So, you know, as claire was saying, there are so many more substantive allegations now including this misuse and abuse of a highly classified Intelligence CommunityComputer Network system. And for people to say that this didnt fall under the dnis purview is wrong. The dni is responsible for maintaining the integrity of those systems. And if it is being used to cover up political corruption, that requires an investigation. And whether or not the senior official was asked to hide that material inside that Computer System. So i do think that donald trump and his associates are in a heck of a lot more political trouble right now than they were 48 hours ago because of the substantive flow of these allegations coming through,
again all reinforcing the theme that this is a corrupt white house that will stoop to doing anything in order to prevail in elections as well as to cover their krucht trackcorrupt track. Weigh in on the idea that President Trump took all of the conduct detailed in the two volumes of the Mueller Report, 150 contacts between his orbit and the russians, and he seemed to improve upon that, he seemed to have been emboldened by getting away with in his view the russia coordination if you will. Yeah, the timing is interesting sorry, well come right back to you. We have to listen to the president. For the economy, we have the best economy anywhere in the world. By far. Weve done so many things that are so incredible with tax cuts and regulation. And i have to put up with adam
schiff on a absolutely perfect phone call to the new President Of Ukraine. That was a perfect call. But adam schiff Doesnt Talk About joe biden and his son walking away with millions of dollars from ukraine and then millions of dollars from china, walking away in a quick meeting, walking away with millions of dollars. He Doesnt Talk About joe biden firing a prosecutor. And if that prosecutor is not fired, hes not going to give him money from the United States of america. They dont talk about that. My call was perfect. The president yesterday of ukraine said that there was no pressure put on him whatsoever. None whatsoever. And he said it loud and clear for the press. What these guys are doing, democrats, are doing to this country is a disgrace. And it shouldnt be allowed. There should be a way of stopping it. Maybe legally through the courts, but they will tie up our country. We cant talk about gun
regulation, we cant talk about anything because frankly, they are so tied up, they are so screwed up, nothing gets done except when i do it. Im using mexico to protect our border because the democrats wont change loopholes in asylum. When you think of that, and i tell you, i want to thank mexico. 27,000 soldiers they have. But think of how bad that is. Think of it. Where we use mexico because the democrats wont fix our broken immigration system, we need their votes. If we dont get their votes, we cant do it. And the republicans are all on board. They want to fix it. But the democrats wont do it. They dont want to talk about infrastructure, about lowering drug prices, they dont want to talk about anything because they are fixated on this and nancy pelosi has been hijacked by the radical left and Everybody Knows it. Thank you. That was donald trump standing where lots of other
president s have stood but saying things that im not sure weve ever heard. Director brennan, donald trump repeating some of his smears and lies against the bidens, obviously convinced that if he says it often enough and amplified enough on fox news, enough people will believe it is true. Those claims not true. But the whistleblower was someone who worked for him. The whistleblower complaint went to an Inspector General who was appointed by him. The Inspector General went to his boss the acting dni who was also appointed by him, a man who on the job 42 days today went up to congress and said that the whistleblower followed the letter and spirit of the law and was indeed credible. So im not sure how that lands at the feet of the democrats, mr. President. Director when in abrennan, we w talking about the problems that this president has because of the pace of the story and really because of the president
corroborating some of the worst and most devastating allegations about his conduct, about his holding military aid for ukraine, which is at hourly risk from the russians over their head until and unless he investigates the bidens. Yeah, i think that trump is hoping that he has sufficiently lowered the standards of what is acceptable on the part of the office of the president and has gas lighted the American Public that he can push these things out and not be held accountable. But i think with this growing crescendo of allegations and evidence that are sort of reinforcing thesethemes, what i hear is he knows that he is on trouble, he will go on the counter attack. But i think that right now what will be most interesting to watch is whether or not the republican lawmakers and those from the republican party, the administration, william barr and others, will go down with the
trump titanic because i do think that it is listing badly, or are they going to at this late hour find a conscience of us allnd do wh and do what is right. So i think the coming days are going to be quite worthwhile to watch in terms of how there is going to be i think a weakening and erosion of support for mr. Trump given just the volume and extensive nature of these allegations now. Director brennan, thank you for spending some time with us. Matt miller, there a story in the New York Times that just crossed the wire that should shock us all. Trump attacks whistleblower source and alludes to punishment for spies. The president told a crowd of staff that he wants to know who provided information to a whistleblower about his phone call with the President Of Ukraine saying that whoever did so was close to a spy. And that in the old days, spies were dealt with differently. The remarks stunned people in the audience. These are all really career Civil Servants at usun. I think a total of four political appointees. According to a person briefed on what took place who has notes of what the president said,ed president made the statement several minutes into his remarks until the group of about 50 people intended to honor the u. S. Mission. He at the outset he condemned the former Vice President joe bidens role in ukraine at a time when his son hunter biden was on the board of a ukraine company. So debasing not just his office, but the usun. Those remarks are Tir Guying Becau terrifying. The thing that they have attacked the whistleblower for is not having firsthand information and thats right because the whistleblower talked to a lot of people. If you read the complaint, the
