dastardly enemy, and anyone who questions that, is probably a tool of vladimir putin and therefore, a traitor to our country. one current member of the house intelligence committee put it this way. >> why were the russians in the white house? and i mean that seriously. they had just attacked our democracy. they are being there is exactly what we have all feared all along, is that donald trump would say something to them that is not really in line with u.s. policy. they are not our friends. we should share nothing more than pleasantries, certainly not national security secrets. >> tucker: congresswoman stephanie murphy, a democrat from florida, went a step further than this. she demanded the u.s. government stop speaking to russia at all in any way. "there is no such thing as appropriate contact with a hostile foreign government." no word on whether she applied that same standard to barack obama recent deal with communist cuba. nobody is arguing here, even a
trump administration, that rush is a close ally of ours about the putin government is rooting for america success. they're probably not. but when a country goes from being an afterthought, as russia was just recently, to the target of war drums, as it is now, it all changes in a single election cycle, as it has, it's fair to ask, what exactly is going on? almost certainly more than meets the eye, probably a lot more. if you live in washington, you know for a fact that there is a lot happening behind the scenes. the press out to be asking questions about this. but they haven't. instead, they've attacked anyone who does. not on this show. with those questions hanging in the air, we are joined by one of the very few people in the country who might credibly answer them. he is stephen cohen prayed for decades, he taught and researched russian politics at e joins us tonight. professor cohen, thanks a lot for coming on. to start with the first of these two stories, the president is accused of passing critical intelligence to the russians in a meeting at the white house.
>> i think two motives have driven this, i think i'm a false narrative against trump, that he is somehow a kremlin agent. two forces. one is the clinton wing of the democratic party, which doesn't want to admit she lost the election, wants to say, i, clinton won, but put in and stole it from me. then, maybe she wants to run again. i think that is the possibility. at the same time, there has long been in washington, a powerful, let's call it, the fourth branch of government. the intelligence services, who have opposed any cooperation with russia. remember, and 2016, president obama worked out a deal with russian president putin for military cooperation in syria. he said he was going to share intelligence with russia, just the way trump on the russians were supposed to do the other day. our department of defense, they wouldn't share intelligence. a few days later, they killed syrian soldiers, violating the agreement, and that was the end
financially, politically, or, ts catering to them? >> tucker: in other words, people are upset about russia, there must be something there because they are upset and therefore, we should be upset. mathematicians have finally found the perfect circle and it lies in nancy pelosi's logic. joe manchin joins us tonight. senator, thanks for coming on. you brought into this. what did you make -- first off, what are professor cohen just said. he believes that president trump's foreign policy objectives, syria for example, were thwarted by members of his administration, staff working in the agencies, who disagreed with him? >> i can go back, i was listening to the hole into for you had with him. he goes back basically, we shouldn't be talking to russians, other powers of the world. russia is the only country that can do any harm to the united states of america. it is foolish not to think that we should try to build a relationship with them. >> tucker: they are the only country that can do harm? >> they have basically the
missile capability to do harm to the united states. i have asked that question many times on armed services. which country is capable of doing harm to us? russia. not turning out, not north korea, as much as they are trying and want to. russia has the ability within nuclear weapons to do harm. so, you have to have the report. you have to have some type of communication. >> tucker: sure, but don't we also have common interests? >> most certainly. pushing the button on both sides. >> tucker: my question is -- look, i think there is probably a balanced view of russia, you recognize they are a threat militarily but they also can be an ally in the fight against terror, a massive energy producer, we could benefit from a relationship with them. when did we become so evil that talking to them is itself inactive -- >> tucker, i don't think tucker has ever been our ally. i don't think they have our best interest. basically, we know the hacking that has gone on, we know the intensity of the hacking this last election.
but there is no proof that anything changed. president trump won by 43% in west virginia. i can assure you, they couldn't have altered that outcome. >> tucker: you don't think the russians were involved in a boating in west virginia at all? >> i don't think wheat they were involved in the outcome. we have seen no proof that their intention to be involved to change the outcome of the election. with that being said, we know they have attempted more, dunmore, put more effort. the trolls and everything else that is going on, the hacking that is going on, all of these things, and basically, something that we should accept or allow whatsoever. >> tucker: as you know, since you live and work here, this is shoving down our government. i think the trump administration is partly to blame. i think his conduct is unflattering. basically, it has ground everything to a halt because of this russia question. i just wonder if voters are in favor of that. like your voters? today think this is more important on coal jobs? >> i don't like it is going to
get to a halt. if you want to see a halt, it was ground to a halt under the obama administration basically because of mitch having the power to grounded to a halt. two wrongs don't make a right. i'm the first to tell you that. i didn't like what happened the last eight years, the last four years that i was there. now, what is happening today. >> tucker: i for democrats of it they won't vote on fbi director. until we get an independent investigation of russia. >> first of all, i think it is important that we have a special prosecutor. some people don't believe that. i respect that. the bottom line is, we stop in government, give me a good sip, centrist, as far as an fbi director, doesn't have any political ties, we should vote for him. >> tucker: regardless. >> that's mine. i am doing my own thing, which i always am. >> tucker: i'm not saying that the russia question should be ignored. i don't know what is at the bottom of it. i don't think anybody else. i resent people pretending they do when they don't. let's look into it.
is it more important than the stated goals of the administration or the opioid crisis in your state? russia seems like the most important by far to the democrats right now. >> the report that came out this morning, today's a bad day. we have been hearing things hour upon hour. i am on the intelligence committee and i have said this. there are 19 people privilege to testify information at that level, supposedly, that is that. we are told early on if you discuss this, you can discuss it with her colleagues and no one else, staff, nobody. so, we don't talk about things, you're not supposed talk about things. if we do, will get thrown out the committee. if it's serious enough of what we were veal, then, could be federal charges. i take that very seriously. the president operates under a different set of rules than we do. >> tucker: executive branch employees, everything we are talking about now is the result of leaks presumably by people who work for donald trump, career employees i would bet,
who are leaking this stuff and basically making it impossible to govern. >> my recommendation would be this. i would like to visit all of our intel sites and to meet with all of our intel people, they are the rest of the world by the need to have some type of correlational relationship, a dialogue. the president need to patch this up. we have the best and we have people, basically our allies around the world, tucker, that have gone to battle with us, they have fought with us, they have died -- >> tucker: are you suggesting that trump is getting leaked on, basically -- you should create a personal relationship with people who work in the intelligence community. >> they are professionals. >> tucker: civilian control of government, they should do what he asks or leave, is another way it works? >> these are career professionals. >> tucker: shouldn't they be accountable?
>> they are accountable to the country. everybody who take that oath is accountable to the country. the country comes first. there is no person, the president, me or anybody else, the country comes first. >> tucker: of course. i'm dressing under my system, their bosses the guy who they elect. they have to obey him because he was elected by voters. they weren't. so, when they ignore him -- >> they are doing their job day in and day out. thank got for that. they are basically monitoring and talking with our other allies, gathering information that keeps america safe. >> tucker: the elected guy gets to set the policies. they don't. do they? >> he can set them. he can set the policies but they have to enforce it, they have to follow through. the end policy, i would think i'm of the policy would be the same. collect all the information, possible. prevented from doing us harm. who are our allies around the world? because people are trusted afraid we put people in harm's way?
