Including at the top of the hour. You mentioned his meeting with the leader of venezuela, this is one of several one on ones that the president has today. Msnbc happens to be able to be in the room, interacting with the president. One of our teams producers is there. Ill be in the room for the meeting with the president and the leader of ukraine in just a bit. It is now 10 00 and were going to get to breaking news. As this moment is Trump Administration is releasing what the president describes as the transcript of that phone call that launched the democrats impeachment investigation. What we now know, it was a 30minute call with the president of ukraine two months ago. Weve got a team of reporters covering the story and lets get to julia at the Justice Department. What are we learning so far . We went over the transcript of the call and we also went over why the Justice Department is not going to release the whistleblower complaint. What stood out to me about the transcript is that th
had. beyond that, the whistle-blower, his or her report, his or her testimony is vitally important because we understand from press reports that there are other incidents that gave rise to deep concern, urgent concern by the whistle-blower. we need to know that. we need to know what role, if any, the state department played which pains me as a former employee of the state department. there is a lot here to be found out. so we need a full investigation. we need to get all the facts and follow the facts. we just had a republican congressman on the show. i don t know if you had a chance to listen in, congressman mat gates, an ally of the president. someone i bumped into, meeting with the president. one of the things he mentioned was that the real story, i m paraphrasing here, is about former vice president joe biden, hunter biden, the fact that he was tied to this ukrainian gas company, et cetera.
states? the right question is were you briefed on this. that would be deceptive they don t know the process. i asked about briefing as well. i want to know if he read it. i have reason to believe he told speaker ryan and gowdy he didn t forrowly review it. he s responsible for. produce proof of that. i didn t have proof. which is why i asked the question. he wouldn t answer the question was really darn suspicious. mat gates thank you for making the case. you re welcome back. enjoy your weekend. i appreciate it. congressman mat gates from florida. yesterday, i don t have to tell you what happened. five americans killed in another evil senseless act of violence. we re hearing there were warning signs and they went on for years. police knew about the suspect threats. unfortunately this is not uncommon. in situations like this. we have a story that will hammer this home.
included a demand for the most robust supporting information that can reasonably be released. but this memo is an opinion. it s not conjecture. it is a statement of verifiable facts. and i think that its veracity will be upheld in the court of public opinion for sure. martha: congressman mat gates, thank you very much. good to have you here tonight. thank you. martha: many in the media have called for transparency with everything that involves this. but now that the memo is on the verge of being released, some of those same people are calling for the opposite of that. they want it to be withheld from view by the american people. so here now lisa booth, a fox news contributor and juan williams, co-host of the five and fox news political analyst. good to see you both. that s where i want to start, juan. this is a work product of a congressional committee. and they put together this memo. they have gone through the proper channels to release it. finish the white house, the president
people be able to see it? well, it s the work of the republicans on the committee. martha: well, they have the majority on the committee. correct. it s the work of people and especially devin nunes the chairman the house intel committee who has, as you know, obviously been in coordination with the white house on the unmasking issue earlier. he had subsequently then to recuse himself. now is he back as chair. and the question, martha is if you are truly engage engagedn an act of transparency, why not release the documentation that attaches to it, which was your last question to congressman gates. i would say this though, congressman getz says more people are likely to change jobs if this memo is released. it s aimed really at the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein because he was the one in terms of carter page subject to the fisa warrant that gave the approval for the extension. if that s what this is about then what we heard from speaker ryan is ridiculous.