whistleblower cites multiple u. S. Officials who told him about the quid pro quo unless he agreed to relaunch the investigation into joe biden. He reports conversations with multiple u. S. Officials who told him about the white house trying to hide the account of the president s conversation by putting it into a classified system. Multiple officials at omb who stated that the pd personally ordered the funds to ukraine be withheld. The president obviously is nervous about it and he is trying to send a signal the whistleblower knows who you are, im going to find out too. And if you talk to adam schiff, if you report what you know, there will be consequences. That is a terrifying message for the president of the United States to send. And if you are a whistleblower or thinking about bloii blowing the whistleblower and you look at how jim comey was treated, andy mccabe who is still facing legal jeopardy for
opening a full field investigation into the president , i look at how all the National Security officials have sounded some sort of alarm, this is the playbook. This is the playbook and usun are diplomats. This is an embassy, an official United States embassy. So you are saying to american diplomats that the former Vice President of the United States is according to eli stokeles twitter, he had a tweet on this saying that he called him sleep li pi joe, asleepy joe, all the slurs, a political speech to an embassy. This is take Liis Traditionallyk them all and this reminds me of his trip to the cia. And nothing has changed. Mike pompeo at the same time only moments before had given or maybe moments after was giving a News Conference and
said that he had not had a chance to read the whistleblower complaint except the first couple paragraphs. But ill ultimately get a chance to see it. And as i understand it, it is from someone who has second hand knowledge. So he is already diminishing the impact of it taking the talking points. And that each of these actions undertaken were entirely appropriate. So mike pompeo who has according to all reports big political ambitions and has frequently every week either gone back to kansas or duncan satisfion cont media, he has signed on to this. Oh, yeah. Jeremy, lets take this headon. The whistleblower complaint has been investigated by the Intelligence Community watchdog, the icig investigated the complaint. Corroborated the complaint, has spoken to witnesses. And im guessing it has been transmitted and before he could give it the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, he had to corroborate some of its contents. All of that is correct. Although interestingly one of the things that the ig inside the Intelligence Community did not have access to was those detailed notes about the july 25th phone call. Essentially the ig said i dont think that the white house is going to give it to us, so we cant review it. Lo and behold now that weve all seen it, we realize not only backs up exactly what the whistleblower complained of, but it actually is a lot worse. And i just want to kind of step back and note that this is the most significant allegation against a u. S. President in our countrys history. The two impeechachments before
this is about National Security, it is about the sanctity of our elections. Weve never had an allegation like this leveled against an american president. Weve never had an Impeachment Discussion on the floor of the United States congress in which National Security and sachkity y i sanctity of elections was what members of congress would be voting on. And i pl and i predict that we will see a very rapid effort probably before nancy pelosi to have a narrowly tailored Impeachment Vote on the floor related to this one issue. Did the president say to the President Of Ukraine i need a favor though. If you want defense support, youre going to have to play ball with us, you will have to help me in my president ial election. Yes or no. As beto orourke would say, dont we already know the answer to that . We do and i dont know how anybody will say that somehow that is appropriate for the
president of the United States do. Ben, if you are still with us, this is also an extraordinary time to be a whistleblower. We have a president who moments ago went to a u. S. Embassy and described whistleblowers as spies. Who are deserving basically of the treatment that spies used to get. He also described andy mccabe and jim comey as carrying out acts that were treasonous. What are we dealing with in terms of the risks right now for this whistleblower . Well, nicole, first of all you and i are familiar with embassy greets. You go and thank staff for the hard work that they do. But what were dealing with is a pattern of corruption and bullying that weve seen for three years in this administration. Where essentially if you dont get on board with the president s political conduct, if you dont get on board with his sometimes criminal behavior, you are relentlessly attacked by him publicly. Existing civil ser vantsds of the u. S. Government characterized as a deep state. Intelligence community that found that russia intervened in our election to help trump again dismissed standing next to vladimir putin. The process could you go thatse. So this is a president who september a message to his own government that if you dont get on board with my corruption, im going to come after you. This is what we expect to see in dictatorships. I dont think that we can use Strong Enough language here to describe how unamerican this is. That this is a person who doesnt see the sanctity of the office of presidency and the oath he took to our constitution to defend this nation as guiding his actions in office. All he cares about is his political survival, his attacks on his political opponents. And again at the core of all of this, lets not lose sight there will be process discussions, the attacks that trump launches. There is a clear and already demonstrated allegation that the president sought the help of a country under attack from are