what came out today put -- could put in all a lot of people in harm's way. we are concerned about that. >> tucker: senator, thanks. abu comey memo, could this just be the latest case of a lot of people in washington going too far too fast? brit hume here to tell us what we know and what we don't and what we can speculate about. plus, hillary clinton has launched a new political action committee. what happened to the clinton foundation, by the way? we will talk to the author of "clinton pac" just ahead. ♪ i accept i take easier trails than i used to. i even accept i have a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. but no matter what path i take, i go for my best. so if there's something better than warfarin,
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>> tucker: every day seems to bring a new story about brush our dreams call me or the president's ice cream preferences, and the press grabs every single one like it's the worst scandal since watergate. but if every single story as watergate but if any story as watergate? if so, what story is watergate. brit hume covered watergate and he joins us tonight. brit, i cannot resist replaying the piece of tape that we played in the previous segment, from earlier today on another network. there is a guy on there called carl higbie, a former seal, how to mount here before. he is trying to make the point to the panel that anonymous sources are not always right. we should be skeptical about that. here is how the anchor responded on that show. watch this. >> two former officials knowledgeable of the situation confirmed for cn on the main points of the story. two former officials, i'll tell you what, come on, name those people, then, we'll have something to talk about. >> one, we protect sources, two, sinatra cnn,
"the washington post," "new york times," "wall street journal," cnn, abc -- >> who are the sources? >> carl. >> who are the sources? >> they are hiding behind this anonymity. >> please! you are going to attack sources! >> you are saying mcmaster is lying? >> i'm not saying mcmaster is lying! >> that is his opinion. >> you cannot attack the stellar reporters on cnn! >> tucker: we don't know if she bit him in a commercial break which he was moving into that direction. [laughs] what struck me, whatever you think of carl higbie's views, he is raising the possibility that maybe there are questions raining. that is not acceptable. >> it is always legitimate to question anonymous sources. sometimes, we in journalism have to use them because there is no other way to get the information, and we depend on our own judgment and integrity as to how credible they are. we try if we are professional about it, to be careful that our own biases are not making us
likely to believe things that suit our preferences. but if you are an anchor and somebody is critical of the use of anonymous sources, it you don't start shouting and shaking your finger in the person's face. >> tucker: part of it is, she felt he was attacking their correspondents, but not just their correspondence, the idea that anybody would dare question the received wisdom at the moment, is that trump is a tool of putin, there is some horrifying buried treasure underneath all of us. questioning that is like a sin. i just wonder where the press all the way saturn became the group enforcing certainty, rather than asking questions. >> we are in the most poisonous media atmosphere i think that any president in my lifetime has ever experienced. this is way beyond what we saw, even with nixon, for much of the time, even though he was cordially hated on the left end and much of the media. certainly, george w. bush was detested by the media to a great
extent. but nothing like this. nothing like -- barack obama was hated on the right but not to this extent. this is beyond anything i have seen before. now, the problem for trump is, of course, he is unfamiliar with how to operate in this atmosphere. the people around him don't seem how to do it. the reagan people know they were in a hostile media atmosphere because he was so conservative. but they were seasoned that they knew how to compensate for it. it's not fair, it's not fair that trump should have to do that. but you do have to do it. as part of the skill of the presidency and part -- one of the tools you have to have. you have to know how to plan for that, you have to know how things will be received, which is why, if you are in the white house, and there is an investigation of someone close to you, as into the case of general flynn, it's a bad idea to say to the fbi director, even though you feel sympathy for the person under investigation, and even all you are really asking the fbi director is, can you --
can we see our way clear? the way it was quoted, see our way clear to end that? that is not in order to stop the investigation. and we now have sworn testimony since then from the deputy fbi director that there have been no effort to impede the investigation. so, it appears that comey heard this, responded noncommittally, and the investigation went forward. this was unwise of the president to do this, if, in fact, he did. but it's not the biggest thing that ever happened. it is not worthy of the all-day firestorm we have -- the all evening firestorm we have been living and now all evening on this. that we have been living through. it is just, we don't know enough about it, we don't have the actual memo, we don't have the full context, we don't know how comey took it except to say that we knew that he said basically he understood that flynn was a pretty good guy, left it at that. he didn't seem to be under a lot of pressure to end the
investigation. of course, there is a problem when you fire an fbi agent, you better prepare the way. it's a good idea to have a successor, appointee ready to go, someone everybody can trust. for two reasons. one, it's the right thing to do, take the focus off the departing person. and if the person is credible, the focus has become the confirmation of that person. this is clumsy. ham-handed. it's you have to be proved to me that it was corrupt. >> tucker: why humiliate people on the way out? almost always? >> is just bad judgment. >> tucker: brit hume, thank you for joining us. new york city counselor wants to create a new law targeting a trump golf course in an effort to make the president release his tax returns for the lawmaker rule be here to explain how the law will work, the next ♪
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that government can't pass laws to affect individuals, they have to affect behavior. you can't just to single out one person with a law. yet, that seems like exactly what you are doing. >> tucker, thinks of all, -- first of all, thanks for havinge show. show. i admired you for years, i missed you on "crossfire." >> tucker: [laughs] >> this bill is not just about president trump. this bill would pertain to anyone in the future who goes for a city concession contract, who emblazoned their name on the property, and is making money off of the city of new york, i sorta feel like this is not to minimize this important topic. i am like a lowly little city council member on the west side of manhattan at i feel like there is much bigger news today, would you have been talking about during your show. >> tucker: i used to live in new york. and that is why the story caught my attention. you preside over a city that
just decriminalized public urination. okay? and the effects are really obvious, at least where i was living in midtown. there's a lot going on a mat hat on, not all of it good. and you are taking your time to basically grandstand on the national stage because you don't like trump. it's okay if you don't like trump. i'm not mad about that. but how about filling some potholes and arresting some public urinate or is? >> [laughs] tucker, this is the first time i have heard a connection between public urination and president trump. >> tucker: it's your city. >> this is really about getting some transparency and accountability. do you think the president should release his tax returns? >> tucker: i don't know. i am not a city counselor for the city of new york. >> you don't know? you are a smart guy prayed >> tucker: welcome i am not trying to pass a law designed to force him to release his tax returns. you are. and i am merely saying, he ought to admit it's about trump, it's not about any of your other concession holders in
new york city. and b, is it right for government, is it not an abuse of government to craft a law for an individual? was a pretty basic tenant of the british law we inherited. >> first of all, if we did pass the council, which i hope it well, i'm sure our litigious presidents will litigate it. he hasn't really had much respect for the courts in the past, or jurists, or judges. who knows what he will say or will be done. the thing i find more offensive here than they will be city councilmember writing this legislation, is the fact that he is not being held accountable, he is not being transparent, the revelations today about the conversation with comey, michael flynn's connection to russia, all of these things should want us to know what the president's connection is to russia. >> tucker: hold on. wait a second. we have an entire congress to deal with this. we have a home media that hates trump that can work on this. you are supposed to be -- i am
like one guy in a sea of people who wake up every morning seeking to get -- i am merely saying -- i making a point. you have a very specific job, to help her in a city of help her in a city of 8 million people, some of them unruly. have you been to penn station recently? it's like a homeless shelter it. it's disgusting. you give the speeches, i just read one, you said, "trump is bad," and ignore the guy living under the atm machine, relieving himself next -- i'm serious. >> tucker. to be when i go there every week. penn station is yours and you are worried about trump tax returns? are you joking? a dead serious question. have you been to the men's room at penn station? >> i'm asking you a serious question. >> i am like former republican senator larry craig, i avoid men's rooms. for me, i am focused on all of the issues in my district. >> tucker: what? [laughs] >> i'm here to talk about trump
tax returns. >> tucker: people use the men's room in the train stations, and now you're complaining about tax returns? >> one last thing, we need an independent prosecutor. >> tucker: first, we need clean men's rooms at penn station you are the guy in charge of that. why don't you get on those bathrooms? >> tucker, we needed an independent counsel to look at what is going on. >> tucker: all right. we are out of time. thanks. i am sorry. the bathrooms are horrible they are, by the way. congress banned insider trading years ago but a top expert on d.c. corruption said lawmakers are still making millions within inside information. sounds like a crime. it's actually happening. up next, we will talk to the author peter schweitzer. tim allen had a new sitcom called "last man standing," pretty good ratings. abc canceled it anyway. did he do it for political reasons?
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>> tucker: hillary clinton lost the presidency in part because of widespread popular disgust at the amount of money her family made from politics, hundreds of millions of dollars. the belief that she used her influence to cash in, which of course she did, repeatedly. now, hillary is creating a brand-new political action committee. peter schweizer watches this kind of stuff for a living. he's the president of the government accountability institute. he also wrote the books. 21 and a bunch of other books worth reading. he said the clinton business dealing are far from over, they are corrupt, by the way. while congress remains compromised, as well, thanks to a report of insider trading. peter schweizer joins us now to untangle this ugly web. so, peter, what is this new hillary clinton pack and how will she get rich from it? >> it's basically a basically a 5o1c4, which is a tax exempt organization, and it can take unlimited donations, those
can be secretive donations, and i think really come of this organization is going to serve two purposes. number one, the clintons have these people, guys like sid blumenthal, that need a place to hang their hat. an opportunity to do that, keep their network in place. number two, what is going to do is make them relevant in the democratic party. a lot of democrats want him to go away. the questions know if they can't be king, they want to be kingmakers. this organization will help them be a big player in the democratic party. >> tucker: you forget that the clintons are a sad version of the grateful dead. there's a whole bunch of camps, and the followers, and their kids community men? you are supporting a lot of people when you are a clinton. with the clinton foundation, there was speculation that it was going to go on to her failed to get elected. >> two things have happened. first, the cult clinton global initiative is gone, zip, it's g. this is something that happened in december, after she lost. essentially, interests and money dried up by the clinton foundation is not an much better shape. a lot of foreign governments
that gave the millions of dollars, the governor of australia for example has announced after the election if they are not giving them any more. the governor of norway has cut it back by some 87%. so, they'll continue to live a long but it's not going to have the $250 million budget door so that it has has had up until this point because it was a pay to play system. we know from the podesta emails, when the clintons to their own internal review of the clinton foundation, the fed is exactly what it was, that they were exchanging donations for favors. they can't really perform those favors anymore because they don't have any power or access to power. >> tucker: i'm confused. i thought the clinton foundation was its own good works and most of the children and the world would die work on for the clinton foundation. you are saying, the second is no longer have political power, people stop giving to this incredibly good institution? that is kind of weird. >> yeah, that's exactly right. i think they will have continued problems. my theory is, one of the reasons they talked about hillary running for mayor of new york or
chelsea running for congress is they need access to some formal power. they basically had it since 1992, if you don't count being governor of arkansas, they don't have access to power anymore. and there's not a lot of reason for people to get their money. >> tucker: i thought it was for the children. you know, silly me. political, what you are normally cited a positive way, did a pretty good piece, i thought, on the stock trading habits of a bunch of different members of congress. conclusively, as far as i could tell, show that they were trading against policy decisions they were making. still, even after your book. shoving how this is a long-standing and horrifying end of legal practice, they are still doing it. do you think that mr. true? >> yeah, that is exactly right. came out into out of 011, "60 minutes" that a whole floor outcome they passed the stock act, the problem is, tucker, the credibly hard to prove. also, you are relying on federal
officials and prosecutors to go after congress, which of course funds those very prosecutors. there is a very simple solution here, and that is the speaker of the house, paul ryan, the senate majority leader, can both decide that they are going to have new house rules and new senate rules that simply say that you cannot trade stock in a company that you have regulatory oversight on. if you are the senate armed services committee, you cannot buy defense stock, et cetera. they don't have to pass a law, they can pass house rules. if you violate those rules, you can be kicked off the committee. i think that would deter a lot of this behavior. >> tucker: it's just shocking that they don't have them already. there's a bunch of people named, i won't name them tonight. we've invited all of them on come i want to hear their side of it, but if you are buying ste company, touched by legislation you just wrote, i don't see how you can defend that. we'll find that out. peter schweizer, thank you for the ground breaking work you done on the subject. >> thank you, tucker.
