And yet all of this is a distraction, an attempt to get us away from it. Whats also interesting to me, hallie, the president of the United States takes a lot of time trying to take down joe biden. That suggests to me that he believes biden is the strongest possible opponent. Weve had 70 headtohead matchups in polls. Biden has won every single one of them. In that sense its not a surprise the president is spending the time, using the power of his office to try to take down his number one opponent. Tony, thanks for being on. Im way out of town. I have to hand it over to craig melvin on what has been a very, very busy morning. Indeed, a Story Changing by the moment. Craig melvin here at Msnbc Headquarters in new york city. We pick up the breaking news. Huge implications for this president , the administration, the Justice Department, perhaps for the system of checks and balances in our country. The Trump Administration just releasing that memo detailing that controversial conversation bet
ukrainian s president zelensky. major revelations about what the president said about joe biden and hunter biden. we ll break down the document with someone who understands what we re looking at better than just about anyone. the man who ran the situation room under president obama who was in charge of preparing transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders. he s going to join me in just a few moments. also, we continue to get live reaction from the hill, including from a member of the house intelligence committee. that committee in talks right now with the attorney representing the whistle-blower at the center of this firestorm. they re going to hear directly from the director of national intelligence tomorrow. team coverage this hour of that breaking news. white house correspondent kristen welker is in new york for us. justice correspondent julia ainsley at the doj, geoff bennett on capitol hill. kristen, let me start with you.
his response here, the way he handled that. let me read it to you. he appears in his response to comply with president trump s request, saying, quote, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person. he or she will look into the situation, specifically the company that you mentioned in this issue. now, we have reached out to the prosecutor general here in kiev, yet to hear back on that. unclear if an investigation was formally launched at this point as a result of that phone call. but it s creating an incredibly awkward and precarious position for president zelensky going into this meeting with president trump in some two hours time. ryan, ukrainian president, meanwhile, for his part, has tweeted out this picture of him and president trump. how do we suspect that the two of them will handle the situation 2 1/2 hours from now?
unclear. i ve been speaking to high level diplomats here in kiev and they ve expressed their skepticism that zelensky woof taken that step. it would be perceived by democrats there in the united states as taking a side, which zelensky does not want to do. he wants to keep ukraine in the space of a bipartisan issue there in the united states, seen as essential to his strategy. keep in mind, his key campaign promise to become president of ukraine was to end the war in the east. the u.s. support is absolutely critical to that. erin mclaughlin there for us in kiev, thank you. by the way, welcome to nbc news. and ryan heath, thank you as well, do come back when we have more time. i will see you tomorrow morning on today. andrea mitchell reports, picking up our coverage right now. thank you, craig melvin.
it would focus on the individual congratulating on the election, it would include broad strategic elements of the relationship we have. perhaps there might be one or two troublesome spots a president might raise but not usually to the explicit nature that this conversation is. before that quote i read, the president of ukraine, president zelensky, said in part, i would like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. we are ready to continue to cooperate to the next step, specifically we re almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states for defensive purposes. then the president says, i would like you to do us a favor. larry, does that sound like quid pro quo for you? i would leave that to smarter people to make that judgment.