russia by investigating his political opponents. They have to impeach him. That is why this was put into the constitution. You cant have a president run rough shot, krucht the Foreign Policy for his own electoral purposes. We cant have this as america. Did yo you see any irony in fact that donald trump seems to have been emboldened by the investigation that he says totally and full plly exonerated him . He carried out an act that may result in his impeachment. It is very clear that that is what happened. And that was enabled by bill barr who Mischaracterized The Mueller findings. I think trump felt like he had a team in place that was due his bidding and he could fight it out in the court of public opinion. But they had to prove a complex case and prove collusion. Here it is very clear, we can read in the transcript the collusion. And it is not with trump associates, it is happening with President Trump himself. Unbelievable state of affairs. My thanks to ben, jeremy, andrea, claire, matt. Ali velshi will continue our special coverage. It is unbelievable what is going on here. That point is remarkable important not to get lost. Everything we are talking about now, everything that donald trump is alleged to have done was done after the Mueller Report. You know, youd almost think most folks after having gone through Something Like that would sort of say all right, lets be careful not to step in it again. And now it seems that is not the case. He is colluding anew and he will do it bigger and better than before. Remarkable. Today we got our first look at
the whistleblower complaint which says the actions of the president andly team posed risks to National Security and undermined efforts to counter foreign interference. The complaint revolves around a call between President Trump and President Of Ukraine in which trump discussed an investigation into former Vice President joe biden and bidens son hunter. According to the complaint, the whistleblower believed that the president of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference in a foreign country in the 2020 u. S. Election. Also, for more than three you are hours, the acting director of National IntelligenceJoseph Maguire was grilled by the House Intelligence Committee over the whistleblower complaint that led to the current Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump. Im not familiar with any prior instances where a whistleblower complaint touched on such complicated and sensitive issues including
executive privilege. I believe that this matter is unprecedented. You dont believe are the whistleblower is a political hack, do you, dwreblgirector . As i said before, i believe the whistleblower is operating in good faith. You have not investigated the veracity or the truthfulness of this complaint. Thats correct, ranking member. The determination on credible was made by the ic Inspector General. We consulted with the White House Counsels Office and were advised that much of the information in the complaint was in fact subject to executive privilege. A privilege that i do not have the authority to waive. At anytime over the last month that you held this complaint did the white house assert executive privilege . Mr. Chairman, i have endeavored i think that is a yes or no question. Did they ever assert executive privilege . They were working through the Executive Privilege Procedures in deciding whether or not to
exert privilege differenexecuti. So they never exerted it . If they did, we would not have released the letters yesterday and all the information that has been forthcoming. Do you think it is appropriate that you go to a Department Run by someone who is the subject of the complaint to get advice or who is a subject or implicated in the complaint for advice as to whether you should provide that complaint to congress . Did that Conflict Of Interest concern you . Mr. Chairman, when i saw this report and complaint, immediately i knew that this was a serious matter. Sir, i have to work with what ive got. This latest gambit to overturn the peoples mandate is unhinged and dangerous. They should end the entire dishonest grotesque spectacle and get back to work to solving
problems which is what every member of this committee was september he sent here to do. Judging by todays charade, the chances of that happening anytime soon are xi zero to non. The Inspector General found the complaint credible. Did you also find it credible . I did not criticize the Inspector Generals decision on whether or not it was credible. My question was whether or not it meets the urgent concern and the seven daytime frame that would follow. My question i have no question in his judgment that he considered it a serious matter. The issue that i dealt with and you would concur would you not, director, that this complaint alleging serious wrongdoing by the president was credible . It is not for my to judge, sir. Do you believe that the whistleblower was spying on one of our Intelligence Agencies or
spying on the president . S a i said several times so far this morning, i believe that the whistleblower complied with the law and did everything that they thought he or she thought was responsible under the Intelligence Community whistleblower protection act. I want you for just remember that last thing that the dni just said. Because he was asked by a member of congress about whether or not he thought the department of director of National Intelligence thought the whistleblower or other staff were spying on the president. And the director of National Intelligence said he believed that they were working this good faith in the interest of the country. Because well come back to that whole issue of spying on the president in a moment. But right now i want to take a look at what that whistleblower complaint is all about that lays out the concerns over President Trumps july phone call with ukraines president. The Whistleblower Makes clear that they are describing secondhand knowledge according to the complaint he or she says