we went up next, "saturday night live" having its most-watched season in decades. is that because comedy has gotten funnier? or because the political topics are more palatable to the audience? the panel discusses along with the fact that abc has canceled they hit new show that seems to be working. any other reasons they cancel it? up ahead. umped off a bridge, would you? you hungry? i'm okay right -- i'm... i'm becoming my, uh, mother. it's been hard, but some of the stuff he says is actually pretty helpful. pumpkin, bundling our home and auto insurance is a good deal! like buying in bulk! that's fun, right? progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, but we can protect your home and auto. progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, abreak through your allergies.? try new flonase sensimist allergy relief instead of allergy pills. it's more complete allergy relief
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russia. i thought, he is investigating russia, i don't like that, i should fire him. >> and you are just admitting that? >> uh-huh. >> obstruction of justice. >> sure, okay. >> did i get it? no, i didn't cover nothing matters. absolutely nothing matters anymore? >> tucker: ratings for stephen colbert's "late-night show" are up, to come unexpectedly. >> "the washington post" reporting that donald trump revealed highly classified information to the russian foreign minister and ambassador. the article can't describe in detail what was shared but one official said, this is code word information. you have to say things like "the package has been delivered." "the squirrel is in the basket." "the idiot is in the oval." donald trump, if you are watching, first of all, you're a
bad president, please resign. the second... >> tucker: the managing editor at olympic media, a contributor at "the hill." so, katie, it seems pretty obvious that the numbers are up for shows like this, which people who hate trump on transformation, is that different from wanting comedy? >> the problem of a lot of them are falling into is that they are putting their own personal politics before actual comedy. the way to joke about trump, there's a way to talk about hillary that everyone could find funny. and they are not doing that. they are just being partisan and angry. but they are also taking bucket loads of money, i'll lock trump. he is all the ratings up, and all ratings up, colbert ratings. and they were saying that they have some folk moral problem with taking this quote unquote blood money. and yet, why are they donating it? why are they giving it to the people that trump was apparently destroyed them. they are just taking it and saying that they are very upset. >> tucker: one thing to have
political views, it's another to give people money, okay? there is no chance. >> i would be happy to take it. >> tucker: it's interesting, trump said i will help your ratings, i don't think he meant it this way. this is all people who hate trump. >> oh, yeah. trump is raining gold. the ratings are up on these anti-trump shows because liberal snowflakes who still won't accept that trump is our president, by the way, need tv safe spaces, where they can hear their own opinions reflected back to them over and over again. stephen stephen colbert in part, he really panders to the lowest common denominator of trump paid for his show isn't really funny. you just sit there and slit slanders trump. it is just so political. >> tucker: but it works. it's like that. if it works, it is like the rat hitting the cocaine bar? every time you had it, you get something, why want you -- --dash go >> the effectiveness of this will wear off over time. you got to keep in mind,
colbert, he is not changing any mines. his audience, they are 100% left-wing. >> tucker: i don't think anyone's mind to change at all. okay. it's one thing -- they do what works, i get that, i wouldn't watch. but i don't begrudge them. it's when politics become such a part of the television programming that the other side is not allowed, i get nervous, and the question is, did that happen to tim allen? he is the famous actor, he's been around a long time, he had a show called "last man standing." it did well, apparently. if portrayed positively a character was a conservative christian. conservatives are upset because they said it got canceled because tim allen is a conservative. you think that is true? >> there is a 100,000 person petition to boycott abc going on right now. that is us down again and of itself. the fact that they said that they were replacing such a high rating show with more superhero shows, that with their excuse, and tim allen came out and said that he was blind sided ends donned by this cancellation of what would be the seventh seaso.
they are not doing a lot to make it seem like it wasn't political. >> tucker: nbc gave up its own "access hollywood" tape and leaked it and lied about it to "the washington post." they didn't get anything out of it they just wanted to hurt trump. these people will actually hurt themselves in order to hurt trump. >> it's shocking. it's disgusting that abc canceled the show but i guess it's not really surprising, considering that abc's entire lineup of shows right now just mocks conservative values in every single episode. it's just these executives, these tv executives. >> tucker: i wouldn't watch them for a second. thank you. >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: we'll be right back back. ♪ ♪ but with my back pain i couldn't sleep or get up in time. then i found aleve pm. the only one to combine a safe sleep aid
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was born in the soviet union. finally, heather, the antinuclear weapon's group that won the nobel peace prize this year and was given the prize yesterday had a groom morning that total destruction of humanity was one impulsive away, heather. heather: thank you very much, amy, appreciate it. >> now to fox news alert back here at home, police reveal connection in four three-way shooting. hunt intensifying for whomever is opening fire on drivers among interstate 94. the hail of gunfire started last thursday. that driver shot in the leg, drivers targeted in more shootings saturday and managed to escape injury. also while you were sleeping, most destructive wild fire raging southern california,
beach as house and senate work together to join their separate tax bills, hopefully it's what they are trying to do. spectacular golf course, great day of fun playing with president trump, this as representative mccarthy say that is the gop is making great progress in the fight for tax reform. >> every step, what's happened with the markets, how many times have we set a new record in the stock market which i will say based upon the move we did with regulation and tax -- >> historic tax reform bill on the president's desk by christmas. countdown is on. action-packed week 15. eagles logging, in the fc title with win over the rams but their star quarterback could be done for the season. that's not good news, carson leaving in the third quarter
with knee injury and undergo mri today and ejected seattle seahawks player tried climbing into the stands charging at opposing fans following loss to jackson jill jaguars and yelling as things were being thrown at him and sunday might football coming to the wire, pittsburgh steelers claiming and snowy scene in buffalo so much snow that -- look, you barely see the field but the bills beat the colts 13-7. that is actually awesome. looks fun. a woman who live streamed the brutal beating of disabled trump -- president trump supporter is off the hook, why she won't spend a single day behind bars? >> don't let it bother.
heather: this is so sad, middle school student breaking down about being bullied. viral video catching eye of a-list celebrities. president trump putting fake news on notice with real facts about the booming economy and guests to explain why consumers and businesses are more optimistic than ever even if the mainstream media ignores it.
what the mainstream media is not covering, chair of the program and finance of finance in king's college brian brendberg. this is actually good news. we can take a look at the numbers in terms of consumer confidence, highest in 17 years. and unemployment the lowest it's been? >> you look at consumers and businesses, confidence levels tat highest levels we have seen, in decade 17 years people feel optimistic of economic future and that's not getting a lot of coverage in news media. >> we had the number of jobs created just in november 28,000? >> strong number, strong number in manufacturing, things are trending well on a number of fronts here, people feel good as they look to the future, they feel wages are going to go up which they will, that's been lagging a little bit. they feel job openings and we look at how people are spending
their money which i think is a good indicater of how people feel, they feel very good, they have optimistic about how things are going. >> you know who feels that things are not being covered appropriately, look at what he said, things are going really well for our economy, subject the fake news spends as little time as possible discussing market hitting record high, unemployment 17-year low, the companies coming back to usa, really good news and much more to come. another tweet talking about getting closer and closer on the tax cut bill, you can read what he had to say there. >> the news media, pundits like to pay attention to poll numbers, i'm an economist. i think that's a better indicater of how they feel. heather: you're an economist, we will listen to you. >> the president is right, people are voting with their dollars and does deserve the credit for that. he has set a positive tone, we want jobs back here, economic
growth, people are feeling that and responding to it and you're seeing it in job numbers. heather: set tone before he even came to office, something that he campaigned on and that's what we see happening. >> right after the election to high levels, they thought they were going to relief on things they needed relief on. they wanted fewer regulations. heather: with the tax cut plan to come house and senate to come to an agreement, how do you think it would impact numbers? >> i think it'll promote strong numbers in the year ahead. they have to get this done, he's promised a lot and set the right tone but they have to deliver now, they have to keep deregulating, continue to cut tacks, that's going to be important to sustain this, we have a good start, first quarter, heather, a lot of game to play. he in congress need to make sure they finish the job they started. >> he can't do it himself, he
has to have cooperation. >> the president has to act, they have to be on the same page, focused and disciplined on the agenda, 2018 would be a yet pri good year. we have seen them fall down on health care, they can't do that with tacks. >> shape up to be a pretty good year but we have the people on twitter and social media, doomsday is coming, enjoy it while you can. >> the future is unknown. you can always claim the sky is about to fall, all the economic indicators are pointing to continued strength, the only thing i would like to see is wage gains, with tax cuts and more economic growth you'll start to see that as well. heather: brian, thank you so much. we always love the good positive news, appreciate it. time now 16 minutes after the top of the hour and president trump putting fake news on blast calling it a stain on our nation but according to mainstream media it's a good thing.
