Transcripts For MSNBCW Weekends With Alex Witt 20190921

Phone call between trump and the ukrainian president. I think this is beyond just a phone call. This is going to be a Common Thread line that were going to be talking about. It doesnt matter what i discussed. I can say that it was a totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation. Inside the complaint. How could the whistleblower have gotten access to a president s phone call. Insight this hour from a former intelligence officer. Also among the 2020 contenders, whos the next one out . Well, new nbc reporting on a memo to senator cory bookers campaign staff. Plus, back to the beach, a Cleanup Mission bringing attention to a worldwide problem. But new today, the president lashing out after explosive reporting that he pressured the president of ukraine to investigate the son of former Vice President joe biden. The president this morning tweeting a highly edited video of biden. The style is similar to a video he previously tweeted to attack biden. Trump also repeatedly accusing the media of not reporting about Hunter Bidens business dealings in ukraine. But National News outlets indeed have reported about hunter working for a ukrainian gas company. This all comes as the wall street journal reports that in july, President Trump urged the ukrainian leader about eight times to investigate hunter biden, according to people familiar with the matter. A source tells the journal it does not appear the president offered anything in return, but the same month after that call, the administration did block aid to ukraine until just last week. Joe biden is calling for the president to release the transcript of his call, and heres the president yesterday. Do you know the identity i dont know the identity of the whistleblower. I just hear its a partisan person, meaning it comes out from another party. But i dont have any idea, but i can say that it was a totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation. Did you discuss joe biden, his son, or his family with the it doesnt matter what i discussed, but i will say this, somebody ought to look into joe bidens statement, because it was disgraceful. Nbc White House Correspondent Kelly Odonnell is joining us with more on all this. Kelly, clearly, the president there, hes defending, deflecting on his story. So, what happens now . Reporter well, there are a couple different tracts tracks on this. Right now the president s at his golf club in virginia and he seems to be the chief defender in his administration, talking about this issue. And by that, i mean officials here and weve been working this hard over the last couple of days, have not been talking to us in any meaningful way about what comes next, what steps they might take. We know democrats on capitol hill in particular are pushing hard to get access to these secret document, this formal complaint from an intelligence official thats going through the process that concern the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community. So, could the details of that move through congress in a way that may become at least known to congress and then maybe by extension known to the public . And certainly, joe biden is calling on the president to release the transcript or notes of the call with ukraine. And so, there are these different pressure points. What President Trump is doing is using twitter to now sort of fashion a new defense and a new media campaign, if you will, that sounds very familiar to things weve all lived through before. Weve heard him use witch hunt in past instances of controversy and investigation, and now he is doing that again, referring to this as the ukraine witch hunt, saying that democrats and the media have failed in attempts in the past to land a blow that was successful in hurting the president , so now theyre trying again. Thats the president s point of view on this. If we take the bigpicture view, what is this about . If the president used the office of the presidency and sort of the apparatus of government to try to pressure a newly elected president from a smaller and arguably very vulnerable country, ukraine, to do something that would help the president for his own political purposes, finding out information about the bidens, biden being a potential political rival, that could be viewed as an abuse of power. Theres also this dimension of the u. S. Military aid for ukraine, which has now been released, but at the time, that was still a question mark. Now, the reporting that has been done by the New York Times and the wall street journal, not confirmed by nbc news, is that that military aid was not discussed in this call. At the same time, would that have somehow been implicit in this conversation or a part of the relationship between President Trump and president selenski of ukraine . We dont know, but is that part of this . That is part of what needs to be investigated, that needs to be dealt with. If there was an abuse here, how would that be dealt with . Certainly, the administration will likely argue that these calls are part of a classified nature, its executive branch business. Well have to see what happens with this. The other part of this is that the president is trying to muddy up joe biden by raising issues about his conduct as Vice President overseeing obama Foreign Policy on ukraine when his son, hunter, was, in fact, doing business in ukraine. At the time, people said that was a conflict of interest. No wrongdoing was found, but the president s trying to shine a light on that and remind people of those business interactions. Alex . A very comprehensive reporting on a very complicated story. Thank you so much, kelly, for that. Joining me now is former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence and Nbc News National Security contributor frank figliasi. The president is calling this, quote, the ukraine witch hunt. But on the face of what we know, what is your interpretation of this complaint, given all of your intelligence experience . I look at this through two lenses. One is through the criminal laws they might be looking at here that are in play, and the second is through the counterintelligence lens. So lets quickly look at both. The conduct thats alleged against the president squarely fits a very popular, very highly used federal corruption statute that basically says this if youre a public official and youre seeking something of value in return for a promise of an official act by you, youve violated the law. So, the thing of value would be seeking an investigation of your political opponent, biden or his son. The public the official act you could hand them in return for that personal favor would be 250 million in military aid. It doesnt have to be a direct cited quid pro quo. It could be inferred. It could be implied by trump and inferred by the ukrainian. So thats a criminal problem that the president s facing. Now lets look at the general counterintelligence problem. When you seek that kind of personal favor from a foreign leader, you are essentially handing him a means to compromise you. So, i hear a lot of talk about, well, who would have known, who would be in the room, who knows the content of this conversation . Well, its translators, its aides, its people in the Intelligence Community listening to the foreign leader. But lets not forget one of the key people who knows exactly what happened in that conversation, and thats the president of ukraine. At any time now, the president of ukraine, because he now owns our president , can come out and give us the dirt, the details, the skinny on a law that the president may have violated. Thats precisely why you cant do this kind of thing with a foreign leader. One more detail to drill down on, and that being that even if there is no quid pro quo, theres no allegation of withholding money take money out of all of this. If the president is using the office the oval office, to dig up dirt on a potential opponent, how does that play out criminally speaking . First, the statute im referring to, title 18 of the u. S. Code, actually says it could be direct or indirect. So alex, if ive got the ability to give you a ton of cash, and you know that, and i say, alex, i need you to do me a personal favor you can infer that that favor is tied to me giving you that cash. And it doesnt have to be direct. And plenty of Public Officials throughout the United States have been convicted for corruption simply because of an indirect inference or implication. Okay. I want to take a look at this. Earlier, a former fbi double agent, navid jamali, had a different take on the complaint, saying that this person may have been concerned that they were being asked to break a law. Take a listen. I think this is beyond just the phone calls. I think most likely there was a followup action or actions that were meant to reinforce this push to get ukraine to help him. I dont think the person saw the transcript of the phone call or was in the room with the president. Rather, its more likely they were involved in the subsequent action. This could be something as simple as this person got this order they were ordered to act on this specific thing, and they were concerned about breaking the law. But i think that it was also much more practical, which is, they probably didnt want to go to jail. Look, and im reminded that, you remember, Rex Tillerson came out after he left office saying that part of the consternation between he and the president was that he pushed back when he said the president asked him to do things that were breaking the law. So, put all of this together, what you know about this kind of a scenario. You have investigated leaks. How does this play out for you . Well, weve got to get to the bottom of this, and we cant rely on leaks and certain or the yea reporters getting certain tidbits of information. This needs to be explored and its likely this could end up in a criminal investigation. Ive publicly stated that this whistleblower has about a week to decide whether or not the acting dnis going to do the right thing and give the full substance of this to congress. If that doesnt happen, alex, i believe this whistleblower can go to the fbi and say i believe im part of a violation of law. Ive witnessed it or been asked to be a part of it. And that gets the whistleblower out from under any concern that hes going to be he or shes going to be attacked for giving up classified because theyre giving it to the fbi. So i think thats one out here. I also think this is very strong evidence of another reason to move forward with impeachment proceedings. We cant rely on the attorney general here to do the right thing, but clearly, this whistleblowers trying to do the right thing, may have witnessed a crime. I also, by the way, think Rudy Giuliani is heavily exposed here. We keep hearing about executive privilege. Well, remember this, giuliani is the private attorney for the president. Thats not executive privilege. It could be Attorney Client privilege, but that doesnt apply to violations of the law. So, giulianis heavily exposed here. He knows it. The whistleblower may be exposed, but he or she did the right thing. We need to look at others who are not doing the right thing, call them to testify, get them to tell us what they know. Heres an interesting angle, though, put out by the Washington Post in a new article, which writes that the president and the Public Disclosures have become routine and on the implicit theory that the president s alleged offenses cant be that