quote, multiple white house officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that after an exchange of pleasantries, the president used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests. The whistleblower reports that the white house officials told me they were directed by white house lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the Computer System in which such transcripts are typically stored. Can you imagine this . This appears to cause the whistleblower to get concerned about a coverup. So the whistleblower later says, quote, this was not the first time under this administration that president ial transcript was placed in to this Code Word Level System solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive rather than National Security sensitive information. You are not supposed to put stuff in the code word protected system, prevents a number of people from getting access. You do that when there is a National Security issue, not
when you just dont want people to find out what you said on the phone call. The complaint names multiple officials including President Trump, Vice President mike pence, Attorney General bill barr, Rudy Giuliani, a dozen white house officials, counselor of the State Department Kirk Volcker who was Special Representative for ukraine, Gordon Sundland and u. S. Attorney for the district of connecticut. And apparently to highlight the gravity of Rudy Giulianis involvement specifically, the complaint reads state Department Officials had spoken with mr. Giuliani in an attempt to contain the damage to u. S. National security. A lot of interesting reading there. We have it all on the website. Joining me now Charlie Savage who just wrote a piece about his takeaways. And also reporter on
counterterrorism for the national post. And jill wine bank, she served under nixons impeachment and later as general country sell of the army. And richard painter, et licks lawye etices lawyer. And New York Times reporting that President Trump told a crowd of staff from the United States mission to the United Nations that he wants to know who provided information to the whistleblower about his phone call with the President Of Ukraine saying that whoever did so was close to a spy. Quote, close to a spy and that, quote, in the old days spies were dealt with differently. What do we know about this, what is the implication here . Thats right, this is new reporting by my colleague Maggie Haberman. What appears to have happened, trump was up in new york today as part of the u. N. General Assembly Effort and he spoke
behind closed doors to a group of diplomats almost all of whom except for the ambassador to the United Nations herself are long time career diplomats, not political appointees. And he went after whoever it was in the white house who had told the whistleblower about his phone call to the ukraine president in july, the one that we all saw the reconstructed transcript of yesterday. And implied that this person was or those people, sources to the whistleblower, was a traitor, were traitors. And hinted that they should be shot essentially. Entirely amazing in a world that nothing amazes anybody anymore. The whole point of protecting whistleblowers is so that they can feel safe usually from losing their job. Generally speaking in 2019, protections shouldnt be that someone gets shot for telling you that there is a National Security concern in the white
house. Well, psychologically deranged and it will get worse. Were already dealing with a president who refers to the press as the enemy of the people. That is language that was used by adolf hitler in his campaigns in 1932. And this is a dangerous man, donald trump, and he will get more dangerous. He is referring to a whistleblower as a spy. He refers to democrats as enemies of the people. He continues to violate the constitution. And now he will try to drag mike pence into this and mike pence may very well be culpable, but donald trump is turning on his Vice President and pointing to him and maybe sending a message to the Senate Republicans that if he is asked to resign, he may take pence with him. This is a very dangerous situation for our country right now and it is amazing that we continue to let this man be in charge of Nuclear Weapons and
have the ability to start a war. Jill, lets talk about some of the things that came out of the complaint today. One which i thought most interesting was this idea that transcripts are kept, full transcripts, but yesterday we got reconstructed memo. And you remember from watergate that reconstructions of conversations or everyone what Richard Nixon called transcripts, didnt turn out to be the transcripts of all the tapes. Transcripts stay on one computer unless there is a National Security reason for them he to stay on a different server. And this complaint suggests that there was no reason no National Security reason why people Shouldnt Have had access to the president s conversation with the President Of Ukraine. There were very good political reasons to keep that from happening. You have very correctly summarized the situation. Only difference between watergate and what is happening now, during waterwatergate, ric nixon did provide totally fake transcripts. He omitted all the parts that were incriminating and made up things thatredacted and also ma things. If this summary that we now have is anywhere near accurate it is very damning. Completely inkrichl natucrimii acts of the president. Which mean thats is not very good at creating a fake transcript. So i cant even imagine how bad the actual transcript is that this is what weve been shown. Then he starts it is a hoax, democrats are bad, you should be looking at them, they are the ones who did all the wrong things. This is not a witch hunt, this is right in front of the American People. All they have to do is go on the website and they will see the actual language that he used in talking to president zelensky, they will see the complaint, they will hear what else fills in the context of this. This is a clear and simple case of an impeachable and criminal offense because it does violate laws to ask for something of value and no question this is something of value. People pay a lot of money for opposition research. So now youre asking a Foreign Government who cannot contribute to your campaign for that kind of help. It is illegal, it is impeachable in addition. Ive got democratic senator from maryland ben cardin standing by. I know that you have to go in a micht so minute so i want to get your take on everything weve heard. We know that you support an Impeachment Inquiry. But tell me where you are now, what has changed in your mind in the last 72 hours or so. We now have direct information about the president of the United States setting up a phone call with the President Of Ukraine, the purpose of which of course ukraine needed the u. S. Help, needed the funding, needed military equipment. And the president set it up for him to ask ukraine to do a favor for him to get dirt on his opponent. You couldnt be anymore clearer the information that is in this transcript. So it is not a full transcript, so there is still a lot more information. Today we heard in the hearings that weve had about the whistleblower, there is certainly a lot more information that Congress Needs to get. The process needs to go forward. The house has Impeachment Inquiry, they need to proceed with that. It needs to go where it needs to go and we shouldnt prejudge, but allow the prz ocess to go
