Theyre cookies. Brennan nancy pelosi is adopting a different tone. Impeaching a president or having an investiga psident is t anything to be joyful about. Brennan but many republicans claim this is just political stunt. Our guest, Top Republican senator missouris roy blunt and two key house democrats, Foreign AffairsCommittee Chairman eliot engel and congressman jim himes, who sits on the Intelligence Committee. Plus well hear from two journalists who closely covered past impeachments, the Washington Posts bob woodward and peter baker of the New York Times. All this and political analysis of the week up next on face the nation. Good morning, and welcome to face the nation. There has been another series of stunning developments in the story that is consuming washington. President trump continues to attack his critics, pleading over 160 times this week. He also made several freewheeling appearances filled with unsubstantiated claims alongside visiting foreign leaders. Biden and his son are stonecold crooked. And you know it. His son walks out with millions of dollars. The kid knows nothing. You know it and so do we. Go ahead, ask a question. The question, sir, is what did you want president zelensky to do about Vice President biden and his son hunter . Are you talking to me . Yeah, thats followup of what i just asked you . The only thing that matters is the transcript of the actual conversation that i had with the president of ukraine. It was perfect. Your own d. N. I. Said the call transcript was consistent with the complaint. No, no. He didnt say that. He did say that. No, no, no. He did not sayfthat. Brennan but he did. I would say that the whistleblowers complaint is ind yesterday by the president. Brennan curt kurt volker, mr. Trumps special envoy, resigned last week. Ambassa thengress as tween hi Career State Department envoy bill taylor. The texts encourage ukraine to launch an investigation in exchange for a white house visit. This from volker to a ukrainian aide. Assumeing they get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will mail down date for visit to washington. President trump also asked another country the look into former Vice President and his son hunter. By the way, likewise should start an investigation into the bidens. Brennan biden responded angrily. The. There has been no indication of any conflict of interest from ukraine or anywhere else. Period. Im not going to respond to that. Lets focus on the problem. Focus on this man. Have you ever seen rhetorical questions, a president ever so unhinged as this guy is. Thats what worries me. Let the house focus on what theyre focusing on in the senate, and im going to go out and im going to beat him on the merits. Thank you. Brennan congress is seeking documents from Vice President pence and secretary of state pompeo. Nations do this. Nations Work Together and they say, boy, goodness gracious, if you can help me with exf, well help you chief y, this is what partnerships do. Its winwin. Brennan mr. Trump acknowledged he may be impeached. So the democrats, unfortunately they have the votes, and then well get to the senate, and were going to win. The republicans have been very unified. Brennan thats true, for the most part, but there are some cracks in republican unity. Utah senator mitt romney called the president s ukraine and china requests brazen and unprecedented, wrong and appalling. Nebraskas ben sasses and Maines Susan Collins were also critical. And with that we begin this morning with Missouri Republican senator roy blunt. Hes part of Republican Party leadership and he joins us here in studio. Good morning. Orys representing now multiple in ret complaint. It was first revealed in august. It related to concern that the president was seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election. How should this be handled . What will nat intelligence do . Well, as you know, the Senate Intelligence committee that i serve on has been asked to look at this to see if we cant assemble all of the facts. I think that gives us a responsibleility to get the facts before we reach conclusions. Others who havent been asked to do that might reach their conclusions a little quicker than we are, but in terms of other people stepping forward, i heard it earlier today that maybe this would be a firsthand source, which means they thats what the Attorney Says . I guess it means they have seen the transcript we have all seen. Emmunth. Y, i. Gs f torhere sometg wrong with the whistleblower law that people who were firsthand sources told somebody else and tried to get that other person to come forward. I think it will be interesting to find out more about who that person is and what kind of contacts they had. We do know that they contacted the democrats on the house Intelligence Committee and then chairman schiff said that didnt happen, but were all sort of firsthand sources now that weve all seen the transcript, and lets see what else actually that really means that youve got somebody else coming forward. Brennan well, that initial there were about half a dozen individuals who could back up what he said. The attorney for the second whistleblower says there is firsthand knowledge. Well, that might be, but weve all seen the transcript now, sog we can all back up what the whistleblower said as it relates to the transcript. I think actually the speaker chose a fairly narrow topic here to move forward on. Its not very confusing, one way or another youre going to decide, is what the president says he said not. An i think its a different situation when the president actually says, hes what i said and heres why i said it, and i think the president says he thinks he was on solid ground and well see what other facts might come to the floor that have an impact on that. Brennan are you comfortable with what the president has said here in this call for Foreign Government, ukraine and china, to investigate his political opponents . Well, i doubt if the china comment was serious, to tell you the truth . Brennan you dont take the president as it words is this. No, the frommed loves to go out on the white house driveway, i havent talked to him about. This i dont know what the president was thinking, but i know he loves to bait the press, and he does that almost every day to see what youll talk about and maybe what he was hoping was brennan so you dont believe the president. Is that appropriate to ask for a Foreign Government to interpeer . I dont imagine thats what he does doing. Brennan but is it appropriate . Certainly we shouldnt expect the chinese, the russians or any other National Security adversaries to be help informal any way, and if they do come forward with information, you would have to seriously question whether there was any information or not. Brennan so with we establish a fact here because youre on Senate Intelligence. Youre part of one of the only bipartisan investigations into election meddling. Is there any shadow of a doubt that it was russia that interfered in 2016 . No shadow of a doubt that russia interfered. Brennan because youre hearing from others, including the president s attorney, these ideas that maybe ukraine meddled. Have you seen any facts to substantiate that . I think there are some facts that indicate ukraine was involved in some things like purporting to have information that manafort that even mueller didnt use. I dont know if that came or 1e way the russians did. I think you have to assume that the russians, the north koreans, the iranian, the chinese all are trying to get in our systems all the time. And every one of them and others would see anything good for them is bad for the United States and more importantly anything bad for the United States is good for them. Brennan when the president says things like you did in that call record, that there is a server in ukraine, is that a Conspiracy Theory or have you brennan i dont have any information on that. Brennan is it fact . Do you know it to be true . I dont know. Brennan is it anything that your committee has looked into. Brennan not that im aware of. Brennan is it worth looking into . Weve tried the stay bipartisan. I think Intel Committee in the senate has been able to do that. I hope were able to do that through the next few weeks as renigh troy to put a fairly small fact set together. This is not like going back and looking at anything any outside source might have done in the ky one that the president says is accurate and then trying to determine what more may be out there. Brennan your republican colleague, senator ron johnson told the wall street journal in an interview, that he had a conversation, he was personally told by the u. S. Ambassador in the e. U. , that if ukraine would get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 if President Trump has that confidence, then hell release military spending. Johnson then says in this interview, at that suggestion, i winced. My reaction is, i dont want to see those two things denied. The president denied having anything to do with this, but hes substantiating in this interview on the record that there was discussion of a quid pro quo. Well, remember, some of these ambassadors in these discussions havent had any diplomatic experience. Just the fact that youd e was c ithis job. Does he need to be held accountable . He does. They all do. They all need to be held accountable. Brennan do you think his personal attorney is suggesting that. I have no reason to know that. Brennan is that something thats worth looking into . I think this fact set is fairly small. I think we need to put it together and then determine if the president s statement that he said this, what that really means. I do think its not unusual for a foreign leaders when they talk to each other to say, heres something id like you to do for me, whether its a trade agreement or some other agreement. I dont think thats unusual. But i think the question here is going to be is this going to be part san effort on the part of the house, do the facts really matter, and frankly, margaret, if they come brennan what happens when it gets to the senate . I think a lot depends on what happens in the house. You have to assume if its a partisan vote in the house, that that sets the stage for a likely same kind of vote in the senate, but lets see what the facts are. Brennan senator blunt, appreciate you joining us today. We turn now to a top democrat. Connecticut congressman jim himes joins us from stamford. Congressman, welcome the face the nation. Good morning, margaret. Brennan you just heard senator blunt there. I want to ask you the same question in regard to the whistleblower. We are now hearing multiple have come forward in relation to that initial complain our Committee Heard f n obvuslyd not even from the initial whistleblower, whose identity is still hopefully being profected, but we have obviously heard all about the complaint and the Inspector General has told us all of the background around that, but, no, we have not heard from a second. But margaret, this actually highlights an interesting aspect of this whole mess, which is as much as donald trump is raging against adam schiff and nancy pelosi and the democrats and subpoenas like cookie, his problem is not with the democrats. Its not with people like me. Were sitting here watching the information flow out of the white house, damning information, facts that are undisputed. Whats happening, margaret, is people around the president , professional, who are in the oval office, who are in the situation room, are watching what is happening and are finally saying, my god, this cannot happen anymore, and they are coming forward, either as whistleblowers, as apparently two people are going to do officially, but also by leaking. A lot of this story is coming out because people who are in the room are talking to the Washington Post and the New York Times and to others. So the preside final got on the a p whereeople are saying, enough. Clari tuation room. E you the owlee l . Saying is that there were stories before we even saw the original whistleblower complaint in the press about this whistleblower complaint that were coming from sources that had firsthand knowledge. So you know, because they were press source, i dont know who they are. Again, leaking to the press is not the way to do this. The way to do this is to do what the whistleblower did, but my point is whether they were in the room or had firsthand knowledge or talked to somebody who had firsthand knowledge, people who are in the very core of all of these events are saying, this cant happen anymore. So again, the president s problem is not with the democrats or with adam schiff, its with the fact that people around him are saying, we cant tolerate this anymore. Brennan is the impeachment inquiry going the stay narrowly focused on this issue with ukraine and this phone call, or do you see the scope widening . I think its likely the stay narrowly focused on what is a threat to our National Security. And look, theres any number of issues you can take up with this president , butkacndea t muell report, there are some awful, awful stuff in there where the president is ordering investigations to end or ordering somebody to go tell the department of justice to stop that investigation, stuff that would have resulted in barack obama being impeached 0 30 times over, but i cothink this speaker of the house understands that there is remember, impeachment is at its heart a political rather than a legal thing. Thats why its in the congress as opposed to the court system. I think that Speaker Pelosi understands that americans feel in their bones, in their heart a challenge to our National Security. This kind of corruption. They understand that a lot better than they understand obstruction of justice or refusal to abide by congressional subpoena, which are also very, very serious offenses that the president has committed. Brennan to that point, republicans say, if democrats are so certain and so unified, why dont they put this to a vote to go ahead with the inquiry. Understanding thats not not at least kill that talking point for them . Well, you know, if you try to spend your time killing republican talking points, youll do nothing else. I mean, i heard it from senator blount just now. Leaders ask other leaders for favors. Yeah, that may be true. Im sure president s have in the past asked other reeders for favors. Traditionally those favors have not been research my political opponent. Brennan are the votes there, though . Sorry . Brennan are there enough votes, though . Are democrats truly unified . If Speaker Pelosi did, in fact, move forward with a floor vote on actually proceeding with an investigation, which as you point out is not required here, there is no question in my mind that she would have the votes, yes. Brennan i want to ask about these subpoenas that the house committees have put forward to the white house, to the second secretary of state inch reading through this na sensitive National Security related documents that are likely to be covered by executive privilege. What do you actually expect reasonably for the committee to actually get ahold of . Well, thats a great question, right . One of the things we need to rebuild in this country in the posttrump era is what actually executive privilege means. Executive privilege does not mean that you get to hide embarrassing documents. Executive privilege, and you know this margaret, stems from the idea that the president ought to be able to get advice from his advisers that is not subsequent to secondguessing or oversight by congress down the road. It doesnt mean that you move a really embarrassing transcript off of a traditional server on to a highly class find server because you understand if that got throughout in the public, its a problem. Its not about hiding embarrassment. Its not about keeping people from testifying that might produce uncomfortable facts. So again, i expect this white house to continue to stonewall attempts to get at the truth. This is what theyve done from the very beginning, but again, my republican friends need to remember that there will be a3 democratic president some day, and they will want to do oversight of that democratic president , so as they rise to the defense of donald trump, they need to remember that theyre establishing precedents here that are going to really come back to bite them down the road. Brennan all right. Congressman jim himes, thank for you time. Well be back in one minute with a lot more face the nation. Dont question away. S here to hp you with turning ideas into action. Putting your business on the map, connecting with customers, and getting the skills to use new tools. So, in case youre looking, weve put all the ways we can help in one place. Free training, tools, and Small Business resources are now available at google. Com grow come on lets hide in the attic. No. In the basement. Why cant we just get in the running car . Are you crazy . Lets hide behind the chainsaws. Smart. Yeah. Ok. If youre in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. Its what you do. This was a good idea. Shhhh. Im being quiet. Youre breathing on me if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Lets go to the cemetery brennan were back now with new York Democratic congressman ted engelking. Eliot engel. He is in new york this morning. Good morning to you, congressman. Good morning, margaret. Brennan secretary of state pompeo yesterday said that congress has harassed and abused his state Department Team by contacting diplomats rather