Biden on a candidacy facing challenges on all sides. Senator Bernie Sanders goes back to burlington to recuperate ahead of the next debate. This week the Supreme Court hears three major cases on workplace discrimination. Actress and activist laverne cox will join us for those arguments. A. Scott bolden, former chair of the National Association pact and the d. C. Democratic party. Host and professor on the barnard college, president of the media group as well. Christina greer, professor at Political Science and author. Joining us is a White House Reporter for the atlantic. When president clinton faced impeachment there was a white house war room running at full tilt. With this president , there was no war room. Instead, President Trump is in the white house with a Remote Control in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He is casting aspersions and a growing number of discipline station officials are ensnared. Rick perry urged him to make the call back in july. The president told House Republicans he did not want to make that phone call. A piece in the Washington Post chronicles his conversations with other world leaders. They leave his aids generally horrified. He asked Prime Minister shinzo abe to nominate him for a nobel prize. He lost his temper when talking to mexicos past president. And the phone call, the one that happened on july 25th. Were learning a lot about what led to the call and what they say about it. The president continues to blur the lines between his own interests and his duties as head of state. America first was the slogan that helped trump win the president she, but he doesnt seem to believe its the tactic that will help him keep it. Peter, let me start with you and your piece from a moment ago. The president talks about how we want to move away cooperating with other countries except he is more than willing to work with oren courage other countries to help him with this task, the Political Task at hand. Thats right. Just last month we saw him at the united nations, an ode to sovereignty, not taking guidance from other countries. He has always been skeptical of international alliances. Yet here what do we see him doing . Outsourcing Political Research to ukraine and china and in 2016 to russia. Why is that happening . He doesnt trust his own fbi. We have an fbi. It is located here in the sovereign United States. Why not make use of the fbi . Hes allowed to do that. A. Scott bolden, that is the fu fundamental question here. He says hes talking about those in the top. Still the attacks come fast and furious. It is the conspiracy of this deep state that the president and his allies always talk about. But the more they say it, doesnt make it true. The more he says this was a beautiful phone call doesnt make it true. Somehow he thinks if he says it over and over again the people will be convinced or he will talk himself into making it true. In this case the irony is the diplomats and the Intelligence Community that he disdains, undermined, that he believes putin over them and their work, that he has given them the impeachment ammunition now than writing and verbalizing it to theyre going to use to impeach him. Its beyond politics. The house and senate or rather the house has enough to impeach him right now. As a former prosecutor and White Collar Crime attorney, absolutely now. They will fill it out and they will do depositions or try to. If not, you dump it into an obstruction charge and say we tried. Then you take the vote and put it on the senate side. Then the senate gop will be on trial, trump will be on trial, and American Values will be on trial. And god bless america. Hopefully the senate gop will do the right thing. Theres a point about repetition. We have heard a lot about the bidens and ukraine. We can bludgeon people over and over again with this wrong stick. There is a reputation we have seen over the course of the last week in open air calling for foreign governments to assert pressure on foreign governments to undertake these investigations of his political rivals. What do you make of that . He did this when he took out a full page in the New York Times. He went through every single media outlet and talked to every journalist they could to say theyre guilty. He started a Birther Movement and made it a movement. Even after he was proven wrong. He can never admit he was wrong so he keeps saying, no, no, no, im right. But it has to be some other deep state lie because clearly i dont have the capacity to be incorrect. The problem is, and i agree with scott 100 , the problem that we will run into the Republican Party in the senate is so scared of this president they have sworn an allegiance not to the United States as citizens or as a nation. They will follow the president and his lies. They will backtrack once he tweets something and says something later in the day. So it will fall upon the senators, republican senators to see if they will uphold their duty as representatives of our nation. Let me turn to you, peter nicholas, on that point. We were talking about the republican senators. You have looked at the roll hes playing here. We are all familiar with that statement from the president , give me my roy cohn. How much is he representing the presidency verse the president of the United States. We heard him express his dissatisfaction with gahn. He wants loyalists, his own personal lawyer. They are supposed to represent the larger institution and the presidency. Not the president the man. If he commits crime, the appropriate tactic for the white House Counsel is to stop them, draw attention to them. For the white House Counsel, any white House Counsel serving trump, how do you deal with that unbearable tension . He wants a loyalist. We talk about there being a trump doctrine and that was something that evolved over eight years time for obama. We have figure out what that was. We are in the process of doing that with President Trump. Yes, there is the America First brand that we were talking about a moment ago. We are getting a clear sense of the nuances of the president s foreign policy. Peter nicholas writing how he sees it as a poker game. He is using it in a transactional way. Maria, what does this tell you about his overall outlook on the world . I have a shes holding my hand. The problem is that the notion of a doctrine where there has been some real thoughtout strategy, i dont think there is that, right . If you read that Washington Post article that you were quoting from, everybody in the white house is in a state of oh, my god, what is going on . They are watching as they go to the private personal residence to have these phone calls so he doesnt have the staff around him. It is one whistleblower so far and so many lambs. So many lambs. And for me i just keep thinking about when we have, as christy said, this is not knew if its going to be called a doctrine. Its not knew. Frankly, democratic strategists, its like hello, the playbook is right in front of you. I was going to ask you, because you are a political historian, what is the thing . Because im not a policy person. This is not a surprise that trump does this, that he is going to repeat everything and then we as journalists well, i try not to repeat it all again. You know, because its what have journalists who have operated under authoritarian regimes done in order to avoid this. Right. So we have three branches of government. I will give you a quick intro to politics. Executive, legislative and judicial. And so some people might argue we have four branches, the media being the fourth. When