forward. So are you satisfied that if an Impeachment Inquiry goes forward as it seems to be about to happen in the house, that that will get the necessary information in addition to things that perhaps were not covered by the Mueller Report . Do you think that is the process . I know it has been extremely difficult to get information out of this administration. So i hope that they can get everything that they need. Looks like in this particular case there are enough witnesses that were present during this one conversation, there has been other conversations that have taken place. I think that we have the capacity to get to the source of the information about the president s intent with the President Of Ukraine. And i want your response to Maggie Habermans reporting in the New York Times that just now President Trump has said to a gathering of staff from the United Nations, he wants to they who provided the information to the whistleblower about his phone call saying whoever did so was, quote, close to a spy and that, quote, in the old days
spies were dealt with differently. That is some kind of inflammatory language, never mind the kind of thing that puts a chill on actual whistleblowing which we depend upon in business and politics to keep lights shining into places where there is no light. Democracy depends upon checks and balances and abuse of power. Whistleblowers are critically important in that. The president s language is outrageous in this regard. You think that he would have learned. Interference in 2016 elections, now he is trying to get interference in the 2020 elections and now trying to say that the people trying to do their Constitutional Responsibilities are traitors. That is outrageous. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for joining me, Senator Cardin of maryland. Back to my panel. Devlin, what is your takeaway from what weve heard this
morning . It is a complicated layered issue. Did anything come into sharp relief for you as a result of what we heard from the director of National Intelligence . Not so much from the director because he was largely trying not to be too committal in this process. But i think what stands out to me when you read this complaint, it is not republicans are trying to argue that this is all hearsay, all secondhand information. What is remarkable to me about the complaint, it is a roadmap of other people to ask about this besides the whistleblower, other witnesses, other places to find evidence of what this whistleblower says happened. So i think in that way the document is very important because it is a roadmap to congress to say to the degree that you care about this, and clearly a lot of people care very much, you just have to go talk these people and they can tell you that this is a real problem and it really happened. It is all entirely provable or disprovable. So 2340b has to put any weight on this whigs other than to
follow the leads. Right. It exists in the Computer System and in the memories of those people. So richard, why does it become complicated . What devlin said would solve this problem entirely. We wouldnt have to have the right and left on this, we wouldnt have to have republicans and democrats. I mean im sure we would, but the fact is we could just check this information out. Well, absolutely. And House Of Representatives needs to do that immediately. And start drafting articles of impeachment so this can go over to the senate. We have a president who has been caught red handed and now he is saying that whistleblowers should be shot. This is the man who is in charge of our military. This is a very dangerous situation unless the House Of Representatives moves quickly to impeach him and the senate has a trial, we need to find out the facts. It is right there in the records. They can call those people to testify. Rudy giuliani, Attorney General,
everyone else mentioned can get the electronic records and by the way, this transcript of the call needs to be released, the entire transcript. That is not classified. There is no National Security interest in that. Ukraine has a copy, search a recording of that phone call. This is not a conversation during world war ii. Is this a transcript of a call in which our president thought to extort assistance from a foreign power. We need the entire transcript, all the backup records need to be september to tnt to the sena proceed we removing this president. Jill, let me ask you about the where is waldo in all of this, Rudy Giuliani. This guy pops up everywhere. Why would Rudy Giuliani where in your mind would you understand Rudy Giuliani getting an assignment from the State Department to represent u. S. Interests in ukraine while being
donald trumps personal attorney . Rudy giuliani has never represented the interests of the United States. He has always represented his clients interests. And there is no question about that in terms of my view. I think what Congress Needs to do is to go to fact witnesses. That would of course include giuliani, but it would also include all the people who overheard this conversation, who know about the storage of the data and why it is in this strange code named protected area instead of just in the normal place that it should be. That is what we need to do in the same way that the Mueller InvestigationShouldnt Have started with mueller. This shouldnt start with the dni. You need the fact witnesses, the sub be stastantive witnesses wh tell what happened. That is where you get the credibility and where you get a persuasive case that is com spelling to people. That is where id like to be. But i would say that the
