with the new reporting that president trump pressured ukraine s president to investigate joe biden s son, there are now calls for a transcript of that july 25 phone call. between the two to be released. when the president was asked yesterday about what was discussed, he gave this cryptic answer it doesn t matter what i discussed. but i will say this somebody ought to look into joe biden s statement, because it was disgraceful. where he talked about billions of dollars that he s not giving to a certain country. unless a certain prosecutor is taken off the case. so where does this go from here? with me now is one of the team of reporters at the washington post. who has been at the forefront of the whistleblower story, national security correspondent pulitzer prize-winner greg miller. greg, what do we know of the july 25 phone call?
it s a real moment. i think you can fake it. in the book there s these am i right that you wanted to write face to face now because this era of connectivity is actually one where there s less human interaction? yes. i mean definitely the atmosphere in which we live in right now, the advancement of technology and social media, kids, we all are looking at our phones more than we have ever done in our lives. and they are the most valuable tool, smartphones. but if you want to connect with somebody, don t have your phone fractionalize that connection. use your phone to get smarter, but when you meet somebody, that s when the story begins. when you you know, your very best date in life came because of a human connection. you closing that deal, getting
leave. and i just, i was so desperate because i really wanted to meet with him. i said come on, you can animate, can t you? and he looked at me he wasn t happy about that a. but then he decided to come back and he came back. i guess he felt a bridge of trust, whatever it was. he basically told the entire story of what became the movie 8 mile. and he ended up winning an oscar for his performance, his song performance, which is the first time a rapper has ever won an oscar. it turned into a win-win for everybody, including the audience. eye contact is really big with you. and i wish we were face to face in person. because i d love to be able to look into your eyes and let you look into mine. can people fake that connectivity? in other words, if i read your book and i wanted to pitch brian grazier, i would be saying damn, i ll just look in his eyes. is there more to it than that?
who has been handling this in a much more explicit way. rudy giuliani. so the signaling around this and the sequence of events surrounding this call, i think would have been very clear to the president of ukraine. the president of the united states is on the phone with me, he will not let go of the idea that he wants an investigation. these guys are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that we want. they re not, they are holding back the chance for me to meet with the president of the united states. you know what would you make of that set of circumstances if you were listening to trump? i understand that implication. i just am trying to also get straight in my mind as to whether there s a smoking gun somewhere. whether there s going to be a direct communication from the president. and it doesn t sound like that s the case. well i think that we have as we said in our story, we have one source on this call who said that trump did not explicitly
leveraged the power of your office for personal gain. what in that is inaccurate? i also noted that we don t have all the facts, we haven t seen the complaint. and we don t know who the complainant is. i want to know everything. i would turn the table on you. i would say to you, how are you so equipped to render a judgment given all that we don t know? time for one more? what have you got? no? moving on. i want to know what you think. go to my website at smerkonish.com. answer the survey question. what s the political impact of all this on president trump? is it devastating? is it benign? might it be helpful? up ahead. did the president try to use the influence of his office to get dirt on his opponent? and was there an explicit offer of quid pro quo about american aid being withheld? i ll talk to one of the washington post reporters who broke the story. plus, matt drudge thinks it s elizabeth warren s nomination to