this president came into power i wasnt that concerned. Not just the greatest hits, 10 and 51, factions and separation of powers and checks and balances. If you read all the debates that the founding fathers, the framers i call them, were having its for this very moment. They were so afraid of having this type of executive. So they built in these easter eggs to protect us in checks and balances and separation of powers. Now, the reason i am concerned, we have never been weakened in all of our branches simultaneously. Historically we have had moments in time where the judiciary has somewhat let us down, or an executive let us down. But we have a hyper partisan judiciary. That is not supposed to be. That is why they are not elected by citizenry. We have never had a authoritarian at this level or a breakdown of the legislative branch where the senate is working for the executive. The judiciary is working for the executive. And you have the house trying to hold it together in a very loose coalition. And the media being called fake news and enemies of the state. In a million years they couldnt contemplate donald trump, who wants to be an authoritarian. They didnt contemplate a gop senate who was afraid of not being elected again and an electorate that blindly, 40 of them, back this authoritarian. I promise we will get to that. One last question. You see this oped in the Washington Post by joe biden, Vice President joe biden. We talk about the American People being bludgeoned by the stories of this last week. The tact he is taking. We see the piece in the New York Times about the level of concern within the campaign. Among his allies how he handled this and responded to it. Your reaction to the efficacy of what the president has been doing here from Vice President biden. What we know from biden world, he was reluctant to get into this race because of concern of the impact it would have on his family. Hunter biden, his son, could become a target. It was clear from the beginning that this trump campaign, the president himself were going to make him a target. Were going to try to draw out or impress upon there was corruption that took place. So biden to some degree knew what he was getting into. I wonder if he knew it would be quite this bad. The normal practice is for the campaign to take the lead here. Trump is doing this personally. He is the one driving this message that there is corruption even though there is no substantiated evidence. Corruption on the part of bidens family. And thats difficult for biden to absorb. Peter, always great to speak with you. Thank you for joining us on this friday. Covers the white house for that magazine joining us on phpz. Still ahead, how the Biden Campaign is responding to the pressure to investigate the frontrunner. And we will dive into the actor and actress laverne cox. And kurt volker who testified in the house impeachment inquiry. Thats ahead. Mpeachment inquiry. 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Markets ecigarettes with kid friendly flavors and uses nicotine to addict them. 5 million kids use ecigarettes. Juul is following big tobaccos playbook. And now, juul is pushing prop c to overturn ecigarette protections. Vote no on juul. No on big tobacco. No on prop c. This is up. Im david gura. Lawmakers will continue to hold closed door depositions this week. On tuesday, they are scheduled to question gordon sondland, ambassador to the European Union, who pushed ukraine to investigate the bidens even though they are not part of the European Union. Depositions of two other state depositions have yet to be scheduled. Before we look at the week to come as they gather steam, lets look back at the week that was. Adam schiff is exactly why we need term limits in this country. I was on the phone call. I was on the phone call. Shifty schiff. We dont call him shifty schiff for nothing. A shifty, dishonest guy. This praoeuz president of the United States is stooping to a level beneath the president of the United States. She hands out subpoenas like theyre cookies. Here you go. Take them. Like theyre cookies. If it were me i would recommend that they start an investigation into the bidens. China should start an investigation into the bidens. All of this talk about corruption comes from the most corrupt president we have had in modern history. He is the definition of corruption. Release of Text Messages was hugely consequential. Someone who knows curt folker, somebody involved in those texts. Served with am bass doer volker until last year when ambassador melville left. He explained his decision to leave the Foreign Service. America first is a sham. Im curious, first of all, mr. Ambassador, what you were thinking as you watched all of this unfold. You saw the Text Messages brought into daylight, what was going on between these ambassadors, the representatives working in europe. David, good morning. And thank you very much for allowing a Foreign Service perspective to be part of this important discussion. I was almost heartbroken because it seems to me what is going on is rather familiar. I have seen it in other countries, particularly in the Russian Federation where this fog of lies that comes from the very top just keeps citizens confused as to what the truth is and whether there is any truth. In fact, it is the truth that is the fundamental element that we need to keep our eyes on. And thats been the backbone of the work of diplomacy and the Foreign Service in particular is, you know, your integrity is the coin of the realm. If you lie, why would anybody want to believe you. I want to ask you about somebody else who has been involved in all of that. Bill taylor, the head of mission after the u. S. Ambassador to the ukraine was recalled back to washington, d. C. And you see the role that he played through the Text Messages. Very explicitly questioning what was going on both in washington and over in europe. As you talk about the Foreign Services, as i think about the piece that ambassador burns wrote for the New York Times just a week ago, how when you look at those assistant secretaries of state, there were i think seven vacancies and only one who is not a political appointee in those positions. What is this, what we have seen over the course of the week, tell us what we have learned the last two years, three years. Whats become of the state department in which you spent so much time working . Well, it goes much farther back than that. In the 19th century if you were well connected and wealthy american you could buy yourself a commission in the army, a colonel or a general. Thank goodness for our National Security, we got away from that particular model. But sadly that isnt the case with diplomacy where, you know, for a Million Dollars contributed to the president s inauguration, you could be the u. S. Ambassador to the European Union and play a diplomat in a very destructive way to our national interests. To gordon son land who is a hotelier in portland, oregon. Ambassador, thank you for joining us. I have a question for you. When we hear from ambassadors and people who worked in the state department, usually they are pretty straightforward. Theres not a lot of emotion. And honestly i was very taken by the fact that you looked clearly emotionally distraught as you started to speak with david. Can you tell me, tell us a little bit why you are having this deep emotional reaction that were all seeing in this particular moment. Believe me, i dont want to be here. I didnt ask for this. But as a citizen, im just so deeply concerned with whats going on