Democrats battle to take back the white house . We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am wolf blitzer. Youre in the Situation Room. We are following major breaking news. House democrats drop the hammer, launching a formal Impeachment Inquiry as the outrage over the president s ukraine phone call reaches critical mass. Nancy pelosi making the announcement awhile ago, accusing President Trump of betraying the nation by asking ukraine to help them hurt his potential 2020 opponent, joe biden. Tonight, the president is firing back in familiar fashion, calling the impeachment probe a witch hunt. He failed trying to calm the controversy by releasing transcripts of a phone call tomorrow. All this as the person behind the whistleblower complaint that
set the scandal in motion wants to speak directly with congress. The House Intelligence Committee chairman says that could happen as soon as this week. Our correspondents, analysts, guests are standing biy as w
that was president trump earlier this week telling republicans they have to fight harder for him. according to the daily beast president trump s allies have grown increasingly irritated with senate republicans for failing to counter the inquiry in a broader effort to put democrats on the defensive. donald trump, jr. in particular has gone on the offense tweeting and retweeting multiple calls for the senate to hold their own hearings. but a senior senate aide told the daily beast there has been little that the white house has offered that have given members either direction or confidence. and here s what lindsey graham said to reporters today. yes, the clinton white house had a coordinated effort for people who would deliver the
inquiry is launched, everything that s stonewalled, every delay, every blocking is another line in the column for impeachment. yeah, and i think also the white house and the president wants this transcript released tomorrow because they believe it will be good for them in the short term and they believe it will not be as damaging as people think, but in the long term it could hurt their efforts in terms of giving ammunition to democrats with other transcripts to leaders and the white house and doj can no longer claim that the whistleblower complaint is protected by privilege because it s releasing the transcript of the president s phone call with this foreign leader. and so it will be interesting to see how the white house and doj tries to block it moving forward if it tries to block it moving forward as gordon pointed out, senate republicans now want to say this whistleblower complaint and it s required by the law. the president so far going on the offense tweeting presidential ha
the g-7, the president reaffirmed the need to improve our transatlantic relationship. moments ago, sean spicer describing president trump s relationship with the german chancellor angela merkel as fairly unbelieve nable. i think he meant it like fairable unbelievable, like great. the president on offense tweeting, we have a massive trait deficit with germany. plus, they pay far less than they should on nato and military. very bad for u.s. this will change. chancellor merkel is doubling down today saying there are more reasons than ever before to take our fate into our hands in europe. barry is a director of the center on international security at the atlantic council and special assistant to presidents obama and george w. bush on national security. barry, thank you so much for being on with me. and from what i ve read about you, you know, you think that