serious if he commits them in full public view. Why does this matter . Why is it a danger to National Security . Well, first of all, the president doesnt get half of the National Security implications of what he does, and i think this is exhibit a. He thinks this is totally appropriate. Hes said repeatedly, it was a beautiful conversation, totally appropriate. Im telling you that right now the president of ukraine owns this president. He could come out and tell us exactly whether this president did something inappropriate or not. We dont want our president in that shape. The other thing is he totally ignores the advice and counsel of the Intelligence Community and gets into these traps. So, we have a president whos simply established repeatedly that he is compromisable, and it takes us right back to the russian allegation of, you know, we all were scratching our heads, saying, could he be compromised . How could that have happened . Weve just watched this play out in the example of ukraine. He could owe something to the russians. He may have asked them to do him a personal favor. And were seeing the evidence in plain sight and no one seems to be making those connections. Thus the effort to get that transcript. Okay. Frank figliuzzi, thank you. Always great to see you. John harwood, editor at large and melanie, welcome to you both. John, now that the wall street journal reports out and it suggested that the president asked the ukrainian president eight times about the biden investigation, what do you think would still be left in a whistleblower report . Well, the actual contents of the conversation. As you indicated in your conversation with frank, we know some things about the substance of the whistleblower complaint. Some people have reported that there was not a quid pro quo suggested on the call, but we dont know that. And of course, the president says it was perfectly fine and appropriate. If that is the case, the obvious answer is to release the transcript or tape of the call. The president and his legal team, both the doj and the white House Counsel, are resisting that. The only conclusion you can draw from that is that it was not appropriate, that it was not a pitchperfect call, as the president says, and anyone with common sense can see that it is grossly inappropriate for an american president to ask a foreign power to damage one of his opponents. Thats not ambiguous. Its not a witch hunt. It is a simple matter of right and wrong, and the president s on the wrong side of it. So, look, melanie, it all started with a whistleblower complaint here, and now were getting the number of times the president reportedly pressed ukraine, that being eight, about biden with this investigation. My question is how did all this information materialize so quickly . Well, reporting in the press, for one, is how were learning about a lot of this information. But democrats are still really struggling to dig deep and to get more details about this whistleblower complaint. I mean, theyre trying to subpoena it, but theyre not getting any luck there. They had a briefing behind closed doors thursday with the Intelligence Communitys Inspector General, and he wasnt able to provide details. And i dont think a public hearing next week with the acting dni is going to produce many results, either. So, the options are limited for democrats. They can either sue and try to get this matter resolved in court, but that could take who knows how long. Theyve also threatened to withhold funding from the office of the dni, which is another potential path. But what youre seeing is democrats are growing increasingly restless and frustrated with the administrations stonewalling, and it really feels like were potentially at an Inflection Point here. I think youre not only going to see proimpeachment, more Democrats Join the proimpeachment camp, but i think youre going to see some of those democrats who are already there on impeachment start to go more aggressively to try to force some action on this issue. Mmhmm. Of everything we know about this whistleblower story, john, what parts are generally believed to be the most egregious . The content of the phone call. And not only that, but the fact that the phone call came a day after Robert Mueller testified before the congress. His testimony was seen by many people as not advancing the ball beyond what was already known, sort of in effect signaling the demise of the Mueller Investigation and its reverberations in congress, and the president felt emboldened enough to do, on this telephone call, precisely what he had disclaimed having done with russia, that is to say, collusion. If you ask a new head of state, if youre the most powerful man in the world, the elected president of the United States, you ask a new head of state to assist you in sullying a political opponent, that is soliciting collusion. Its not just responding to incoming, thats asking for it yourself. If your personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is going over there asking for it, openly asking for it, the president s doing things right out in the open that he was investigated for with respect to russia and claimed he didnt do. You have the acting director of National Intelligence, melanie, whos agreed to testify on thursday before the house panel. He, of course, the one who has refused to relay to congress, as required by law, this whistleblower complaint. Does congress expect to learn anything new . I dont think theyre expecting to actually learn about whats in the complaint, but what ive heard from democrats who are on this committee is that they want to really grill him about what direction he received from the white house in this. They want to know what role there was. In fact, the Washington Post just reported either this morning or yesterday that the white House Counsel was more involved than previously known in directing them not to turn over this information. So, perhaps they could get some details there. But as i mentioned before, at the end of the day, this Trump Administration has been stonewalling the oversight efforts, and its paid off for them. They havent paid any political repercussions for going through this. In fact, its been a very effective strategy for them, so i dont expect them to change course at this point. Speaking of strategy, john, the president todays already tweeted a campaignlike ads, and that includes the media reports about Hunter Bidens ties to ukraine and clips of the former Vice President. Were looking at it there. Has the president already put democrats on defense mode . I mean, how should the party, how should joe biden respond . Well, i wouldnt presume to say how joe biden should respond. We know that he has said that people have looked into his role and that there is no evidence that he as Vice President did anything wrong. Thats not to say that hunter biden was not working as an influence peddler. Of course, he was. Hes trying to surf on his fathers name and reputation for his career. We know that. But if joe biden himself is not involved in that, if he didnt take any actions, if his urging of the firing of that prosecutor was unconnected to his sons work and his sons exposure or the sons companys exposure, thats not really on joe biden. Thats a influence peddling is a very common issue in washington for many people connected to powerful people. But i think, you know, this is something for the house democrats, where theyre all going to have to say, we see what we see, what are we going to do about it . Right now, nancy pelosi is shying away for political reasons from moving ahead on impeachment. Thats going to get harder to do. Okay, john, melanie, good to see you both and having this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Lets go to iowa. Weve been talking about joe biden. Lets go to our nbc road warrior vaughn millard. Youre there at the stake fry and joe biden is expected to be there any moment. Is he within your sight now . Is he there . I think hes here. Reporter youre watching joe biden. He just met up a drum line just greeted joe biden. This is the iowa steak fry. Thousands of folks here four months from the iowa caucus and youve got 17 democratic president ial candidates and i think youre looking at a live shot of joe biden. He was just greeted by a couple hundred of his supporters as well as a drum line here. He is about to talk with reporters here and i think you probably have a better shot from our colleagues camera right now. Joe biden is in front of a fire truck. Essentially, you have the 17 democratic president ial candidates that are all descending here on des moines. This is the big kickoff here heading into these final four months. Were going to take a listen here into joe biden here. How do you plan to address similar issue voters who are prolife . Who are prolife . Well, they should have an open mind about making sure that people have an opportunity to make their own judgments. There are a lot of decent, honorable people who have a different view than they do, and i think they should have the right to be able to have the access to what the Supreme Court has allowed. Mr. Biden who are prolife . Yes. Well, im going to say, they should have an open mind about making sure that people have an opportunity to make their own judgments. There are a lot of decent, honorable people who have a different view than they do, and i think they should have a right to be able to have the access to what the Supreme Court has allowed. Mr. Vice president , how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings . Ive never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. And so, how do you know heres what i know, i know trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if thats what happened . That appears to have happened. You should be looking at trump. Trumps doing this because he knows ill beat him like a drum and hes using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. Should he be everybody looked at this and everybodys looked at it said theres nothing there. Ask the right question. Mr. Biden, if youve never spoken to your son should he be impeached for this . Depending on what the house finds, he could be impeached, but im not making that judgment now. The house should investigate it. The house should investigate this. This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power. To get on the phone with a foreign leader who is looking for help from the United States and ask about me and imply things if thats what happened that appears to be what happened we know thats what giuliani did. This is outrageous. You have never seen anything like this from any president. Is this a preview of the general one of your concerns was about your family being brought into this race. Are you comfortable running a campaign i know what im up against. I know what im up against, a serial abuser. Thats what this guy is. He on buicabuses power anywhere can, and if he sees any threat to his staying in power, hell do whatever he has to do. But this crosses the line. Sir this crosses the line. Im calling the president to release the transcript of the call, let everybody hear what it is. Let the house see it and see what he did. Thats what im calling on. Thank you so much thank you, guys weve got to go thank you. Right this way. I think ive got you guys here. Yeah. So, you just heard joe biden here. He just arrived to the polk county steak fry here in iowa to give you the idea, there are 17 president ial candidates descending on here. Usually this is very