admitted to the washington post he has discussed his unproven biden claims with an attorney for former trump campaign manager paul manafort who is in prison. contrast that with vice president mike pence, trying to keep his distance from the ukraine investigation. it is great to be in arizona. reporter: sources tell cnn to expect the vice president to spend much of his time over the coming weeks on the road, as his aides worry about the ukraine fallout back in washington, with questions swirling about what pence knew and when, he has latched on to mr. trump s allegations. there are legitimate questions that ought to be asked and we re going to continue to ask them since the american people have a right to know whether or not vice president of the united states or his family profited from his position. reporter: the president is amping up his accusations on social media. look at this photograph featuring music from nickelback only after being shut
he asked russia to dig up dirt on hillary clinton. russia, if you re listening, i hope you re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. i think you will be rewarded mightily by our press. reporter: biden accused trump out of acting out of fear. he did it because like every bully in history, he s afraid. he s afraid of just how badly he may be beaten in november. reporter: the president is counting on republicans to remain loyal, pointing to his latest poll numbers and fund-raising figures in a tweet and thanking mcconnell for his support. he would play a pivotal role in the senate if mr. trump is impeached in the house. he read my phone call with the president of ukraine, mitch mcconnell. he said that was the most innocent phone call that i ve read. i mean, give me a break. reporter: and the plot is thickening after the president s personal attorney, rudy giuliani
upcoming 2020 election. the president is now urging china to investigate biden, despite the impeachment probe that rose from a similar request to ukraine. and there s a new report just up from the washington post saying that an irs whistle-blower complained that a treasury political appointee tried to interfere with an audit by either president trump or vice president pence. oversight armed services committees and our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. let s go to our chief white house correspondent jim acosta. first, jim, the president now urging ukraine and china to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating joe biden. that s right, wolf. despite all the day s developments it s hard to look past what was a remarkable moment, one for the history books as president trump stood on the grounds of the white house and called for interference on the 2020 election. today he asked china to dig up
all of a sudden, the vice president today, he is weighing in. he s sounding almost exactly like the president. yeah. this is after a slue of stories in which his office seemed to be distancing themselves from this project that seemed to be under way of trying to get ukraine to dig up dirt on joe biden. his aides were saying to cnn and other outlets that the vice president actually had no idea about this effort, that he believed the president really wanted europe to pay more and ukraine to root out corruption. but now mike pence is basically saying what trump is saying, echoing these baseless conspiracy theories, essentially, about joe biden and suggesting that is a legitimate u.s. government objective, which it is not. i think we need to emphasize here, this is a political objective. that s one of the main reasons why it is inappropriate for the president to potentially be doing this, because the objective here is to damage joe
the question answers itself. he s using rudy giuliani because it s not a legitimate government investigation. we put up one excerpt from the trump/zelensky transcript. but there s another quote that says, quote, she is going to go through some things. that s been overlooked as people have poured through this transcript. it does seem that he has explicitly threatened retaliation geps a u.s. diplomat. if what we re seeing here is a u.s. diplomat that stood on principle, wanted to follow the rules, was not willing to abuse her office on behalf of the president, was actually trying to prevent rudy giuliani from interfering with u.s./ukrainian relations and she was retaliated for it i think this is another substantial development. let me play a clip of the president earlier today speaking about the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch.