allegations. he called him to congratulate him after he was elected. four days later, joe biden announced his presidential candidacy. since biden s announcement, the president, giuliani, the republican national committee and other surrogates lobbed accusations at biden on activities in the ukraine. in a phone call, the one in the middle of the controversy, according to notes from that call released by the white house last week, president trump asked president zelensky to work with giuliani and attorney general william barr to launch an investigation into biden s role in that firing. in a piece for nbcnews.com, they look at the efforts by president trump and his allies to use this theory to discredit biden and his son. carol lee joins us now. what do the president and his team, i mean, i guess we know
national security adviser john bolton, made one of his first appearances since he was fired a few weeks ago. you have new information regarding what he said about the president s phone call with the ukranian president. what do you know? what my colleagues learned from current and former senior administration officials is that john bolton was against president trump placing this phone call to president zelensky in july, and the reason these officials said to us was that there was concern on behalf of bolton that he wasn t coordinating what he would say with advisers and that he might run the risk of airing personal grievances. then the call takes place, and we learn that bolton and vice president mike pence was not one of those listening on the call. so what we also know is that the people around the president who say the person they re concerned about most in terms of who could
inflict the most damage on trump is john bolton because of terms under which he left, it was contentious, a spat over whether he resigned or was fired, and he knows a lot. one person said he knows where all of the bodies are buried. thanks very much. still ahead, not just the zelensky phone call under scrutiny. new details about the oval office conversation president trump had with russia s foreign minister in 2017. we ll tell you why that infamous meeting is in the spotlight. and later this hour, beto o rourke joins me from his home state of texas. one of several democrats in the 2020 race that say they ve seen enough, time to impeach the president. you re watching msnbc. h the president. you re watching msnbc. granted. only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.
they re looking for documents related to that now infamous phone call that president trump had with ukrainian president zelensky in july and they also want aides related to a decision that president trump made aboin call the week before. they ve upped the stakes here. as you mentioned, they ve twice requested these documents. pompeo and the state department have blown two deadlines going back to september 9th, now raising the stakes saying if the state department doesn t comply with the latest subpoena by october 4th, that s friday, they will consider the administration to have obstructed their impeachment inquiry. so that could actually strengthen their hand. now, chairman engel of the foreign affairs committee said that democrats felt they had no choice but to step up their efforts and issue the subpoena for secretary of state pompeo because the administration
ignored their previous inquiries. take a listen. the subpoena s the last thing you should do, and we only did it because they turned a blind eye to whatever we asked for. we asked for information, we asked for documents, and we were stonewalled, not even so much as an answer. you know, this and mdministrati- just ignored you. just ignored us. this administration thinks they don t have the checks and balances that we were issued in grade school. they seem to think it doesn t apply to them. democrats are also looking for depositions from state department officials including former u.s. envoy to ukraine kurt volker who issued his resignation last night. volcker is a key figure in the whole ukraine controversy. he s named in the whistle-blower complaint as someone who set up a key meeting between rudy giuliani, the president s personal lawyer, and a top aide to crew cranian leader zelensky.