much of a celebratory event, kind of like the iowa state fair just last month in which was coming off a couple days after that el paso shooting. Again, very serious allegations that are coming out of washington, d. C. And while this is usually a celebratory event, as you just heard joe biden talk about there and saying that the whistleblowers allegations need to go forward to congress, that the director of National Intelligence needs to turn over not only the whistleblowers complaint, but the white house also needs to turn over the transcript of the president s call with that foreign leader that the whistleblower is alleging a complaint about. You just heard not only that taking place, but also saudi arabia and United States deploying military to saudi arabia. Again, i cant its hard to describe this moment here when youve got 17 candidates, youve got very much of a celebratory activists on the ground, thousands of people that are descending on des moines, but this is no ordinary political season here in iowa. And all of these candidates are going to be talking from the stage, and i think that well be paying attention through the afternoon to see whether the message you just heard from joe biden is a similar message that theyre delivering to the thousands of folks here in iowa. Yeah, listen, vaughn it was extraordinary, the president i mean, the Vice President , rather, former Vice President , he responded at first with a blanket statement saying that he has never spoken to his son, hunter, about any sort of business dealings overseas. I mean, he did that, and then it all got to the attack mode on the president and trying to hold him accountable for the actions that he says are criminal in content. Reporter and pushing back. And you just heard, he was defiant that, as he said, the wrong question is being asked and that folks should not follow this rabbit hole of President Trump or Rudy Giuliani about these allegations and that this puts into peoples minds, essentially, a false narrative about his own familys relations with a foreign nation, saying that that is not the path that folks in the press, quite frankly, should be following him down, saying that the question should be focused clearly on President Trump and his conversations with a foreign leader and the director of National Intelligence refusing to turn over a whistleblower complaint, which by law he is supposed to do, to the intelligence committees of the senate and the house. You just heard the Vice President very defiant about what the question and what the focus of this conversation should be. Okay. Vaughn, thank you very much for that from the steak fry there in iowa. We appreciate it. And by vaughns description and all of you looking at this video and seeing the live event right now, as he said, boisterous. Its an energy drumming up, potentially, also they get more money, people start donating because they feel emboldened and empowered by the candidate that theyre supporting there. There is an issue about money right now. Alex siteswald has been reporting from washington and will join us now. Alex, i want to ask about your reporting regarding cory booker and his campaign, but first, respond to what we heard from joe biden, very emphatically and definitively saying that he had never spoken with his son about any of this is overseas business dealings and going on to say that the proper question to be asked right now is what this president has done, and basically he needs to be investigated. Right. I think this is a strong statement from joe biden, and im sure lots of reporters and others are now going to dig into it and see that is accurate and if it holds up. I think what hes really trying to avoid here is a kind of Hillary Clinton email situation with some question of a scandal, whether theres anything of substance there or not, just that the question of it is hanging over him. So hes trying to blot it out immediately and turn it around, back on trump and say this is not an issue about him and his son, but its really an issue about the white house and the abuse of power and well see what happens on capitol hill to advance those questions. Weve got to wonder how effective hell be to turn this around, because we know that theres already a Trump Campaign ad or campaignlike ad its being described of thats out there. Its raising questions and talking about the Media Coverage that existed about hunter biden and his dealings being, i believe serving on the board of a company that was ukrainian. Right. And as john harwood said earlier, i think its not really in doubt whether hunter biden did try to use his fathers name. This is not uncommon in politics, unfortunately. But whether anything untoward happened is a totally different matter. And trump, who has faced many ethical questions of his own i think is trying to muddy the waters here and say that the candidate who at the moment is leading the 2020 field is the most likely at the moment to be his opponent has his own issues which would really go against joe biden, say what you will about him, he has a perception of being authentic, of being honest. So if trump can try to get into that, tarnish that reputation, that could politically be advantageous for him. Yeah. Can i also ask you about whew originally wanted to talk to you about your reporting about an internal Booker Campaign memo that talking about a beleaguered state of finances within the campaign . What do you know about all this . Yeah, alex. So, cory bookers Campaign Manager this morning sent a memo to staff and supporters painting a pretty bleak picture of the campaigns finances. Hes obviously struggled to get ahead, about 2 in our most recent nbc news wall street journal poll. And what hes saying is if they dont raise another 1. 7 million by the end of this quarter, which is ten days from now, booker might have to drop out of the race. And hes very blunt about this. Theyre definitely trying to use this to raise money, without a doubt, but its a desperate move. Its a hail mary, a healthy coffer and campaign doesnt say theyre going to have to drop out of the race in the next ten days. Right. There are some i guess they could say hes using this to try to drum up money, but thats not the kind of image you want. How much are we talking about . Theyre saying 1. 7 million, which would be a big goal for him in the last ten days of the previous two quarters, me raised 1 million in the First Quarter and 1. 4 million in the second, which included the debate. So, this would be more than he has in the past. Basically what theyre saying in this memo is that the campaign is at an Inflection Point right now, that its not good enough to just continue at the pace that campaigns have been going. They need to build out ahead of iowa and New Hampshire next year and that booker doesnt have the money to do it, and in fact, they argue that only four campaigns have the money to do that, that the top four, joe biden, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, and pete buttigieg, who raised more money than anyone else last quarter, and theyre saying cory booker doesnt want to stay in the race just for the sake of staying in the race, so hes going to kind of use the next ten days as a trial period to see if people want him to stay in, and if not, he might quit. And i think a lot of democrats have been watching this race, theyve been watching this enormous field and theyve been expecting that theyll have a lot of choices come february in the iowa caucuses, and i think what this memo is warning and what ive heard from my reporting from talking to other campaigns is that may not be the case, that a lot of these campaigns are really facing some tough questions right now. All right. Well, you were certainly the first on this story and reporting, so well done, alex seitzwald. Thank you for joining me. Thanks. The president versus the golden state. Why california is suing the white house and it has to do with climate change. The white house and it has to do with climate change. Plants capture co2. What if other kinds of plants captured it too . If these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. Carbon capture is Important Technology and experts agree. 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Its time to make the switch to comcast business and take your business beyond fast. Dont miss out on this limited time offer. Call 18005016000 today. Today, divers in santa monica are joining hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world hitting the beach to fight against ocean trash. Lets go right now to Darsha Phillips with knbc, joining us from the santa monica pier on a beautiful saturday in southern california. What are you seeing there, the efforts to make that region even more beautiful by cleaning it up, right . Reporter absolutely, alex. We are seeing 1,000 to 2,000 volunteers in santa monica helping clean up the beaches, parks, creeks and oceans here in this area, and we see a lot of folks picking up trash on the beaches. Weve also seen some divers go into the water and get debris out of the water. This is one big piece of plastic that they were able to pull out of the ocean just moments ago. This was brought out by a diver. So, this is a lot of the trash and debris that were seeing in our oceans and on our beaches. Were also seeing, again, dozens of volunteers picking up trash with trash bags and buckets, really trying to clean up the area here. Now, this is really part of a much larger event, Coastal Cleanup day is all about millions of people coming together across several countries to help clean up our oceans and parks and our creeks. Now, if you do not have the ability to do that today, you can actually do that on a website called free the ocean. And we spoke to the founder of free the ocean. Shes here as a volunteer. And heres what she had to say. Its really affecting everyone, whether we realize it or not. People, our planet, marine life, its having a detrimental impact. And the issue can seem really daunting, and i believe people want to be a part of the solution. You know, im 23 and just seeing like this Younger Generation coming up and caring so much about it, because i think they realize more than anyone, like, that we need to do something about this. Reporter now, all the data and the debris is going to be collected today and also give folks some information about how they can make some choices on everyday life about trash and debris. Well send it back to you guys. And ill take it. Its a very worthwhile effort there. Thank you so much, Darsha Phillips. Developing this hour, californias leading a lawsuit against the Trump Administration, part of an attempt to stop the white house from revoking the states authority to set stricter rules on Greenhouse Gas emissions for cars and trucks. Joining me is california representative norma torres. Welcome to you, maam. Glad to have you to talk about this. Can you outline to the viewers the details of this legal backandforth between california and the white house in terms of what its all about and the ramifications to californias efforts to combat climate change, if the white house wins in court . This is critical for california. We are in the midst of ensuring that we are able to continue to legislate on behalf and on behalf of the best interests of our constituents living here, and it is real. Climate change has impacted every part of our state of california, and we have joined 22 other states have joined with us in telling the white house, in telling President Trump that it is