way he responded to President Trump pressing him to look into joe bidens son. I have a copy of a portion of
his response here, the way he handled that. Let me read it to you. He appears in his response to comply with President Trumps request, saying, quote, the next Prosecutor General will be 100 my person. He or she will look into the situation, specifically the company that you mentioned in this issue. Now, we have reached out to the Prosecutor General here in kiev, yet to hear back on that. Unclear if an investigation was formally launched at this point as a result of that phone call. But its creating an incredibly awkward and precarious position for president zelensky going into this meeting with President Trump in some two hours time. Ryan, Ukrainian President , meanwhile, for his part, has tweeted out this picture of him and President Trump. How do we suspect that the two of them will handle the situation 2 1 2 hours from now . Will they be in lockstep . I think we have to remember that trump has quite a few adults in the room who are going to try and keep him on a certain track. So youve got curt volcker who is very conventional in Foreign Policy, and the Eu Ambassador for the u. S. Who wants to reset relations between ukraine, eu, and u. S. He wants to move this into the tractional zone. It is quid pro quo because everything trump does in the of any policy world is of a transactional nature. I dont think theyre going to be in lockstep around this transcript. Theyll be sticking to discussions on what ukraine can do for the u. S. And how they can Work Together to push Angela Merkel to a different policy line. Do we still have erin in
kiev . Oh, good, we do. Erin, to this transcript here for moment, President Trump is asking president zelensky to talk to Rudy Giuliani about affairs there in the ukraine. The Attorney General, bill barr, about affairs there in ukraine. Hes not asking president zelensky to talk to, lets say, the ambassador or the Secretary Of State or his National Security head. What do we know about Rudy Giulianis connection to ukraine . We know at this point, craig, that Rudy Giuliani did make contact with officials here in kiev. But i think at this point the key question here in ukraine is did they act on this request, have they launched an investigation into joe bidens son. The answer to that question at this juncture is extremely
unclear. Ive been speaking to high level diplomats here in kiev and theyve expressed their skepticism that Zelensky Woof taken that step. It would be perceived by democrats there in the United States as taking a side, which zelensky does not want to do. He wants to keep ukraine in the space of a bipartisan issue there in the United States, seen as essential to his strategy. Keep in mind, his Key Campaign Promise to become president of ukraine was to end the war in the east. The u. S. Support is absolutely critical to that. Erin mclaughlin there for us in kiev, thank you. By the way, welcome to nbc news. And ryan heath, thank you as well, do come back when we have more time. I will see you tomorrow morning on today. Andrea mitchell reports, picking up our coverage right now. Thank you, craig melvin