>> mistakes are precisely the people should trust the media. process of bringing truth the life. heather: okay, does fake news make you trust the fake news media more, we report, you decide. >> we have to go. heather: college students kicked out of so-called safe space coffee shop for wearing make america great again hats, one of the students who call the height of hypocrisy joins us live next. cannot live without it.
>> i don't want people like you supporting this club. [inaudible conversations] >> you are wearing hats that -- >> all of you have to go. >> fascism. heather: well, a group of conservative college students kicked out of their campus coffee shop for wearing make america great again hats, they violated the so-called safe space policy. you heard some of the conversation there. campus reform correspondent aron spring was one of those students and joining us live. thank you for coming in early this morning. >> my pleasure, thanks for having me. heather: we were discussing whether or not you can wear your hat here but apparently the coffee shop you can't, is that what you were told? >> well, yes, the people who were wearing make america great again hats were told to leave
because they were wearing a make america great again hat after bought coffee, they were kicked out, a few people try to attack me for my american flag hat. i'm from new york and i stand my ground. it's a student-run shop and on the university campus. pride itself in being a safe space and saying that all are welcome to coffee shop so long, of course, you the same views as those who run the coffee shop, so it seems. heather: when they mentioned safe space, there are specific groups that they talk about being safe to come there, right? >> well, not specifically but in terms of who is not welcome are, i guess, people who support donald trump and people who support the make make america great again movement as we were directly quotes assaying we violated the safe space, apparently it's not a safe space for those types of people.
heather: i understand that they have safer space rules, they have do not make assumptions due to someone's gender, experiences, no racism, no sexism, no home -- homophobia but you can't be conservative, right? >> a lot of people in there are very nice, some of them were open-minded and welcomed us but the people who ran it and the president specifically of that club did not tolerate us and as you saw they kicked us out, they called us nazis, they were not tolerant of our view simply because we were conservatives. heather: they did give us a statement, there's no university safe space policy nor won that excludes any members of foreign community from spaces on basis of political views, the university is still investigating the incident and students who may have violated code of conduct will be met with appropriate student conduct process, does that satisfy you?
>> to some extent, i appreciate that fordham did that but overall i think it's up to groups like campus reform and people such as myself to continue to fight because in reality conservatives on college campuses are treated as second-class students and we need to rise up and fight for our rights. we have every right to as american to express this. heather: isn't that part of the reasons students go to college, young people go to college to be open to different and bearing viewpoints to learn from each other, seems like that's not happening these days more and more. >> no, absolutely, i think you are right. seems like the loudest voices are the most radical specially the far left. many liberals are tolerant on campus but like i said, the loudest and the most radical are the ones who seem to be running things and the ones who are treating us as second-class citizens and seemed to be getting their way and frankly quite ridiculous. heather: thank you for coming
and bringing this to attention, let us know what's happens. >> thank you very much for having me. heather: one of the black teenagers torturing disabled man live on facebook, remember this, one of the folks will not spend even one day behind bars. >> fuck donald trump. heather: this is crazy, britney sentenced to just 200 hours of community service and four years probation avoiding a 33-year prison sentence, the judge saying that he doesn't believe jail time would benefit the 19-year-old, the horrifying attack happened in chicago stream lived on facebook sparking nationwide outage, three other suspects charges have yet to be sentenced. message of support after young man crying over being bullied and gone viral.
>> if you are made fun of, you don't let it bother. they suck i guess, hard. heartbreaking, tennessee middle schooler say that is students call him ugly, they pour milk on him because he looks a little different. celebrities are reaching out. add me to your long list of friends keaton and dana white offering to bring him to vegas and bringing him to ufc headquarters, if keaton accepts the offer, i would honored to host family if they need some place to stay. the #i'm with keaton is trending. heather: a lot of us with you, keaton. democrats trying to hold the federal government hostage to
protect dreamers but president trump says no way. >> they are demanding amnesty as a condition for funding the government putting our national security at risk, we cannot allow it. heather: democrats really take it this far or are republicans once again playing politics, our panel up next to debate it.
>> he wrote, very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the fake news media, they are out of control, correct reporting means nothing to them, major lies written and forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed, a stain on america. all right, here is the timeline, first abc news correcting a brian ross report that accuses donald trump of donald trump making contact with russian officials and then cn, in that said donald trump and donald, jr. had received e-mail allowing them access to hacked documents from wikileaks before such documents were publicly available and finally, washington post reporter dave issued an apology to president trump for tweeting a photo of an empty arena prior to a trump rally in florida that had been taken hours before the event started. nevertheless some argue that
misreporting actually bolsters trust in the media, take a listen. >> mistakes are precisely the reason why they should trust the media. precisely occur in their effort, overzealous effort to be fair to the president. >> prompted donald trump, jr. to tweet out the following, so this week is precisely why people should trust the media, question mark, question mark, question mark. have you lost your mind, mainstream media happy getting narrative out there and forgetting about the truth, only did so with people large enough platforms to call them out, sadly, most don't have that. heather, the fake news conversation not going away. >> all right, todd joining us live, we will continue that conversation i'm sure. thank you. >> thank you. heather: we want to know from everyone at home, what do you think, does misreporting bolster trust in the media or does it hart it?
weigh in on facebook, send us e-mail to "fox & friends first".com. president trump taking a stance on far left to push immigration agenda. >> democrats in congress not only oppose efforts to stop illegal immigration and crack down on sanctuary cities, now they are demanding amnesty as a condition for funding the government, holding troop funding hostage and putting our national security at risk. we cannot allow it. >> so are democrats putting party ahead of the american people, here to debate former chief of staff to senator mike lee boyd and former candidates for chair of the dnc and fox news contributor, thank you both for joining us very early this morning. >> good morning. >> good morning, heather. >> is the democratic party stone walling when it comes to immigration?
>> absolutely not, heather, i think when you look at the, you know, original inception of the dream act decades ago and all of the conversations we've had about comprehensive immigration reform for anyone to say that there's a stalling, there's a real need for us to move forward and to stop using especially these dreamers as a political football as we have seen from this administration and as we have seen from previous administrations. i think these young people who no no other country by the united states of america who many of them have served in our military are wanting to contribute more than they already do to their communities, they need an answer. heather: nobody disagrees with that, right, boyd, even president trump gave them six moptsz to work something out in terms of daca and here we are.
>> leadership problem from both left and the right. one thing we know for sure, e-mail boxes is going to be flooded from emails from the left and the right with this issue. the problem is we are not having the real discussion, we are allowing the voices on both ends of this debate and it's one of those that, i think, should be done on the floor of the senate not connected to a spending bill, not connected to a continuing resolution but let's debate it on the merits because as you said, jamil would agree, this is something that we can get together on, these are people who have a lot of uncertainty that are getting political football back and forth as we go along and i think it's time to have a real conversation about immigration and how we really move the whole thing forward, not just the dreamers but broader things as well. heather: 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who have taken advantage of the daca program which is the deferred deportation program that barack obama created back in 2012, do
you agree there in terms of opening up the debate, having a public debate and taking this away from the spending bill? >> i think that on one hand we would hope that this would be able to have a discussion and decision outside of the spending bill but, heather, we have to be realistic here, this is politics and right now you've got republicans that control every single branch of the government and when you have the leader of the republican party really being the one who is standing in the way of getting a dream act passed -- heather: how is he standing in the way when he gave them six months to come to some sort of agreement? >> he didn't need to pull the program away under -- pulled the foundation and any sort of sense of stability out from under their feet. there certainly could have been a better legislative way of dealing with this and democrats have to, you know, use the only leverage that they may have on
this issue, that's how politics works, i hope that we can have both sides come together on this and we have to keep in mind this is not a fringe issue, this is something that john mccain was a champion on, one of the original champions and dozens of republican who is agree with this legislation. heather: including president trump who just wants something worked out in terms of allowing them to stay, but perhaps not a direct path to amnesty, that's where i believe there's discrepancy in terms of what people should think should happen. >> again, we have to quit tieing it to all the other things. every time we preat artificial cliff, we create massive bills that nobody reads and we can do better. we have to expect more from our politicians than what we are getting right now.