president has made a big error in judgment because he thought thatuld excull pay the him and he released it. That is the same mistake Richard Nixon made when he said this tape is not so bad, ill just release it. And that was the smoking gun that led to his resignation and this could be the same. And that version of the transcript, whatever you want to call it, is not exculpatory, so i dont know why anybody thinks that nothing happened. Thanks to all of you. Joining me now, congressman Sean Patrick Maloney who is on the House Intelligence Committee and questioned director of National Intelligence this morning. I want to play an exchange that you had with maguire. When you were considering prudence, did you think it was
prudent to give a veto power over whether the congress saw this serious allegation of wrongdoing to the two on people implicated by it . Is that prudent . I have to work with the situation as it is, congressman maloney. Only the white house can determine or waive executive privilege. There is no one else to go to. And as far as a second opinion, by only avenue of that was to go to the department of Justice Office of legal counsel. So congressman, you put a fine point on something that i think a lot of my viewers are struggling with. A whistleblower according to the dni acting in good faith said he thinks, he or she thinks, someone may have broken the law and not acted in the u. S. National security interests. Follows the process exactly what he or she was supposed to do and then the director of National Intelligence goes to the people who 4i6 be might have been doing something
inappropriate and says do you think we can talk about this. Right. I mean, it screams conflict. And unfortunately, i think that the director is it a good man, but he put himself in a box and really the walls in that box were constructed by the president s lawyers and the Attorney Generals lawyers and of course those are the two peoplism pli it came d implicated. You cant have a whistleblower go to the boss and say can i tell the public, you know, the things you are doing wrong. That is not how it works. And we wrote a statute specifically to guarantee that whistleblowers information would come directly to congress because in that statute, there is no provision for going to the white house. There is no provision for checking on a privilege that has not been asasserted, in provisi for going to the Department Of Justice for some routine jurisdictional review. That is not in the statute. What the statute says is 7 days goes to the congress and you can comment on it. Instead, the director of National Intelligence clearly because of how weighty these
allegations were went to the white house and the Attorney General but in so doing put the fox in charge of the hen house. And there is a lot of danger with that including that we have laws to protect the whistleblower for a reason. There are others referred to in the complaint from whom he or she says that they got the information from. The response to that from the president at the United States mission at the United Nations was that he said that whoever did this, whoever talked to that whistleblower, was close to a spy and in the old days smis were dealt with differently. We dont have a great history in the United States of deciding the people who have either political motivations or other motivations that go against the president are spies. And treating them properly. This goes into very, very dangerous territory. Well, it also underscores how what follow folly it is to go t
people hired by in a man and ask if you can disclose his wrong doing to congress. But beyond that, i mean, just think about what the president is saying. He is basically putting a bullseye on anybody who disagrees with him, anybody who has the temerity to step forward and point out that there is egregious wrongdoing. This aint some process conversation, this is about as im sure you have been covering the president leaning on a foreign leader threatening to withhold u. S. Aid and asking him to smear a domestic political opponent back here. That is soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 president ial election and of course for the president to act as though the person revealing that wrongdoing should be somehow punished or worse is outrageous. But it is a long pattern with this president. Director of National Intelligence pointed out that he is committed to protecting the identity of the person, but id also like to have the person
have security furnished by the congress. Im worried about this persons safety because we want to encourage other people to come forward, not to silence the one who did. That is exactly what the president is not doing by saying that they are like spies. Congressman, good to see you. Thank you for joining us. Joining me now, democratic senator and president ial candidate cory booker. Your committees would be very interested in this topic. Senator, good to see you. I want to ask you again about this particular reporting from the New York Times, Maggie Haberman reporting that the president has just told a crowd of staff from the United States mission to the u. N. , quote, i want to know who the person who gave the whistleblower the information is because that is close to a spy, you know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right . We used to handle it a little differently than we do now. Putting aside what he said shoot them is what we used to do. The treason thing. The idea that someone identified that there might have been some problem with the way the president was dealing with the President Of Ukraine as it related to National Security, donald trump is now referring to as treason. Well, it is not surprising that donald trump doesnt know the difference between patriotism and treason. If there is any treasonous actions here, it is coming from the white house as being indicated by what were discovering. So here again donald trump sounding more like a threaten e thug. And his rhetoric, you know, he gives license to people to do dangerous things. From hes failure to condemn White Supremacists to even the way that he talks about what is patriotic duty. And so right now, we have a courageous individual who basically wasnt served right by the director of National Intelligence who did wrong by