unacceptable for him to go back into a policy that was written in 1970. And president obama has allowed states like california to regulate for themselves. In my district alone, we have some of the worst air quality in the state of california. We cant control which way the wind is blowing, but we certainly could control how we behave and how we treat our constituents here and how we address this growing issue. And in essence, arent the automakers more in line with what california wants to do . Theyre taking a more comprehensive approach and looking at the Carbon Emissions and the like. I mean, theyre the ones who are also setting standards that are syncing up with what california and these 23 other states are doing. Automakers are not simply responding to what california is demanding of them. Automakers are responding to the consumers. The consumers that are demanding better. The consumers that understand that polluting cars, and that we have to address this issue because it is impacting, number one, our health, it is impacting our food supply, and it is impacting our future generations. What kind of world are we going to leave behind for my children, for my grandchildren and great grandchildren . So, you know, this notion that we are antibusiness because of the legislations that we are putting forward no. California is responding to its consumers. It is responding to its constituents. So, we have California Governor Gavin Newsom who shared this about the legal battle. Lets listen. Really political. Pure politics. And its disgraceful politics. And unless he can get them to back off on the voluntary agreements, then theyre going to go with the higher standards. Trump will lose. Look, the president s taking on the state of california on multiple fronts. That includes targeting the homelessness that he did this week during his trip there in southern california. Is this about politics and issues, or do California Democrats feel theres something personal about all of this, given that california is a state that goes democratic . We all know that President Trump doesnt care about anyone but himself, his own ego. He is now looking at the homelessness issues not only in california but in other states that have resisted his convoluted policies of trying to allow for, you know, big business to continue to pollute our communities and has failed to address many of the growing issues in our communities. If he truly wants to address the issue of homelessness, if he truly wants to help us build the quality housing, the Affordable Housing that we need, not just here in california, but across the country, then we would be dealing with those issues, we would be funding Affordable Housing projects, like we would be fully funding a cdbg budgets for our communities, but yet, that is exactly what hes cutting because he doesnt want to address this issue. What he wants is to continue to be this ongoing negative issues against our community so that he can get reelected, so that he can continue to be the president that has these unethical issues and continues to violate the rule of law. We see right through it. I want to ask you your perspective on this particular issue, because you have a unique one on gun violence. You are the only former 911 dispatcher now serving in congress. So, given your firsthand experience, how could your bill it is the multiple firearm sales reporting modernization act how might that help reduce gun violence in our country . The fact that gun violence and Mass Shootings continues to be a growing problem in our community, this summer alone was the bloodiest summer in america with 46 Mass Shootings across the United States. We need to ensure that everyone who buys two or more long guns and that includes ak47s and ar15s that those gun sales are reported. And currently, that is not the law. You can go and buy, you know, three ak47s, and that information does not currently have to be reported. So, thats what you will address with this. California representative norma torres from, thank you for joining me. Thank you. Whistleblower fallout. 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And joining me now is Danielle Moody mills, host of woke af on sirius xm and host of the democracy podcast, francesco desoto at lbjs school of Public Affairs and republican strategist rick tyler and msnbc political analyst. With a welcome to you all, danielle, ill let you respond first to what you heard the former Vice President say there and we should say that that followed his statement that he, when queeried, said that he had never spoken with his son, hunter, about any of his overseas business dealings. Look, we know that, first of all, that trump is a liar. We know that he is incredibly dubious, that he has used foreign interference before in our elections and that he will do that again. He has said so. He said it on abc with stephanopoulos. So, this is not news in the way that it is, oh, are we surprised that trump is doing this. And i think that joe bidens response is good. Its a forceful one. Him saying that hes going to beat trump like a drum. According to the polls, theyre saying it too, but i think bidens camp needs to make sure that they remind the American People that donald trump is not to be trusted, that he has used foreign interference before, that is against the law, and he needs to continue to do that. Because what is going to happen is that this story is going to meld together with biden and trump, and voters are going to be like, hmm, did he do something wrong . Should we trust him . Should we just stick with the devil we know . And thats going to be the job that his camp needs to Pay Attention to. Is this something you, victoria, agree with, that you think the biden campaigns looking at this like we have to go on the attack . Because its clear the president is going on the attack, having already created a campaignstyle ad thats out there highlighting all this in the Media Coverage of hunter biden. All right, so i have a slightly different take. I think that while this is a huge deal for our democracy, the fact that theres a lack of respect for our institutions and our rules, and this is how democracies fall apart thats the big picture in terms of the actual horse race, i dont see this affecting biden that much. He has shown to be a tough long candidate throughout the campaign. Hes had lackluster debate performances. He, you know, he continues with gaffes. Its just, you know, hes not the biden we saw in 2016. Nevertheless, he keeps that strong positioning in the polls. Continued to be after this last debate. So, i dont think its going to hurt him much. And recently, axelrod came out and said, this could potentially boost joe biden because folks are seeing that trump is really scared of joe biden because he thinks he can beat him, so hes throwing whatever he can at joe biden, which makes folks most confident that he is the democrat to beat trump. So, you know, my crystal balling here, i think it slides off of biden. Do you agree with that, rick . How would you advise i know youre a republican, but how would you advise joe biden to handle this . I mean, if hes being put a bit on the ropes, so to speak, how should he handle this to be most effective . I think he should handle it the way he handled it, that is hes pushing back on it, but it also reinforces his message, im the candidate that is most likely to beat donald trump, beat him like a drum is what he said. And this i agree, this reinforces that message. Its his strongest message. But look, they have to understand, this isnt that complicated to understand hunter biden worked for a company, a gas company that was owned by a ukrainian oligarch. That oligarch was an officer in Viktor Yanukovych he was the corrupt russian former Prime Minister who was ousted and thrown back into russia. It was Paul Manafort who worked foran kovich, for which now, because of his dealings in ukraine, hes now serving a sevenyear sentence. But the timeline doesnt even match up. When biden was trying to throw out the prosecutor his name is Victor Shokan in the ukraine, right, he was trying to throw him out not because he was aggressively investigating corruption. He was thrown out because he wasnt investigating corruption from the previous administration, and that happened a year after the case against the Russian Oligarch of which bidens son worked for. That happened a year before that case had been closed. So, what trump is now asking the president to do who, by the way, was elected on an anticorruption platform is to be corrupt and to open a ukrainian federal investigation against biden for which there have been no investigations. Okay. Lets bring in a legal mind now to the conversation, former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, that being msnbc legal contributor mimi roca. Mimi, with a welcome to you. So, all thats being reported here, if it is accurate, does all of this, these actions by the president , does that violate criminal federal law . Because i want to remind folks about nbc National Security analyst jeremy bash. He outlined three underlying concerns here, or crimes. Lets listen to what he said. I see three crimes here. One is extortion by the president , which is basically using a threat, a threat of withholding aid to obtain something of value. His second crime is conspiracy to engage in extortion between the president and Rudy Giuliani. And a third crime is conspiracy to violate federal election law between the president and Rudy Giuliani to obtain foreign interference in the United States election. Extortion, conspiracy to engage in extortion, and violating federal election law. Do you agree with all those premises . I doalex, and i would add one to that, which is federal bribery. Here, trump essentially was trying to get the ukrainian president to bribe him, give him information about his political opponent in exchange for aid to the country. So, that is soliciting a bribe. And you know, look, we can get into this more. Obviously, this is my area of expertise, whether something violates federal criminal laws, but i do worry that were going down a path that we went down with the Mueller Investigation, because for the president of the United States, that is not the standard. I think Rudy Giuliani should be investigated. I dont know if this department of justice is independent enough to do that. He is a private citizen, though. He can be prosecuted. The president we know cannot be prosecuted, but this is something that Congress Must take action on now. And one other point with respect to what you were saying in the prior conversation with the other panelists. You know, this isnt about what joe bidens son did or didnt do. There are avenues to investigate United States citizens through a process known as mutual Legal Assistance treaties. The department of justice does it all the time. If there is reason for a u. S. Citizen to be investigated and the aid of another country is needed, there are proper channels to do that through, and they dont include the president of the United States calling up the leader of another country and demanding it in exchange for foreign aid. I think were going down a rabbit hole there. Let me ask you, though. You bring up this fourth point that you believe a crime has been committed potentially on bribery. If the specifics of withholding money was not addressed in the phone call on july 25th between the president and the ukrainian president , is that still bribery . Er and heres why. Most you know, any bribery