we have to expect more an not less. heather: expect more. that's a good way to end this. appreciate it it this morning. >> thanks, heather. 20 minutes until the top of the hour, white house hitting back at palestinian leader as protests rage after u.s. recognizes jerusalem as the capital of israel. we are there live up next. >> i hope to represent the people of the united states, not the president r. >> and olympic skier made headlines finish bashing the president, now could trip to games be in jeopardy altogether? last-minute shipping deadlines for making sure they make it by christmas, that's up next
futures of the digital currency surging more than 20% during market debut on the chicago board options exchange. well, the trading was so hot it had to be halted twice and then it crashed the market website. bitcoin's value started at $15,000 at days in, it was more than 17,000. and don't expect anything pricey under the tree this year, apparently instead you might actually get something like this. >> one-year membership of the club. >> clark, that's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. heather: jelly club. new poll report that is many americans are pinching pennies and only 53% will buy a gift costing $50 or more and let's say that maybe they think they won't get a raise at work. and fox business alert for you, companies working overtime helping you and santa getting
gifts by christmas. if you're still shopping, you want to pay close attention to important deadlines, tracee carrasco from sister network fox business is here with everything we need to know to get all of our packages to where they need to be. tracee: that's right, workers at the u.s. postal service will be busy doubling as santa's elves over the next two weeks, if you want to make sure packages and holiday cards get to loved ones in time, we have a list of shipping deadlines and you want to make sure you check it twice. this thursday the 14th, deadline for retail ground shipping, saturday the 11th for military priority express, next tuesday the 19th, first-class mail and greeting card, next wednesday the 20th, priority mail and if you really want to push it, the 22nd is the last day for priority mail express. now the week of the 18th through
the 24th is expected to be the busiest mailing shipping and delivery week, the postal service is delivering packages on sundays in most major cities and anticipates delivering 6 million in this december. christmas falls on monday this year which you may need to budget more time for packages to arrive and don't forget to check deadlines for ups and fedex because they'll like lie be different, heather. heather: just as busy. tracee, thank you so much, appreciate it. heather: time now 15 minutes until the top of the hour and president trump following through with yet another campaign promise. >> i told you that we would be saying merry christmas again, right? [cheers and applause] heather: new poll shows that america wants to put christ back in christmas, our next guest pastor claims why the country is focusing on faith once again.
be diminishing come -- compared to what took place, demonstrators took to the streets denouncing president trump's recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital, outside of u.s. embassy in lebanon, tear gas to prevent from entering, protestors gathered outside the u.s. embassy there. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu meeting, the u.s. is trying to bring a new peace proposal to the table and reaffirm his support for president trump. >> i think what president trump has done is put facts squarely on the table, peace is based on reality, peace is based on recognitioning -- recognizing reality. >> mike pence is expected to visit the region.
it's unfortunate that palestinian authority is walk get away again from an opportunity to discuss the future of the region but the administration remaining undeterred in its efforts to help achieve peace and our peace team remains hard at work putting together a plan. the u.s. vice president, heather, plans to meet with the egyptian president as well as attend session of israeli parliament. back to you in new york. heather: david lee miller live for us this morning, thank you, david, appreciate it. well, president trump in the meantime calling for more religious values during the christmas season and now more americans apparently are agreeing. take a look at this new poll, 68% of americans feel christmas should be more about jesus with just 18% wanting more santa, so are we seeing a shift in this? here now to weigh in is the
pastor of infinity bible church in the bronx, thank you so much for joining us. >> so glad to be on. heather: what do you think about that? >> hey, jesus is a hero again, like he's always been. you could see with the culture right now morality is on the rise, we are taking on the issues of women, different things like that that you see and there's no better character for morality than gentlemen sis christ so i think a lot of people are looking at that and saying, man, we need to bring jesus back and this is a great time to do it. heather: what do you attribute the rising numbers to? >> i think, you know, it's a couple of issues, i think that over the years we have watched jesus be persecuted in schools, we don't want you to mention him, we don't want you to say anything about him, don't say merry christmas, happy holiday, i think they just push too far where right now you could see jesus on the rise, he's on the rise in films, he's on the rise
in people's lives, everywhere ago everybody has nativity scene on their lawn. that's a beautiful thing for our nation. heather: does that go hand in hand with morality? >> i think it totally does. i mean, we are looking at so many people that we thought were really, really great men that are unfortunately being pulled down for a lack of morality so it's a good focus to say, now, who is a fan that lived a credible dynamic life, served others, poured our life for others, cared for women and did all the other things that we desired, nobody better than jesus. heather: that's great, i can't even follow that up. next topic, well said. salvation army is being criticized. holy doughnut tieing with salvation army and criticized
because salvation army discriminates against the left - lgbt community? >> this happened in portland that has the naked race, 10,000 people running naked down the street. this is interesting place for cry for something like this. one of the things that i can say, salvation army is a church, people forget that has an arm to serve the nation, but one of the things -- i used to work for salvation army years ago, when they go, they never ask somebody what do you believe, do do you believe the way i do, no, they say you need help, we are here to serve you, i worked at a group home where i watched the salvation army serve people from every different backgrounds, lgbt, whether you are on drugs, whatever they, they welcomed you in, they loved you, so i don't know, holy doughnut wants to serve people around the world and serve the poor, salvation army could be a great partner for that.
heather: salvation army did issue a statement and say they do not in fact, discriminate. we will see what happens with that. >> you too. christmas green. you're doing it. heather: come back, appreciate it. time now six minutes until the top of the hour and president trump putting fake news on blast call it a stain on our nation, according to cnn it's a good thing. >> mistakes are precisely the people should trust the media. process of bringing truth to light. heather: does fake news make you trust more? stay with us.
protests, at least 16 players kneeling, sitting or raising a fist during national anthem on sunday. and the impact is now pretty evident as the prices plummet to unimaginable lows. tickets for buffalo bills game is as low as $2, my carolina panthers, $7, tickets for even the stadium's worst seats could cost you over 100. finally president trump railing against what he calls the fake news media following a series of reporting errors, the cnn pundits argue that misreporting actually bolsters trust in the media. your comments, of course, pouring in on this one, i never trusted them in the first place for years, all they have reported are cover-ups and lies, swrudy on facebook posting most of the media lie, i take their stories with a gain of salt and then ron on facebook writes t
you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. good evening. after a weekend long standoff republicans and democrats have approved a deal end the partial government shutdown. it is over. president trump should be signing it any moment now. this should get the government back open for business but only for two weeks up to february
8th. keeping them honest, all they're really doing is kicking the government funding can down the road for another likely heated showdown next month. mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer struck a deal to reopen the government without resolving any issues that sparked the shutdown, mainly immigration reform, namely for daca, and democrats want to stop any deportation efforts against the so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers. mcconnell indicated he'd be open to consideration of and votes on legislation regarding daca and border security at a later date. that was enough for most democrats to back today's short-term funding bill. they decided to reopen the government based on that promise. they were also able to get funding for the children's health insurance program, chip, for six years. senator schumer is facing criticism from those in his own
actual winners and losers in all this? >> well, anderson, there's a reason 16 democrats in the senate, 104 democrats in the house voted against this proposal. some senate democrats saying nothing should have been moved forward without a clear promise house republicans would take up, without a clear promise the president wouldn't be too involved or involved enough to set things aside at one point or another. you're hearing it from the activist, the base and a lot of democrats, that this wasn't a good deal. anderson, you also look at what this deal brings to the table. it brings to the table at least floor consideration for the senate. ask that is something you noted chuck schumer says is in the grand scheme of things. they didn't necessarily make any promises they didn't think they could actually keep.
and they reopen the government with essentially the same bill they put on the table friday night. in the end i think everybody can agree this isn't exactly a dplorious moment in the history of the institution. to democrats right now who are questioning strategy and whether or not this is good idea, do they actually end up better in the long run? those questions obviously not going to get answers to for a couple of weeks. >> and is there going to be another shutdown or facing another shutdown? >> yeah, i think the reality here as you look at the sheer scope of the issues still on the plate, and that's why democrats are saying, look, you still have a lot of leverage here. there's a two year budget agreement that raises spending caps on defense that republicans are very interested in getting that democrats have made clear they're not going to sign-on to until there's a daca resolution.
they haven't been able to do anything quickly in this chamber or chambers for a long period of time. it question they can do that now, it is an open one at that. you look at the winners, losers, there's nuances to it. a bipartisan group, 25 senators in the last three or four days really kind of made some tides or bonds to push to a resolution. can they serve as a baseline for the institutions moving in a better direction, a less partisan direction at some point over the next couple of weeks? they're hopeful that might actually be the case. we've seen groups toorlgt and fall flat on their faces in the past. will this year be any different particularly in an election year, we'll see. but in the last three days where nobody's been particularly proud of themselves, maybe that can serve as a baseline moving forward.
>> want to go now to the white house. cnn's jim acosta is there. how much of a role did the president play in this deal. >> reporter: there was a wall for daca deal that was put on the table. the white house later rejected it. the white house chief of staff apparently told aides on capitol hill it was too liberal. and ever since that moment the president basically stayed behind doors. did not speak with chuck schumer. so he was no longer wheeling and dealing the democrats. that was essentially left to the senate leaders up on capitol hill. schumer and the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. now from what we understand, some of this was by design. all weekend long we never saw the president. he was sort of invisible. it was the art of conseal, and that was by design we're told by sources at the white house.
they did not want the president to think when they were watching this shutdown unfold, and that's why the president stayed under wraps. >> moving forward, do you know if the president will work on a deal going forward to avoid a shutdown in february? >> he did meet with senator joe mansion of west virginia and doug jones, the new senator from alabama, the new democratic senator from alabama. they met behind closed doors. it was sort of a meet and greet session for jones can and the president. however, it is an indication the president is willing to at least meet with centers from both parties moving forward. but the question, anderson, is whether the white house is simply asking too much from democrats. i talked to various sources in the administration today who said a wall is simply not enough to get a deal to protect the d.r.e.a.m.ers from deportation. there has to be a wall plus other items like ending family immigration or chain migration. and so that is going to be up
for democrats to decide whether they can expect something like this. i talked to one senior administration official who said, quote, a wall does not equal border security, end quote. that is an indication how much the position over here at the white house is hardening on immigration at this point. and the president is essentially listening to his aides. people like stephen miller and the white house chief of staff john kelly cautioning about the president taking deals with the democrats he was according last friday. so the question is at this point can they get to a point where they can both agree to protect these d.r.e.a.m.ers. it is going to be a wait and see process for the next 17 days. >> angus king voted yes for the short-term bill joins us now. can you explain what hachanged in your view from friday night to today? >> what changed in my mind was
everything we can in the next three weeks to deliver. >> does it concern you, because in that very public meeting where cameras were allowed, bipartisan meeting, i guess it was two weeks ago, the president seemed to agree with senator feinstein about doing daca, then doing what he termed comprehensive immigration reform. not clear he understood the meaning or how that phrase is commonly used, but then when republican kevin mccarthy jumped in and said actually, mr. president, i think what you really mean, he seemed to side with the republicans. then he seemed to go back to the democratic position. >> well, i think if what you are suggesting is the president should try to narrow his position and make it more clear, mitch mcconnell on the floor this past week said i can't vote on anything or bring anything to the floor until i determine what the president is for. that was another big deal today. basically, mitch mcconnell separated himself from the president and said we are not waiting anymore for the white house to settle on a position. on february 8th, if we haven't been able to resolve it through internal discussions, which is certainly what we are trying to
do, as i say, starting two hours ago, if we are not, we are going to bring a bill on the floor. >> senator king, appreciate your time. thank you very much. up next, much different take on today's deal. we hear from a congressman who voted no and has a lot of concerns. also later, how the porn star who allegedly had an affair with the president when he was a citizen is trying to cash in on all the publicity. new year, new phones for the family. join t-mobile, and when you buy one of the latest samsung phones get a samsung galaxy s8 free. plus, unlimited family plans come with netflix included. so, you can watch all your netflix favorites on your new samsung phones. join the un-carrier and get a samsung galaxy s8 free. all on america's best unlimited network.
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breaking news tonight, it partial government shutdown is ending after democrats and republicans voted to keep the government running until february 8th. president trump still has not signed the bill. that should happen any moment. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. can you just explain why you were a no vote tonight? >> once again, anderson, the d.r.e.a.m.ers were left behind. this is the third consecutive time i've voted against a continuing resolution. i think this is dysfunctioning way to run government. it's like paying your rent every week as opposed to theened of the month. this is dysfunctional way to running government. and it's far broader than the d.r.e.a.m. act, it's about not only giving chip, insurance to young churn but funding and teaching hospitals and about disaster relief.
that affect the american people and of course leaving 800,000 d.r.e.a.m.ers out in the cold. >> your colleague reportedly said that senate democrats were quote, getting their butts kicked. would you agree with that term? >> well, the pendulum may have swung a different way today, but we'll live to fight another day. and we're just concerned that the promises that were made by the leader in the senate are true promises. this is my first year, but i've learned quickly that many promises here are not kept. and stow i'm concerned that on the 8th we'll face another crisis that will lead to a public assault against d.r.e.a.m.ers. some folks here on the floor of the house of representatives were equating immigrants and d.r.e.a.m.ers to violent criminals. how vile is that, to resort to fanning the flames of racism across america? i'm here to fight for the d.r.e.a.m.ers.
that's one of the reasons i got elected to congress, and we'll be waiting until the 8th to see what happens the then. >> senator king was on the program saying he believes because mitch mcconnell made this pledge publicly and sort of his language was not as divisive rhetoric, that he felt more confident that now mitch mcconnell is on record pushing for some sort of deal, at least dealing with this. >> well, these debates about whether you will or you shall are really sterile and very poor. they are debates that show no commitment to resolving the critical needs. i met with a group of d.r.e.a.m.ers last time. if you see them, anderson, if you look in their young faces and see what they stand for, their aspirations, energy and their love for this country, you really can't say no to them. that's why 80% of americans are supporting them. but they got caught up in this debate whether the government will be shutdown.
it's unfair to them and to their families. want to talk the politics of all this with our bipartisan panel. robby mook, rick santorum and anna navarro. did this shutdown accomplish anything in your view? >> i think it brought the dreamer issue to the forefront. i think it highlighted the urgency of the d.r.e.a.m.er issue. it has for the last week, the last ten days, shown us the faces and the stories of d.r.e.a.m.ers. we have seen the stories of people that are getting deported, how they are getting separated from their children, what it's doing to american families and to the american way of life. i think it's highlighted what is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. it has also shown the horrible dysfunction that is washington, that is our government. they keep kicking the cans down the road without really solving the national crisis. it showed that chuck schumer could take a position and it showed that chuck schumer could hold it for two days. he couldn't hold the position. so you know, i think it's shown us a lot of things but we don't know what the end game is going to be yet. >> was it a mistake for
democrats to go along with this? >> look, i'm as frustrated as anybody out there. i think it's lunacy what's going on that we can't fund the government, it's lunacy we are leaving the dreamers in limbo and this hasn't been passed when clearly the votes are there. all that said, understanding we are in a lunatic situation, the democrats used their leverage to get a vote on these dreamers. that is progress. if what we really care about here is getting policy passed, we took a step in the right direction. a few days ago, we weren't getting this vote. hopefully now there's going to be a vote, it will pass and there will be the political pressure to force the president to sign. so this is not an ideal situation. i'm unhappy like everybody else but i think as democrats we have to step back, recognize the incredibly complex and difficult situation that senator schumer was in, and recognize and frankly, applaud these senators for holding the line and moving the ball down the field. that's how this stuff works. >> senator santorum, is that
what democrats did? >> i don't see it that way at all. the reality is that what this showed the american public and it's the reason the democrats backed down, was that democrats are more interested in illegal immigrants than they were about working men and women and the people in our military and keeping the government funded and taking an issue that had nothing to do with continuing funding and tried to inject that into a spending debate. the republicans have done this in the past and republicans got their head handed to them. every time, ted cruz did a couple years ago. before that, we had other things, where we tried to put extraneous things in these spending bills and the public said no, don't do that. if you got a problem with immigration or with obamacare, deal with it, but don't mess up, don't shut down the government, don't get to this brinksmanship. be adults. i think the democrats did not learn that lesson. they thought the media was going to be on their side, the folks
you just heard earlier were going to go out and tell them how heroic they were. what they found out is the american public said no, we actually don't agree with what you are doing here. that's why they backed down. >> actually, i think it's a little more complicated than that. you know, rick says that democrats were putting illegal immigrants ahead of the working men and women and ahead of the men and women in the armed forces. actually, dreamers are the working men and women in america. actually, there are 900 dreamers who are serving in the armed forces today. that's the type of people for whom we need to find a solution. look, you know, people may not like the shutdown, but the irony of this, the juxtaposition what made it really complicated is that they really approve of the dream act. most people see dream act kids, the dream act youth, as a special category within immigrants, within undocumented immigrants, because we realize that they came here through no fault of their own. it was not their own actions. it was not their own decisions. now they are americans in every way but one, and does this country have the heart, do republicans have what it takes to see families separated and
then lecture us about family values, to see employers left without employees and then lecture us about business, to see schools empty of students and then lecture us about education? so that's the question republicans have to ask themselves. >> you are missing one very important point. the bottom line is people who are here illegally are here illegally. we break up families all the time. when people commit illegal acts. it happens all the time. families get broken up. people lose their employment when they commit illegal acts. >> senator santorum -- >> hold it. let him finish. >> you are talking about 700,000 dreamers and you said 900 are in the military. of course, those have an opportunity to gain their citizenship under the current law. so the reality is, there are pathways for people going forward. what republicans are asking for, what donald trump is asking for, is something very, very reasonable and so far, the democrats have been unwilling to move forward. they want four things. four things the democrats have
voted for time and time again. border security, they want the end of the visa lottery, they want chain migration to be limited, and they want to deal with this daca issue. put a bill together that does those four things, not 20 other things, which is what the quote, compromise did, and i bet you would be surprised -- >> you haven't moved on this. you have seen people on -- >> i'm sorry, i will talk over you because i have to take a break. when we continue this conversation, did president trump help or hurt negotiations? did he even play a part in brokering a deal to get the government back open? we'll be right back. 30,000 precision parts. cn or it isn't. it's inspected by mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn't. it's backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isn't. for those who never settle, it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned, or it isn't.
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there's so much that these senators have in common. we saw them starting to work together today. gosh, let's just push forward and pass the things everybody agrees on and stop all these silly games. i don't care who won this shutdown fight. i'm just happy we will have the votes we need to have, we might actually get the policy the country needs and wants. >> but wasn't it a court that declared that what president obama had done was not constitutional? >> yeah, but the president, i'm sure president trump could have done something to save this. he is totally having this both ways by doing everything he can to kill it on the one hand and then on the other hand saying well, i will do something if congress can. and changing his tune every day. let's remember, too, the senators came to the president with a bipartisan agreement on this and he was the one who blew it up because he couldn't control his mouth and made some racist statements. he is the real problem here. i actually think we should be proud that a bunch of our senators stood up and we got an agreement moving today. that's a big deal. >> senator santorum, is it clear to you how much president trump
was actually involved in ending this shutdown? because you hear the white house claiming credit, but was this more white house victory or mcconnell victory? >> i think the president, you know, when you have a winning hand you sit there and hold your hand. there was no reason for the president to go out there and negotiate with himself. the reality is the democrats were going to cave because the public was moving against them for all the reasons that i talked about earlier, and there was no reason for the president to go out and do anything other than stand his ground and say we will deal with this issue separately, we are not going to include this in the spending package, and look, i agree that something needs to be done on this issue. i also want to point out as you did, anderson, the president was following the law unlike president obama who didn't follow the law when it came to these dreamers. the reality is i think the house needs to move. if you would -- my suggestion is paul ryan and the house get a bill, do the four things president obama has said he wants to do, put those four things in a package and send them over to the house, show the american public the house is willing and republicans are willing to pass a bill that provides some relief for
dreamers as well as meet the other four conditions, get it to the senate and let them deal with it. >> anna, do you think to senator santorum's point, the democrats would have been blamed for this shutdown if it went on longer? >> look, i'm not sure if it was a mistake or if it was the right thing to do but i do know that but for this, there would be no promise from mitch mcconnell right now for there to be a vote before february 8th on the daca issue. and it is an issue for which the clock keeps counting down. if you are a daca kid right now, you realize you have only got six weeks left. they have had six months to deal with this since donald trump ended the executive order. so there is this sense of urgency. whether it was a mistake or not, i think we will know the answer to that on february 9th, february 10th, whenever we know the answer of whether this in fact leads to legislation, to a law being passed and people whose lives are in limbo, whose future is in limbo right now,
having some certainty and being able to achieve the american dream, or whether we don't. ask me then if it was a mistake. >> robby, i talked to independent senator angus king earlier who said the fact mitch mcconnell made a public pledge and used sort of not very divisive language, that is what made him decide to vote for this continuing resolution. >> the senators obviously know him better than i would. i don't trust him that much but i do trust the senators on both sides that are saying that they believe that he will keep his word. i think anna had this exactly right. i think we will know in early february if this was a good deal to make. i think given all the information today, this was the right choice for schumer, the right choice for the democrats, and americans should hold the majority leader's feet to the fire to follow through on this. what's remarkable about this is everybody agrees on this.
we should be able to pass this no problem and holding his word shouldn't be a problem. >> want to thank everybody on the panel. ahead, the gop in-fighting over immigration. one republican senator points the blame at the white house adviser stephen miller who is an outspoken confidant of the senators. what we know about him, next. with advil's fast relief, you'll ask, "what pulled muscle?" "what headache?" nothing works faster to make pain a distant memory. advil liqui-gels and advil liqui-gels minis. what pain?
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rmens have democrats passing a bill on capitol hill to keep the government running until february 8th. question is, can they reach a deal to avert another showdown in 17 days. this was the first shutdown ever when one party is in control of both congress and the white house. as you might have noticed, there's some gop in-fighting. over the weekend, republican senator lindsey graham wasn't shy at blaming -- at laying some of the blame on the trump white house, singling out white house adviser stephen miller. here's what he said. >> the reason we yanked these things back is because mr. miller, i have known him for a long time, i know he's passionate, i know he's an early supporter of the president but i will just tell you his view of immigration has never been in the mainstream of the senate and i think we are never going to get there as long as we embrace concepts that cannot possibly get 60 votes. >> white house press secretary sarah sanders is pushing back on that telling cnn quote, stephen's not here to push his agenda, he's here to push the president's agenda like everybody else in this building. we are doing our best to carry out what the president has laid
out and to implement and communicate his principles and stephen's no different on that front than anyone else. that's how the white house sees it. but no one is going to dispute that miller is not shy about speaking his opinion and he's no stranger to politics. randi kaye tonight looks back. >> reporter: he's donald trump's youngest policy adviser, the man at the center of the immigration battle who seems like he's always ready for a fight. >> that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you have ever said. >> reporter: the senate aide turned white house adviser stephen miller has found the ultimate national platform for the conservative views he first embraced as early as high school. after the 9/11 attacks when he was just 16, he penned an editorial for the santa monica lookout arguing his high school wasn't patriotic enough. osama bin laden would feel very welcome at santa monica high school, he wrote. in that same article, miller complained about rampant political correctness, spanish language announcements and his classmates who lacked basic english skills.
>> i will say and i will do things that no one else in their right mind would say or do. >> reporter: all of this, it seems, just a dress rehearsal for his next stop, duke university. writing for the duke chronicle, miller sounded the alarm about immigration. we oppose common sense security measures. we give drivers licenses to illegal aliens. at duke, miller also made a name for himself in the national media by speaking out in support of the duke lacrosse players in a racially charged rape case. >> nothing seems to be changing. as a student, i can tell you, we are really, really mad. >> reporter: the lacrosse players were eventually exonerated. after graduating, miller moved to washington, d.c., lending a press secretary job for then congresswoman michelle bachmann despite having no experience. later in 2013, as an aide to then senator jeff sessions, miller helped sessions derail an immigration deal by distributing a handbook packed with talking points to help kill the bipartisan effort. in washington, miller also
connected with steve bannon, who gave him entry into donald trump's orbit and campaign 2016. miller on the world stage, crafting trump's speech accepting the republican nomination. >> i humbly and gratefully accept your nomination -- >> reporter: miller also co-authored the president's travel ban. after a federal judge struck it down, miller suggested the judge had no right to question the president's authority. >> our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned. >> reporter: late today, white house spokeswoman sarah sanders was asked if miller has veto power on immigration. >> the only person i'm aware of with veto power in this country is the president. >> reporter: for his part, the president seems to like what miller represents. especially his combativeness.
>> no, no. you can be condescending. >> reporter: i'm trying to get to the point -- >> reporter: all in a day's work for the kid from santa monica. randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> powerful white house adviser. now to chris cuomo with a look at what's coming up on the top of the hour. >> tonight we will do it a little different. we have the big shot of the white house's kellyanne conway. tonight we ask her to do something on tv she's never done before. >> what is that? >> that is the tease. that is the tease. i have to figure out what that is now. i only have 17 minutes. >> get working on that. up next, will they or won't they? a lot of buzz around a classified republican memo and alleged fbi surveillance abuses. house republicans want it released. democrats say the whole thing is a political stunt. i talk with a member of the house intelligence committee next.
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over the weekend as the senate wrestled with the government shutdown the chairman of the house intelligence committee was meeting with key allies in the house discussing the prospect of releasing a classified memo prepared only by republicans about alleged fbi abuses in the nation's surveillance laws. those abuses, republicans say, revolve around the so-called steele dossier and its impact on the overall russia investigation. chairman devin nunes wants some of the research behind the memo to be declassified. i will remind he he stepped aside from his own committee's russia probe last year after coming under investigation after reports he may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information. earlier i spoke with democrat jim himes of connecticut who serves on the intelligence committee. you have seen this memo. i know there's only so much you can say because it's classified but generally, how would you characterize it?