the law and should have gone right to congress, but now we have implications of a betrayal of ones office. And so this is weighty stuff. And this ruthless recklessness of this president is what has gotten him into this situation in the first place and it is time that the country puts aside partisanship and begins to do what will be a very historic potentially nationchanging investigation that must go forward. Kind of interesting, my. Caller league Nicolle Wallace was making the point that the president got through if better or worse the Mueller Report, continues to call it a hoax and witch hunt and then this happened after that. Almost feels like the president was emboldened by the Mueller Report. Now something has happened that actually takes him closer to article of the impeachment than
the entire time the mueller. Reporter was on treport was table. In the Mule Remembeller repo are ten counts that indicate obstruction. Pretty outrageous things that came out of president s mouth that were bullying tactics, trying to influence individuals to do things against their constitutionally sworn duties. So i just see a consistent behavior of this president who doesnt understand that the office he holds is the peoples office, not his. And as a member of the Foreign Relations committee, ive been to ukraine. Ive gone to eastern ukraine. The region that is under attack. Met with military soldiers, seen their vulnerability, have them talk to me about colleagues that have been lost to russian aggression, saw how desperate they were for american support and aid, it was a difference it between life and death for them and we as congress in a
bipartisan fashion approved that aid and now were realizing that this president was withholding that aid not for National Security purposes, to pursue his own personal benefit. That is outrageous and in my opinion, that is treasonous. And let me ask you about the Attorney General bill barr. He is mentioned in the memo about the phone call. The president brought bill barr up in the conversation with the President Of Ukraine. Now bill barr may be a Material Witness to this whole thing including if there is an Impeachment Inquiry or whether are or not you on the judiciary speak to bill barr. This becomes very difficult for bill barr to be at the head of anything going on with this investigation because he is a Material Witness. You said may be a Material Witness. He is a Material Witness. He is squarely implicated by the president s words alone. Not to mention other points of evidence. And he will have to answer for his conduct during this period. This was not the president alone. Remember, we now have a whistleblower saying that people around the president moved to cover up the actions because they felt they were implicated. We know from the iran contra favor to the nixon watergate crisis that the people were engaging in coverups engaging in potential Criminal Activity as well. We have a lot of work for dto d. The public needs to know what happened, they deserve to know the truth and i think that we as Congress Republican and democrat have to get to that truth and bring to light. Senator cory booker, thank you for joining me. Were joined now by another 2020 president ial candidate julian castro. Good to see you again. I want to ask everybody i speak to today about this reporting
from maggie hash Man Berman Tha president told the u. S. Missions staff, he wants to know who provided information to the whistleblower about his phone call with the President Of Ukraine saying whoever did as to was close to a spy and in the old days spies were dealt with differently. Coming from the president of the United States to Government Officials, one could say that is a call to action, a call to arms, a call to figure out who these people were and by the way we used to shoot people like that. Yeah, these last two days and with the explosive testimony we heard this morning and now the president s comments which make it even worse, these are sad and disturbing days for our democracy to realize that this is what a dictator does. Target political opponents, Hang Military Aid on whether a foreign country will do your political dirty work. And then when somebody comes forward to report what happened
in a true spirit of patriotism and what they should do suggests that that person should basically be killed. He has it completely wrong. And whether you are republican or democrat, liberal or tari conservative, i hope the American People see that man like this doesnt belong anywhere near the oval office. That is becoming clearer he have si Every Single Day and what we saw today is the beginning, not the end of what is clear here that there was a coverup, there were other witnesses, and now they need to be held accountable and to testify about what happened. It is also true that you still have republicans that are mouthing these talking points. And i hope that they go and get each of these republicans both in the house and senate especially these folks like cory gardner and john cornyn who know that they are living in states that, you know, they could lose their election next year. This is all substantive, but there is also of course a political element to it. Why dont they tell the people that president behaves like this deserves to be in that oval office. 10 that so that is the essence of how this compares to thing. Republicans were not in favor of pressuring Richard Nixon but as hearings came out and evidence brought to bear, people understand their political friendship, never mind doing the right thing, but people were made to understand their political fortunes were now tied to making the right decision. For some reason, republicans have to the come to that conclusion. There is no republican calling for an Impeachment Inquiry, not articles of impeachment, but an Impeachment Inquiry as a result of this. What may be happening, there is some evidence to suggest that even though those politicians, the republican politicians have not yet seen the light, that actually republicans themselves, just every day americans who are republicans, may be. There was a poll today that suggested that 22 of
