represent a second person who has first-hand knowledge of the dealings between ukraine officials and the trump administration. and as all of these bombshells continue to drop, the fire is getting hotter as republicans scramble to come to the president s defense. i m asking about this is exactly why president trump is upset and supporters are upset, the news media. senator johnson, please answer the question that i asked you instead of trying to make donald trump feel better here that you re not criticizing him sgr and exactly how much does the second whistleblower know and what could it mean for the president and his inner circle? plus how an anonymous post is now at the center of an impeachment investigation. we ll take a deep dive into the origins of the president s narrative on the bideens and
earned tax dollars of the american people to ukraine to help them fight russia, help them get their country moving in the direction they need, get the security assistance they need, i think he believes we should make sure there is not krupg there. so we heard a couple of those thoughts twice. apologies for that. but i think what we need to go chus focus on the claim that the china thing was just the president having fun, he wasn t serious. there is an easy way to get to the bottom of that. next time we are on the south lawn, we can ask the president of the united states if he was indeed serious and we ll see what his answer is. and by the way, my friend, some things aare worth repeatin. thank you so much. joining us by phone, legal correspondent and host of the beat ari melber. a little more o.t. for you today because now you re talking with me before your show which we ll talk about. but your take on the significance of the second whistleblower coming forward.
legal team s providing us this new information today, the president who has criticized the credibility and challenged the credibility of whistleblower one would now arguably have to do that for another official. and perhaps still more than that who are also providing information that relates to the ukraine call that has gotten so much attention. so really what stands out here is that the courage, if you want to put it in those terms of whistleblower one has perhaps opened the door to other officials who have what we are told is more direct knowledge coming forward as well. again, not a second complaint, but by virtue of dealing with michael atkinson, the second individual and perhaps others have the same legal protections as whistleblowers. so, again, this fills out and potentially corroborates the account of the first whistleblower and would make it
mechanisms into place for this whistle-blower because we know how the president reacts. he says things like, whistle-blowers, which are sanctioned by our laws because we want fraud, waste and abuse to be disclosed if it s going on inside our government. there are protections in place for whistle-blowers, yet the president calls these people almost like spies. spies. who could this person he said the person who gave the first whistleblower the information, he call this whistleblower, according to the reporting right now, had firsthand knowledge of this phone call. a couple thoughts on all of that. who could have had firsthand knowledge of the phone call, and second, was this person is in trouble or what? well, let s talk about what firsthand knowledge means. yeah. it seems to me that firsthand
special live hour that looks into the impeachment inquiry, where it is headed. that is tonight at 9:00 right here on msnbc. and also be sure watch the beat weekdays with ari at 6:00 as well. joining me is jeff mason. do you see this putting any pressure on the white house, the advent of the second whistleblower? absolutely. i think that the white house, the president in particular, will dismiss it because that is the strategy that the president has executed so far. but certainly it gives credence to the fact that there is there there and it will also undercut the main argument that the president has used so far if this turns out to be true that the initial whistleblower had secondhand knowledge. that is something that he has really grasped on to. and so in this case if the second liwhistleblower does hav