case, extortion case that i was involved in as a prosecutor and most will tell you this that as not how they do. It they dont say in one conversation, if you do this, you know, i will give you money, or if you dont do this, i am going to hurt you. I mean, frankly, this is very moblike. Its all tied together, and that was made clear to ukraine. It doesnt have to be in one conversation. It is clear that the review of the aid to ukraine was tied to whether or not they complied with this. It can be an implicit quid pro quo. I think here its pretty explicit. Just because its not explicitly said in the same phone conversations with trump and the leader of the ukraine, it is clear that the two were tied together. So, i think, absolutely, you could make that case that there was a clear quid pro quo here. And what kind of hot water could Rudy Giuliani be in for having gone over, and potentially at the president s behest, have these conversations with the ukrainian president and leadership . I mean, look, to my eyes, the case against Rudy Giuliani for all of these crimes that were discussing is quite clear. I mean, particularly, the Campaign Finance violations. He is beyond familiar with those. I mean, he just spent two years arguing why trump didnt violate them. And now here they are soliciting aid from a foreign country to get information on a political opponent. And hes acting as trumps lawyer, especially working for his campaign. I mean, theres no Attorney Client privilege here. Theres, you know, theres just no governmental privilege here. I mean, he is acting as a personal representative of the president s with respect to his campaign. And i think hes also liable for conspiracy with respect to bribery and extortion. Im not saying its an openandshut case right now here today, but boy, if i were a prosecutor working for an independent department of justice right now, i would want that case. I would want to investigate it, and i think you could really bring strong charges. I think all four of you guys for weighing in on all this. Mimi, victoria, danielle, rick. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. The potential fallout from the politically, that is from the whistleblower controversy for President Trump and for possibly joe biden. Thats all ahead. D for possiblyn thats all ahead Award Winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. Our most awarded luxury suv. Why accept it frompt an incompyour allergy pills . E else. Flonase sensimist. Nothing stronger. Nothing gentler. Nothing lasts longer. Flonase sensimist. 24 hour nondrowsy allergy relief so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United States Postal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. Whistleblower frenzy. The president on the attack with joe besiiden in the past hour fighting back. I know i am up against a serial abuser. Thats what this guy is. He abuses power everywhere he can and if he sees any threat to his staying in power, hell do whatever he has to do, but this crosses the line. Also biden and other 2020 dems are descending on iowa right now. Why todays gathering is a big deal. Plus, race and policing. Five years after eric garners death, how policing needs to change. Reverend al sharpton will join me this hour. Good day, everyone, from msnbc World Headquarters here in new york, welcome to weekends with alex witt. We have breaking news this hour. Just a few minutes ago, former Vice President joe biden decried in very strong terms President Trump for attacking him and his son. Biden reacting after three National Media outlets reported that President Trump pressed the president of ukraine to investigate bidens son. Biden says he never spoke with his son, hunter, about his business dealings in ukraine. The former Vice President also wants the transcript of the president s july 25th call to be released. Listen to bidens strong words just in this last hour. Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if thats what happened . That appears to be what happened. You should be looking at trump. Trumps doing this because he knows ill beat him like a drum, and hes using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power. To get on the phone with a foreign leader, who is looking for help from the United States, and ask about me and imply things if thats what happened that appears to be what happened we know thats what giuliani did. This is outrageous. A serial abuser. Thats what this guy is. He abuses power everywhere he can, and if he sees any threat to his staying in power, hell do whatever he has to do. But this crosses the line. From iowa there. To the white house now and nbcs hans nichols. Hans, where do things go from here . Reporter well, the president is renewing his call for the media to investigate joe biden. When you listen carefully to what the white house, and importantly, what the president s own lawyers saying, theyre not explicitly denying this. Theyre saying that this is fake news. But what they really want to do is shift the attention and shift conversation to this idea that joe biden intervened on behalf of his son when theres a corruption project, a corruption probe going in taking place in ukraine back in 2016. This is classic muddying of the waters from president donald trump. He clearly wants to distract and deflect attention. You look at his twitter feed this morning. Thats what hes focusing on. Thats what hes pressing on. Its a version of what he said yesterday in the oval office. Do you know the identity i dont know the identity of the whistleblower. I just hear its a partisan person, meaning it comes out from another party, but i dont have any idea, but i can say that it was a totally appropriate conversation. It was actually a beautiful conversation. Did you discuss joe biden, his son, or his family with the leader of ukraine . It doesnt matter what i discussed, but i will say this, somebody ought to look into joe bidens statement because it was disgraceful. Reporter now the question is, will the president release the transcript or some sort of readout of that call . It happened in late july when ukraine clearly had a lot to benefit from the United States at the time. The u. S. Had suspended some 250 million in military aid. And that wasnt reported until later in august, but clearly, there are things the Ukrainian Government wanted from the u. S. , and mr. Trump, according to the wall street journal, asked eight times to cooperate with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and look into what was happening in ukraine as it relates to joe bidens son, hunter biden there. So, were at the beginning of this story. We dont know where its going to end up, and weve only heard from the president through twitter. We still havent heard from him on camera today, but joe biden clearly angered and clearly going on the offense. Alex . Quite clearly so. Hans nichols from the white house. Thank you for that. Joining me now, california representative john garamendi. W welcome back to the broadcast, sir. I know you heard the strong reaction from joe biden. In fact, we saw you through the camera nodding your head to that. What is your take to his response . Hes doing exactly what should be done and what congress should also be doing. We need to push back on this president. This president s conduct is absolutely outrageous, most of it is illegal. Quite probablied it engage in extort i extorting the new president , selenski, of ukraine, eight times. He did you notice the president didnt deny that he had said those things. We want the tapes. We want the information. We want to end the stonecalling that has gone on, and biden is absolutely correct to go right back at this president , punch back at him, because it is, in fact, the president of the United States that is outrageous in his activities. He is a serious abuser, just as the Vice President said. So, when we heard the president say in his own words, when queried, it doesnt matter what i discuss, i imagine you probably vehemently disagree with that . Well, in fact, it does matter exactly what he discussed. But whats important about that statement is that he didnt deny that he did say, one time, eight times, whatever number of times, asking the president of ukraine to investigate biden. That, at the same time, knowing that the president of ukraine, knowing that the president of the United States has within his power 250 million of very necessary military aid to ukraine, so that ukraine can push back on putin. Once again, were back to putin, arent we . Yeah, well, look, i know youre traveling to ukraine next week. Thats correct. What is it that you are going to do there . What are the questions youre going to be asking . To whom will you be asking those questions about all of this . Well, when we started this two months ago to go to ukraine, we were going to look into the use of the american money, 250 million to support the Ukraine Military. Is it enough . Is it the proper equipment that they need . Thats why we were going there. We were going to visit the Ukraine Military and the appropriate ministers. Obviously, things have changed in the last week and a half, as we are now looking at a situation that is way, way beyond the military, although 250 million, and perhaps another 140 million is involved here. Were going to meet, hopefully, with the appropriate ministers. Ive requested a meeting with the president , mr. Zielinski, and well discuss ukraines future. Ukraine needs to have the support of the United States to push back against putin. We know putin took over crimea. Know that putins little, green men are still operating in eastern ukraine. And we have a president that apparently, apparently is using leverage that he has available to him, withholding funds or promising additional funds to try to get an investigation under way. That is illegal. That is wrong. That is corruption. If you get that meeting with president zelenskiy or have a phone call with him, are you going to ask him what exactly transpired on that july 25th phone call . Im sure well have many, many questions. Id rather not answer your question right now. It may lead to no meeting at all. But we have a series of fundamental issues to talk to the president about, specifically about continuing United States aid to ukraine so that they can push back on putin. Thats the reason for the trip. Thats why we want to be there. By the time we get to kiev to talk to the ministers, and hopefully the president , this issue may very well have been resolved one way or the other. Look, one of your capitol hill colleagues, that being senator chris murphy, tweeted this a few weeks ago in ukraine, i met with president zelenskiy and we discussed the surprise cutoff of aid and the inappropriate demands the Trump Campaign was making of him. The obvious question everyone in kiev was asking was, were these two things connected . Would you like this answered as well . Of course i would. And i suspect in the next two weeks, well be getting some additional information. Specifically, we need the whistle whistleblowers information. We need to end the stonewalling that this president has put around everything and every investigation that congress has undertaken but congressman, to that effect, what can congress do in this regard to hold the president accountable, that they havent already tried to do . Well, i think theres one thing we should have done with that Judiciary Committee hearing, and Speaker Pelosi said it. That is to bang the gavel down and hold in contempt the president ooze fo