republicans strongly support impeachment if its shown that President Trump strongarmed the ukrainian leader zelensky to investigate joe biden and his son or he would withhold military aid that and 10 more than that somewhat support impeachment. You have 32 , a third of republicans out there, that say they could support some sort of impeachment if these are the facts. I believe thats going to grow, just like it grew during the watergate era. Thats the thing that Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump are so afraid of. Theyre trying to deflect and deny right now, but they cant avoid when the American People see this evidence and hear this evidence for themselves. Theyre scared of that. You were what the first president ial candidate to call for the impeachment of the president. Nancy pelosi has resisted this and there may be political calculations in that, there may not be, its hard to know where the country is on this. We have not had hearings that expose some of the stuff that might change peoples minds. What does the process look like to you . This Impeachment Process could be a long process and youre in the middle of running for president right now. What it looks like to me is that theyre going to focus right now on this matter of trumps dealings with president zelensky of the ukraine, that is the matter in front of them and other committees doing their own investigations, but my understanding it is the formal Impeachment Inquiry moves forward its going to focus on that. If these other committees in the house uncover other evidence of other potential crimes, then i think that should be added along the way to the Impeachment Inquiry. They have something that they need to move forward with right now and they have other witnesses who can be identified and other information that should get in front of congress, so theres nothing stopping them from Going Forward now. They need to begin that
immediately. We saw we talked last week at the climate frepconference, tomorrow you and i are going to be speaking as part of the Latitude Conference that is under way in san diego. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow in san diego. Thank you for joining me. See you then. Up next, what went on before and after President Trumps phone call in ukraine. Were going to be live in kiev. Still to come a live interview with Congressman Jim Hooims who questioned the director of National Intelligence earlier today. National intelligence earlier today. But dedication can get you there. Easily set, track and control your goals right from the chase mobile® app. Chase. Make more of whats yours®. Paneras new warm grain full of flavor, color,. Full of woo full of good. So you can be too. Try our new warm grain bowls today. Panera. Food as it should be. [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this,
this, and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. And i recently had hi, ia heart attack. It changed my life. But im a survivor. After my heart attack, my doctor prescribed brilinta. Its for people who have been hospitalized for a heart attack. Brilinta is taken with a lowdose aspirin. No more than 100 milligrams as it affects how well brilinta works. Brilinta helps keep platelets from sticking together and forming a clot. In a clinical study, brilinta worked better than plavix. Brilinta reduced the chance of having another heart attack. Or dying from one. Dont stop taking brilinta without talking to your doctor, since stopping it too soon increases your risk of clots in your stent, heart attack, stroke,
and even death. Brilinta may cause bruising or bleeding more easily, or serious, sometimes fatal bleeding. Dont take brilinta if you have bleeding, like stomach ulcers, a history of bleeding in the brain, or severe liver problems. Slow heart rhythm has been reported. Tell your doctor about bleeding new or unexpected shortness of breath any planned surgery, and all medicines you take. If you recently had a heart attack, ask your doctor if brilinta is right for you. My heart is worth brilinta. If you cant afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. Welcome back to velshi and ruhle. The whistleblower complaint about President Trumps phone call with ukraines leader is shedding new light on apparently what happened after the call. According to the complaint a day after the call, u. S. Special representative for ukraine negotiations kurt volker visited kiev and met with president zelensky. Volcker was accompanied in his meetings by u. S. Ambassador to the European Union gordon suddenland. The ambassadors reportedly provided advice to the ukrainian leadership about how to navigate the demands that president had made of mr. Zelensky. Joining us now, richard engel, chief Foreign Correspondent from ukraine, reporting on ukraine closely since 2014 and covered the political uprising there, investigated Paul Manaforts dealings there and you just spoke to the former Deputy Foreign minister moments ago. What have you learned . Well, officials here in kiev are terrified about Whats Going On In Washington right now they are in an incredibly weak position, a position here many felt President Trump tried to exploit. This country is fighting a war against a Superior Rival and adversary namely Vladimir Putins russia. They are completely dependent on the United States for political support, for military support, so when the Trump Administration withheld about 400 million worth of military aid and then had this now public phone call in which the president asked for this favor to reopen what had been a closed investigation into then Vice President bidens son, a lot of people here felt pressure. The former Deputy Foreign minister told me that ukraine wants to stay out of this and
wants this to go away. They dont know who is going to win. They dont know if President Trump is going to prevail because hes prevailed in other cases in which case they dont want to say anything bad about him. Many Government Officials have gone silent. I cant tell you how many phone calls weve made today and people dont want to speak on this because they dont know if the democrats are going to get their way or if President Trump is going to remain in office and perhaps win another term in which the ukrainians there have to watch their language very, very carefully. Richard, is this the is this occupying as much of the ink and time in ukraine as it is in america right now . Is this a big deal for everybody who follows ukrainian politics . It is not occupying a lot of time. If you talk to people on the streets, they are not openly talking about it. It is not getting extensive coverage in the media. They are afraid of this. Officials here are and the people are aware that this