formal impeachment inquiry? i don t think they re a substitute, but i think it represents progress. and it was so interesting. i was born, i think, five weeks after president nixon resigned in 1974. and i always think back about my mom s generation and my dad s generation of baby boomers and how strange it is for people to see how worse than watergate going on now and john dean who played a central role in that inquiry back all these years later. it s just bizarre. do you think what s going on now are effective ways for laying the groundwork for a formal impeachment process? i do. i think this is part of the process and i think it s a matter of time before we start an impeachment inquiry. congressman castro, thanks so much for joining us. stay with us for all the breaking news in new york city. investigators are looking for answers about why a helicopter crashed on top of a skyscraper. all money managers might seem the same, but some give their clients cookie cutter portfolio
manufactured crisis of their own making. if we didn t have tariffs, we wouldn t have made a deal with mexico. we got everything we wanted and we re going to be a great partner to mexico now, because now they respect us. and while trump claimed that a fully signed and documented agreement would be revealed, mexico s foreign minister contradicted pru eed trump, say secret immigration deal existed between his country and the u.s. and president trump s administration pushing back on the new york times reporting that parts of the deal were hashed out months ago. i ve seen some reporting that says that these countless hours were nothing, that they amounted to a waste of time. i can tell you that the team here at the state department believes full-throatedly that this is an important set of agreements, an important set of understandings, one that we ll continue to work on, because in the end, will be measured by the outcomes we deliver. reporter: tonight the president also turning up
president. and i think he owes that office his testimony before this committee. john dean, cnn contributor, whose testimony in the watergate investigation helped topple richard nixon s presidency, telling congress there are many similarities between trump and nixon. i would say the trump administration is in fast competition with what happened in the nixon administration. ranking member republican doug collins, calling today s hearing, quote, a mock impeachment inquiry. i don t appreciate the fact that here we are again, with priorities in this committee turned upside down. reporter: but as the drumbeat among democrats for impeachment inquiry intenses, dean s testimony is causing ire from the president himself. john has been a loser for a long time. i thching we know that. he has been disbarred and went to prison. other than that, he s doing a great job. also on the defensive over his tariff threat against
but if the chairman jerry nadler is satisfied with it, i think it s probably a good agreement. now, bear in mind that the trump administration strategy this whole time has been to dodge and delay and try to not turn over witnesses or turn over documents, so i m glad that they re finally starting to do that. what specific information are you hoping the justice department grants access to? well, the things related to obstruction of justice, because i think that s what s most relevant to congress right now. and as you know from the mueller report, bob mueller essentially said that he couldn t do anything about any wrongdoing that the president may have committed and that that s the job of congress. so we need all the information with respect to obstruction, especially. let s move on, congressman. the justice department also says that the attorney s probe into the oranges of the whole russia investigation will be, in their words, broad in scope and multi-faceted. have you seen any ev
witness, john dean, on that panel. he s the cnn contributor, as you know. the ranking republican on the judiciary committee, congressman doug collins, he s calling this a mock impeachment inquiry. does he have a point? yes and no. i mean, calling john dean to testify to give context, he s not a fact witness in this case, is probably as subtle as a punch to the face. it s like calling ken starr if there was a president who was accused of sexual assault or impropriety in the future, it s not very subtle. so there is that notion. however, it s very important, because the role that john dean fulfilled was as the white house counsel. and remember, don mcgahn, as former white house counsel, is not testifying at this point in time. so to give context as to why it s important to hear from that person, the breadth of information available to them, that s extraordinarily important and he can provide just that. do you think, gloria, this is an effective staging point for full-scale impeachmen