president s former Campaign Manager, and we do have the ability to throw him in jail. We havent used it for perhaps a century, but congress can apprehend a witness or someone who is in contempt to congress and throw him into the congressional jail. And i think we should have done that. And we need to be strong. We need to be bold. And we need to get away from all this lawyering and use the power that we have within our own article one of the constitution, and that is to investigate and to hold in contempt, and literally hold in our congressional prison, and we have one, those who are in contempt. I do want to ask you about the escalating tensions with iran, because its certainly a hotbutton topic here with the president having weighed in on his options to responding to an attack on that Saudi Oil Facility a week ago. The u. S. Has certainly blamed iran for this. Lets take a listen. And again, kept working. And at the last second, his fastball parents understand that were studying system, and its going to be at the highest level of sanctions. Its too bad whats happening with iran. Its going to hell. Theyre doing poor ly poorly. Theyre practically broke. They are broke. And they could solve the problem very easily. All they have to do is store with the terror. And just want to clarify for our viewers, we had a little bit of a technical difficulty at the time. The president said we have just sanctioned the Iranian National bank. They may not have heard that. So, that is the right move at this time . And aside from more sanctions and deploying more troops, any other actions that can be taken . Would sdploediplomacy be a viab option . Certainly. These are not the first sanctions. There are previous sanctions. Keeping ramping those up is good. The issue of diplomacy is front and center here. The jcpoa, which was put in place to deal with the iran nuclear situation, involved allies, european allies, and people that we dont normally work with, china and russia, all together to end, temporarily, for the next decade, perhaps for the next 20 years or so, the iran Nuclear Armament situation. Trump pushed all that aside and divorced us from our allies that Work Together now. Can we get those allies back together . We really cannot do we really should not do anything more militarily in that area unless we have our allies with us. We do work with the saudi arabians and with the uae in that area, but that is not a sufficient number of allies to deal with iran and to put the kind of economic pressure on iran to force them to deal with the issues of terrorism in the area, the support that they have for the houthis and for hezbollah and others in the region. Congressman, i do want to ask you about whether or not this president is violating the emoluments clause. And well go to this detail. According to the pentagon documents released, the u. S. Military spent nearly 200,000 at the president s scottish resort after he was elected, between the years of 2017 and 2019, this year. The last time you were on my show, you said you were going to look into these reported issues surrounding trumps turnbury resort. So, what have you learned . Well, weve learned that there is much more here. We did learn about that 184,000 or nearly 200,000. That did come from the meetings that i had with the United States air force. I have demanded that they provide additional information. Were working with the Oversight Committee in the house of representatives together to gather up the necessary information, including specific receipts that the military has to have in order to pay the per diem that these airmen have collected as a result of staying at the resort. Weve also asked for information for every other trumpowned facility around the world. I suspect that it is not only tu turnberry, in which the u. S. Military has participated or has sent their people. It is a clear violation of the article two emoluments clause which says very, very clearly that the president of the United States can only receive his salary, nothing more, from the United States government or from the states of the union. Its absolutely clear. However, its equally clear that the president has received taxpayer money from the United States government through the military, and the outrage is that the Justice Department tends to spend 30,000 at the Trump International hotel here in washington, d. C. , in direct violation of the emoluments clause, the article two emoluments clause. And we could also add the article one emoluments clause which deals with foreign governments patronizing the president s own hotels and facilities around the world. And then if you want to add one on top of that, what the president has suggested, that the next g7 meeting take place at his facility in florida. All of these are direct violations of the emoluments, and in my opinion are reasons for impeachment. Congressman john garamendi, you certainly have a lot on your plate right now that youre tackli tackling. Very busy. Safe travels to ukraine. Come back and let us know how things went. Ill do that. Thank you. Trumps tactics. Next, how the president s using a familiar playbook to refute the whistleblower allegations. And later, Justin Trudeau blames his place of privilege for his racist faces of the past, but is that any excuse . Reverend al sharpton will weigh in on that pretty soon. Reverend al sharpton will weigh in on that pretty soon humira patients, you inspire us. The way you triumph over adversity. And live your lives. Thats why we redesigned humira. We wanted to make the experience better for you. Now theres less pain immediately following injection. Weve reduced the size of the needle and removed the citrate buffers. And it has the same effectiveness you know and trust. Humira citratefree is here. A little change can make a big difference. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. Serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Ask your doctor about humira citratefree. Heres to you. Do you know the identity of the i dont know the identity of a whistleblower. I just hear its a partisan person, meaning it comes out from another party. But i dont have any idea. More reaction from the president to the whistleblower complaint story. Joining me is sima mata with the Los Angeles Times and bob s z kluzak from the hill. What do we know about the whistleblower and how does the president know he or she is partisan, coming from another party . Thats a good question. We dont know a lot of information about the whistleblower, but they have filed a formal complaint but the Justice Department has not turned this over to Congress Like theyre supposed to, so there are a lot of questions. Were seeing the president use the issue to further this story that hes trying to sort of get out there of joe biden and his son and ukraine without getting into details about what he did when talking to the president of ukraine. In terms of what he did, bob, former fbi double agent Naveed Jamali had a different take on this complaint, saying this whistleblower may have just been concerned that they were being asked to break the law. Heres what he said, naveed. Here it is. I think this is beyond just the phone calls. I think most likely there was a followup action or actions that were meant to reinforce this push to get ukraine to help him. I dont think that the person saw the transcript of the phone call, was in the room with the president , rather, i think its more likely that they were involved in actually the subsequent action. This could be something as simple as this person got this order, they were ordered to act on this specific thing, and they were concerned about breaking the law. But i think it was also much more practical, which was they probably didnt want it go to jail. How plausible is this . What are your thoughts on this . I think its an interesting point that it may not be somebody in the room, because if its somebody in the room, that is somebody that is obviously probably close to trump, probably not a partisan, probably partisan to trump, but then it could be somebody who was, as he said, just arranging some type of deal. The thing here is, in order to get the smoking gun, you have to have, okay, are you going to reopen this investigation of the bidens and connecting it to the 250 million in military aid to the ukraine. There has to be that connection, not just an eye wink. I mean, thats what democrats want and theyre frustrated that he cant get information. A connect, bob, in forms of a transcript from the call, right . I mean yes. Thats the only thing that really can do this effectively. Yes. Yes, thats right. And democrats, and obviously, the administration is not giving it. Now, the one thing Michael Atkinson this is a trumpappointed Inspector General. If you look at his i was looking at his questionnaire he filled out to the senate before he was confirmed. He is a strong proponent of congressional oversight. He is not part of the republican club. He worked in the department of justice. He has found this credible. And the thing is, the interesting thing is, we were finding out more through leaks. So, someone is leaking out this information. Its interesting. Hey, guys, hold on just a moment. Were going to take everyone to the steak fry in iowa. That is because Vaughn Hillyard has got cory booker there just strolling along behind you. Whats the latest there, vaughn . Reporter yeah, welcome to the scene here. Were heading into the polk county steak fry, alex. 17 of the democratic president ial candidates are going to be here, including this one, senator cory booker. How are you . Reporter good, thank you. Youve got a few hundred folks here behind you. Yes. Reporter what is the importance of this moment here . Tell me, your Campaign Just released a memo earlier today. Tell us, what are the stakes of these next two weeks for your campaign . Well, for us, this is it. We have built a campaign here that is clearly winning. In iowa, we have more endorsements than any other campaign, from state legislatures, local electors, activists. We have done more with less than the four best financed campaigns, but the Fourth Quarter is when youve got to grow, grow or get out. And we are not in this for an ego exercise. This is not a vanity play. Im in this to win the nomination and beat donald trump. And so, if you believe in my campaign, if you believe in my voice being on this stage, this is a determining moment for us. We either are going to reach our 1. 7 million to stay in this race or were going to have to make tough decisions. Reporter 1. 7 million by the end of this month . Yes, yes. Reporter ive got to ask you out of the white house, all of this as the fanfare of this democratic race is going on, at the same time, very serious conversations are taking place in washington, d. C. When you see the whistleblower complaint that has now made its way to congress, what is your message to the whistleblower and what does Congress Need to do . We want transparency and accountability. This president has been doing time and time again things that are the equivalent of moral vandalism against our founding ideals and the constitution of the United States of america. If this whistleblower has come forward with, its potentially explosive, its a potential betrayal of our values and serious, serious misconduct, misconduct greater than anything ive seen in my lifetime. And so, we need to know the truth. We need to know the truth. And so, im asking, im demanding as a United States senator for the truth to come out. Reporter thank you, senator. Actually, vaughn, go back one more time reporter cory booker is making his way i wanted to see if you could ask him, although i know hes taken away. I was going to ask you ask him what he can do within the senate to try to get a hold of that transcript on july 25, the conversation between the president of the United States and the president of ukraine. It seems everything is contingent upon getting that transcript, so i just wanted to ask him what he was going to be able to try to get a hold of that. But i think the moment is passed because hes gone to another reporter there. Reporter its a little hard to hear you, alex. I think you were asking about the transcript which i know that were going to get the chance to talk with senator booker on that, and i know hes also doing an interview with reverend al sharpton later on. Those are important conversations that well ask him as well as the other candidates as they make their way in. Good job, Vaughn Hillyard. Sorry for throwing you a curveball. We have sima and bob stull with us as well. Look, the president says this conversation with the ukrainian president was beautiful and theres no there there, according to the president. So, why not release the transcript . I think thats the point that democrats are making. Its also i mean, the president often describes his communications with World Leaders as beautiful, including kim jongun from north korea, the letters. So, this is part of an ongoing way of describing his relationships, but yeah, thats exactly the point democrats are making, which is, release the transcript and then well knoe exactly what was said and what wasnt said. Yeah. Acting director of National Intelligence, bob, has agreed to testify on thursday before the house panel. And of course, hes the one who refused to relay to congress by the way, as required by law the whistleblower complaint in the first place. Any expectation that congress will learn anything new from this testimony . I would expect a grilling, but i dont think this administration is going to change its views, that it doesnt have to fork over this. And adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, he is contemplating a lawsuit. I mean, democrats on capitol hill are so frustrated because they want to complete their investigations and nancy pelosi wants to talk about agenda going into 2020. She doesnt want to talk about impeachment. That didnt win her back the speakers gavel. But they cant because they have to do their oversight, and then they get stonewalling from the administration, and then they have to go to court. And everything is being decided by the court. And now adam schiff may go to court to get information that the administrations not giving on this. All right. Bob cusack and sima met hdi, thk you. And sthu for sticking around during the break. Still ahead, the effort to stop Police Misconduct and get justice for victims. How their families are taking the fight to capitol hill and what they want to accomplish. E what they want to accomplish this is the family who wanted to connect. To go where they could explore and experience adventure in unexpected places. 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Be up for life. Performance comes in lots of flavors. dramatic orchestra theres the ampedup, overtuned, feedingfrenzyof sheetmetalkind. And then theres performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. Thats the kind lincolns about. Juul record. They took 12. 8 billion from big tobacco. Juul marketed mango, mint, and menthol flavors, addicting kids to nicotine. Five million kids now using ecigarettes. The fda said juul ignored the law with Misleading Health claims. Now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn san franciscos ecigarette protections. Say no to juul, no to big tobacco, no to prop c. A new push for congress to pass laws to curb Police Misconduct came before the house Judiciary Committee this week. Among those making the case for reform was gwen carr, the mother of eric garner, killed during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes in july 2014, as he told officers he couldnt breathe. She spoke about how the fight for justice affected her family with more recent deaths of her granddaughter and husband. How come no one was held accountable . The entire family is traumatized. Each and every time we enter the courtroom or watch the officer responsible for my sons death get a pay raise or hear the department of justice saying theyre not going to seek charges, or what the officer who is the Commanding Officer of the person who was on the scene when my son was murdered, said it was not a big deal that eric laid on the ground doa. Joining me now, reverend al sharpton, who also testified, and who i might add was sitting at the right hand of gwen carr as she was making that testify, offering your support. You helped put all this together. First of all, tell me the reception. How did you feel that the testimony was received there on capitol hill . I thought that the Judiciary Committee took it very seriously, and i felt that it was necessary to, after the Police Officer that choked eric garner to death, holding this locked position, even though garner said 11 times, i cant breathe i thought after we had finally gotten him fired this took five years. Federal government wouldnt indict. Local authorities only happened like a month ago. And that we went to washington and asked the Judiciary Committee to have hearings because we want to see legislation where choke holds are illegal on a federal level. Theres a responsibility, alex, now, i think, for the federal government, after all of these cases, from ferguson to baltimore to tamir rice in cleveland, for federal law to be made on how do we deal with this, because this will protect policemen from all being smeared as bad cops and it would protect the community. The outcome of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s was civil rights act, 64, Voting Rights act, 65. The outcome of all of this must lead to legislation, and i thought it was a big step that we started on the other day. You know whats interesting, too, we listened to what the five years have been like for gwen carr and her family. And we dont often revisit victims and or their families and what happened in their life preceding it and also whats happened in the aftermath. What do you hope was accomplished on that front . What might this do to help people deal with these traumas and tragedies . I wanted the American Public to see, these are human beings. Gwen carr and her daughter daughterinlaw, granddaughter who died, you saw the widow, the daughterinlaw. These are human beings who lost their son, their husband, his children, emerald and the others. These are not activists. She has become an activist because of what happened. And sometimes i think people say, well, theres al sharpton and theres the naacp. We step back and i say, no, look at this mother and explain to her, congress, why there is a law not stopping this from it happening again. And i thought she was very effective in that, because this means, people look at this and say, well, this could be me. This could be anybody. And youve got to put a human face on it. I remember from those that raised me in the Civil Rights Movement that rosa parks who sat in the front of the bus that caused the whole movement around desegregating of public transportation, was the perfect person because of her demeanor, because she just was the victim. People looked and said, this fraillooking woman is a threat . And sometimes, youve got to put the families out there and say, fine, you can have whatever opinion you want of me, but explain to this mother why her husbands dead now and her grandchild, and she feels all stress because they dnlz get any justice, watching that tape over and over again of the policemen choking her son. Im sure gwen carr is grateful that she came to you, the National Founder network and youve been part and partial in lockstep bringing her story to the forefront, both to the country conversation and there on capitol hill. I want to talk with you about one of the other days big stories, because youre a new yorker. You know two ultimate new yorkers, those being donald trump and Rudy Giuliani. Relative to the whole whistleblower debacle, if you will, whats your take on all of this . I think youve got to realize donald trump is a guy who rose to prominence cutting deals over real estate, and he is a dealmaker. He was never in public service, elected or unelected. Hes a dealmaker. So, when we hear people say, hes talking to a head of state and possibly what it was, was trying to get him to make a deal to do something in terms of investigating and work with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to smear the son of his potential opponent, it sounds in the corridor of what donald trump would possibly do. Now, well see if its confirmed. But as the one thats seen him over the years, him making a deal like that is not at all surprising or shocking to anybody in new york. Not unreasonable. Now, what was a little surprising was Rudy Giulianis interview the other night where he inside of one minute said he didnt do something and turned around and said he did it. Now, usually he takes five minutes to contradict himself, not one minute. I was going to ask you, youre surprised by that . But the Rudy Giuliani thats been affiliated with this administration has done this repeatedly and gotten into hot water with the president sometimes. Hes actually not bound to where the next question he says the opposite of what he did. But many of us in new york tried to tell people that had exalted him, this was the kind of person he was all along. Youve got to remember, he led marches that turned into violence here in new york when dave dinkins and im not saying he did it, but he certainly spoke when dave dinkins was mayor. So i mean, weve always had these disagreements with rudy giulia giuliani. Now the countrys seeing, maybe they werent that crazy when they were questioning him. Justin trudeau, the blackface, three pictures surfaced, i think a fourth is coming out there. Your thoughts on this. Is it just sheer stupidity, a lack of understanding about the implication . I mean, what is this about . I think that, clearly, it is some deepseeded insensitivity that is really harboring bigotry. Its one thing to Say Something that people could say, well, that was off color, that was wrong and you say, well, i didnt mean it that way. But you deliberately put on black or brownface. You think about that. That is no impromptu reaction to something. And for him to feel over a period of time were not talking about one time that this was all right means that he finds no problem with mocking people, whether they be black or brown. Do you think there is a different perception, though, of that in the country of canada . They do not have the history of slavery that we have and grappled with for a couple of hundred years in this country. Is it different up there . I think that he is going to have to convince the voters. He has an opportunity before the october 21st election. And when you look at the fact that many of the minority voters, particularly around the toronto area, voted for him, that come from the United States and come from the islands where slavery was, this is nothing short of mocking peoples skin color. And i think that no matter where you are in the world, it would be you mocking them. And i think that its very difficult for anyone to look serious hes supposed to be this great liberal, inclusive guy. He never came out with this until it was revealed. He could have preempted it earlier when he ran before and said, let me tell you, ive had to get over some things. Ive said things i wish i hadnt said. A lot of things theyre saying i never said, but you come out and you put it out there, you own it so you can help other people understand it. Get ahead of the story. He did another do that. Yeah. Well, were going to remind everyone right now what youre doing at 5 00 today, which is appearing on your show, of course, reverend al. Founder and president of National Action network and also host, star of politicsnation 5 00 p. M. Weekends. And cory booker is on your show. He will be a guest at 5 00 hour. Im very anxious to ask him about the state of his campaign because we hear there was a note sent around saying they need to raise almost 2 million in ten days or hes out, which sounds really something i need to ask senator booker about. Thats a tall order. Well look forward to that, appointment tv. Thanks, rev. Thank you, alex. President trump lashing out at democrats after a whistleblower complaint against him. How it could end up being destructive for both the president and his opponent in 2020. Both the presidenant d his opponent in 2020 as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. At liberty butchemel. Cut. Liberty mu. Line . Cut. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Cut. Liberty m. Am i allowed to riff . What if i come out of the water . Liberty biberty. Cut. Well dub it. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. 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Former vp joe biden and other Top Democrats blasting the president as demands for action and for answers grow louder. Trumps doing this because he knows ill beat him like a drum, and hes using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. Donald trump appears to be collaborating with foreign governments to attack americas democracy. He clearly doesnt get the job of what it means to be president of the United States. This is extremely disturbing. It really raises so many questions about what is happening, what theyre trying to hide and why. Its time for congress to step up and begin serious impeachment proceedings against this man. Joining me now is policy strategist alaina beverly. She worked in the obama administration. Peter everson, and Political Columnist amy holmes, former speech writer for Senate Majority leader bill frist. With a welcome to all of you, peter, first your reaction to joe biden, going on a tear there in iowa. It happened in the last hour. He also said that he never spoke with his son about his overseas business dealings. So, how pivotal is all of this going to be heading into 2020 . Look, all the democrats, clearly, theyre going toe to toe with the president. Well, beat him like a drum is music to my ears. Finally a democrat standing up with passion and anger and just saying what every american who is opposed to this unlawful presidency is saying weve got to beat it. And so, consequently, up until biden said that, even those quotes from the other candidates are feeling like were going up against darth vader and valdemort with knives, biodegradable knives because they break at the slightest pressure. I believe biden, visavis his son, doesnt compare to the president of the United States and his children running around the world cutting deals. So, there is nothing more beautiful, as trump likes to say, than treason by a sitting president and a disgraced former mayor whos his attorney. Are there any concerns, alaina, that the president s attacks could be damaging to biden . There is a school of thought that by virtue of the fact that Vice President joe bidens name will be mentioned in this controversy over and over again by trump, and frankly, that this is going to be a sound bite war, because thats how trump launches his fights he does it in sound bite form to capture the attention of voters. I think, though, voters are going to see through this. I think theyre going to see this for what it is, which is trumps election limbo, that there is no he cannot go lower. How low can you go . There is nothing that is too low for donald trump in terms of attacking joe bidens family and so on. And i think that voters will also see this as a clear demonstration that joe biden is perceived as the threat to donald trump, that donald trump sees the fight with joe biden as being the one where he has a possibility of losing the election in 2020. You know, i want to ask you that, amy. Do you think its more evidence of that sentiment . Biden says the president is panicking about running against him. Do you agree . Well, theres a saying in washington that youre only as big as your biggest enemy. And so, for joe biden to be, you know, the target of President Trump means that he is, you know, at least in trumps perspective, the toptier candidate. But look, the New York Times, politico, you know, not just a school of thought, are reporting that this could be a real doubleedged sword that democrats, and particularly biden supporters might not want to grip too lightly, lest they get cut as well, whilst were throwing around metaphors here. The other candidates could be benefiting from this, that they get to kill two birds, biden and trump, with one ukrainian stone, by saying lets get to the bottom of this lets have a full hearing, a full airing of what this is all about in terms of joe biden, what donald trump was trying to do to investigate him or put heat on him. Thats not great news for joe biden. And one last thing. We also have the Vice President on video, on tape i watched it speaking at the council of foreign relations, talking about how he put pressure on the ukraine government to try to drop this prosecution. And we know that video goes a lot further in trying to per situate the public than tweets. Peter, do you want to comment on this . I think shes got a very good point. And one thing were missing in all this is, of course, joe bidens opponents. This is a huge opportunity. Theres some little blood in the water now, and consequently, to think that democrats are just going to sit by and support joe biden against the president is unlike that. I mean, just this morning, joe kennedy, the congressman, announced against a stalwart of the democratic party, ed markey in massachusetts. So, democrats love to eat each other up. Is that what you see happening, alaina . You know, i actually think that Everyone Needs to rise above in this moment and stop focusing on biden and focus on what trump has done, because this is evidence that our elections are vulnerable. This demonstrates exactly what special counsel robert said, that there are systematic efforts to undermine our elections, that those systematic efforts are ongoing and now the allegation is donald trump is undermining our election. It is time for congress to act. Thank you both for joining us. Good to see you. Going back to the beach. A Cleanup Mission bringing attention to a worldwide problem. [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. Should always be working harder. Thats why your cash automatically goes into a Money Market Fund when you open a new account. Just another reminder of the value youll find at fidelity. Open an account today. Billions of problems. Morning breath . Garlic breath . Stinky breath . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy. Theres therabreath at walmart. Red lobsters endless shrimp is back for just 15. 99. Get all the shrimp you want, any way you want em. Like new srirachahoney shrimp, savory grilled teriyaki shrimp, classic shrimp scampi and more red lobsters endless shrimp is 15. 99. Hurry in. New this hour, volunteers in santa monica making progress at an International Beach cleanup. Tracking that progress for us now, Darsha Phillips from knbc in los angeles. As i understand it, mostly its focused on extracting this trash and plastics from the water there behind you. Right . Reporter absolutely, alex. Plastic, a huge deal here on our beaches, and in our oceans, because they have the most negative impact on human life and marine life. The stuff just does not break down. We have seen so much plastic come off the beaches and in the water. Weve had divers go in to the water and come out with large bag fulls of trash. Also weve seen things like plates come out of the ocean as well as scooters. All sorts of trash and debris coming out of the ocean. Now, also, this trash isnt just going to be thrown away at the end of the day. Its going to be analyzed. All the data compiled to give us a bigger snapshot of the problem, and this is a worldwide event. Its going to be millions of people across several countries picking up trash on beaches, in parks, in rivers and creeks. Now, if i want to give you an idea what were picking up here in santa monica, 1,000 to 2,000 volunteers picking up buckets of trash like this one here filled with plastics, straws, plastic bags. So this just gives you an idea how much trash we still have out here in santa monica on just this little stretch of the beach. Send it back to you. Kills me, the ones you see, like, those plastic rings that will hold together, say, a six pack of soda, and those are the ones that fish get caught up within those rings. I volunteered years ago at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Northern California and learned people have to cut those things up and throw those i way responsibly. You see those, the worst. All bad, but glad people are doing the efforts behind you. Thank you so much from Santa Monica Beach there. Up next, the potential political fallout from the whistleblower controversy and possibly for joe biden. Every day, visionaries are creating the future. So, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United States Postal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. Ecommerce deliveries to homes i had a few good tricks to help hide my bladder leak pad. Like the old tunic tug. But always discreet is less bulky. And it really protects. cause it turns liquid to gel. So i have nothing to hide. Always discreet. [narrator] do you remember that day . That day you met your hero . Ms. Bird, do you think i could be a champion like you . Of course you can. And you can call me sue. [jibber] jibber jabber, coming through salutations, famous female of orange round ball. Would you like an autograph . [jabber] excuse me. crowd muttering [woman] is that paper mache . Its you. [woman] wow. [narrator] jibber jabber ruins everything. Is it . [woman] i am confused. [narrator] at Symetra Life Insurance Company were cutting through it, to help you choose the Retirement Benefits and Life Products that work best for you. That one . no what about that . no what about now . no that do it . [ buffer stops ] still not working how bout now . no i just dont know. I mean, i dont know who labeled this thing. Yeah . no we have hit top of the hour which means im out of time. Im alex witt. My colleague is taking over. Great share a studio. Take it away. You as well. Appreciate it. In today for kendis gibson. Alison morris. And President Trump using twitter to respond to the call for impeachment. Former Vice President joe biden says he wont be intimidated by President Trumps ukraine claims against him and his family. Abuse of power in every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me. Everybody looked at this and everybodys looked at it says theres no there. Ask thri