>> well, the memorandum, anderson, i will tell you, harkens me back to benghazi where there was an effort to come up with all of these conspiracy theories about how there had been a stand-down order and how people had deliberately acted poorly. that's what this is. this is the latest installment in chairman nunes' sort of one-man operation to try to damage, throw mud on the fbi and doj all in service of calling into question bob mueller's investigation and of course, trying to provide some, any substantiation to the crazy charge the obama administration was wiretapping the trump campaign. >> when you hear colleagues as describing the contents jaw-dropping, saying americans will be surprised how bad it is, what do you say to that? >> i would say that it is partisanship at its worst, that many people years from now will look back on the damage that they did to the fbi and to the doj based on no evidence and the reason i say no evidence is
because the memo is based on highly, highly classified things, so highly classified that most members of the intelligence committee have not seen them, but that certainly your average member of congress has not seen. so in as much as members of congress are out there making which does or does not suppose the talking points the allegations that compromise this memorandum. >> they don't know what they're talking about? >> they have not seen the evidence which under lies the talking points the allegation in this memorandum. they have no basis to know other than nunz personal opinion. that there is any truth to the charges. they have not seen the under lying classified information. >> some are calling for full
transparent si. what's the harm in releasing a redakted version? >> i would support that. i'm not fan of putting out republican talking points where there isn't an ability for people to look a the under lying crassfied information. but if it's anything lib the four page memorandum. which a quick reading that the thing just kind of reeks of poor work, of bad logic. i imagine they'll clean it up. if you can see the memorandum in the first line there's something said that's obviously untrue. so it's important -- i'm always fan of transparency. it's porpt this get out there. it's important for the fbi whose reputation is damaged. fbi who keep us safe whose lives on the line. they with being youzed as a political tool. to try to damage mueller's investigation. it's important to find a way to
rebut what i think is our fundamentally rebuttable charges. >> -- >> it's interesting you say that. that should tell you something. if you make an accusation against somebody and say you can't see the accusation. that should tell you something. there's a yn in court you put accuser in front of defendants. so you can have it out. the fact a they won't let. fbi see the memorandum. it's flimsy and pathetic. the fbi has to get over classification challenges. they would make quick work of saying this is flat out wrong. their not making it available should tell you something. >> appreciate your time. thanks. up ahead a public appearance at a not so surprising republican e
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today. a cash payment to her violated finance laws. we report on stormy daniels first public appearance since the storm began. >> reporter: tonight stormy daniels is capitalizing on her alleged affair with trump. but not revealing details about it. daniels appeared at the strip club in south carolina. over the weekend. the owner won't tell how much he paid her or how much he made. he booked her as soon as he saw public reports on the affair. cnn told daniels could be booked at other adult clubs around the country in the come lg months. she made a quick get away after her performance and wouldn't talk about her alleged sexual encounter with trump. baa she was quoted saying her life since the story broke has
been stressful and amusing. daniels had a long career as a porn star. >> i want to show you out. >> reporter: and a potential senate candidate. >> politics can't be any dirtier than the one i'm in. >> reporter: shortly before the 2016 election she was paid $130,000 by trump lawyer to stay silent about a sexual encounter with trump in 2006. he never denied making the payment. there's new information about reported attempt to cover up the claim of an affair. in 2011. cohen threatened to sue a magazine if it published an interview with her. according to to magazine employees who spoke to the associated pretsz. in touch never published the allegations. until now. before the associated press story broke, cnn asked in touch new editor why it was held for
seven years. >> why wasn't it published before. i can't speak yo u. i don't have the answer. >> reporter: one trump biographer isn't surprised his lawyer reportedly threatened to sue the magazine. >> he has a pattern of going after people legally. whether they criticize him or embarrassing information about him. he uses threat, lawyer letters. actual lawsuits to control the message. >> reporter: michael cohen didn't get back to us that he threatened to sue in touch magazine. the representative told us they wouldn't comment on that report. but cohen previously denied the affair took place. and vice president pence has just told the associated press that the reports about the alleged affair are baseless. >> all right. thanks. thanks for watching. time to hand it over to chris chro cuomo for "prime time." >> who won?
a successful outcome is dependent upon involvement from russia, india, iran and pakistan. it has to decide how much to involve india that would shift the strategic landscape all tolg together. this is the difficult work of diplomacy that the trump a administratiad administration has decided to ignore. for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read my washington post column this week. let's get started. another day, another head scratching tweet from donald trump. this time it's about
In-depth examinations of global issues, featuring interviews and round-table discussions.
fwheeded this fwheed -- need this is because rime is running ramp aant in mexico? >> we do not carry on the relationship between tweet.this rampant in mexico? >> we do not carry on the relationship between tweet. we don't negotiate through social media. it's not an issue we should allow defined by. >> do you have any sense from your negotiations with them as to whether they have ever brought up the issue of mexico paying for the wall in a serious way. is there any proposal? is there any american proposal that's serious that would have you pay for the wall? >> we made it clear that the president has been transparent about the fact there's no circumstance under which mexico would pay for wall.
therefore, he says not being part of the conversation. i've been part of every negotiation since the trump administration started. we never discussed that because it's an issue that we all know. i think they know what mexico's position about it. it's not a position that will change. you will not find any mexican who is willing to accept the notion of that. that is not an issue. it's not an issue that defines the negotiations. >> another joint problem, it seems to me, the fact that mexico is no longer, a country that's exporting migrants as a transient country. there's more people trying to get in from mexico from central mexico than there are mexicans trying to get into the u.s. do you find the trump administration is sympathetic to this issue and tries to work with you on it? >> i think that there's a much
better understanding for what the actual numbers. for over 15 years, net migration from mexico into the u.s. has been negative. every year more people coming back into mexico than people from mexico, mexicans trying to get into the united states. however, mexico, as your absolutely right, as become a transit country. we are facing the fact that hundreds of thousands of central americans try to get into mexico with the purpose of staying into mexico but get into the united states. this presents a significant challenge for every country involved. for guatemala, honduras, el salvador and the united states. this is a shared challenge. we should work together in sharing human rights that all migrants are treated well and we cannot just address a problem by joining to enforce border control. that's part of the solution but
the real solution is to invest jointly in developing central america. this is something our future president is strongly proposing. >> i want to ask you about the election if you're a recent of the president. for the last 20 years mexico has been lekts ielecting governments been very pro-american. that's really transformed the relationship which for many decades before that was adversarial. he was polling low numbers. then donald trump announces his nomination and starts blasting mexico. do you think he was elected president of the mexico because the mexican people wanted to show an act of defiance against
donald trump's anti-mexican rhetoric? >> i'm not the political analyst. i will defer that question to the people who really understand political science. mexico has a sufficiently election. it was a transparent process that we elected a new president with strong, popular support. i'm very encouraged by the fact that the transition is happening very smoothly and we're collaborating with the future government, the future president. that includes the relationship with the u.s. we're neighbors. we will remain neighbors. it's much better for the people of america and mexico to have a good relationship. it's encouraging no matter what was said. both in the u.s. and then in mexico. that's in the past. what i see is a build up of a
good relationship and nothing can be better for the people of mexico than having a constructive, respectful relationship with the u.s. >> mr. foreign minister, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. great to see you. next on gps. >> little rocket man. >> president trump has gone from calling kim jong-un names just a few months ago to tweeting very nice things about him. is it possible to imagine such a 180 degree turn on iran as well? the president seems to have opened that door this week. more on that when we come back.
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counterpart, never, ever threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. then this monday trump took a different tone saying this at a news conference. >> i would meet with iran if they wanted to meet. i don't know if they're ready yet. they're having a hard time right now. i ended the iran deal. it was a ridiculous deal. i do believe they will probably end up wanting to meet. i'm ready to meet any time they want to. >> he went onto say there would be no pre-conditions to a meeting. at the end of the week iran conducted a naval exercise in the straits of hormuz. what is going on inside iran? joining me now to fill us in is tehran bureau chief for the new york times. thomas, what do you make of this naval exercise? >> this is, of
flexing by the iranians. they have said we can close off the strait of hormuz into the persian gulf, into which 20% of the world's nrnl flenergy flows. they want to send a signal to the united states but also their renalal allies that rye riran cn do. this can close off the strait of hormuz. iran can do. this can close off the strait of hormuz. iran can do. this can close off the strait of hormuz. iran can do. this can close off the strait of hormuz.iran can do. this can close off the strait of hormuz. >> would that not cause rouge r -- huge ripple effects through the straits? >> absolutely. that's why i don't think iran is really intent on closing off the strait of hormuz. if they would do so, not only would they not be able to export their own oil, they would very possibly invite military action by the united states or its
regional allies. as you mentioned, china, iran's only remaining customer for oil plus iran's main trade partner would be hit very hard by a rise in energy prices and by shortage of oil. they would alienate the chinese if they close off the straight of hormuz. >> what are iranians making of donald trump's offer? casually stated that he would be willing to meet with no conditions. >> what the iranian officials would say or have said is something that's pretty clear. they are ideological. they wanted to speak public to the yiunited states in the past0 years. i spoke to a building constructer, a lawyer, a hairdresser. they all said why don't we talk to donald trump. this remark comes from the
background of iran's declining economy. the national currency has lost over 80% of its value in the last year. take your bank account and just deduct 80%. that's what happened to iran, to the purchasing power of iranians here in this country because of mismanagement by iran's leaders but also because of the threats of sanctions. sanctions that will be implem t implemented in first round of u.s. sanctions from august 6th. these people are saying why don't we talk to united states. the north koreans are talking to the united states. the taliban wants to talk to united states. why can't iran do that? that was the sentiment on the street. >> the regime is clearly under pressure. the economy is doing badly. the iran deal seems to have fallen through. not many successes. meanwhile the u.s. administration, mike pompeo, is
clearly outlining a strategy of regime change. the israeli government is feeding these fires. does it feel to you like we're in some kind of pre-revolutionary moment where this regime could collapse? >> for revolution you would need lots of people on the streets. we are seeing protest in iran. in the past six months there's been simmering protests across the country. in january, you might remember in over 80 cities people took to the streets. 25 people were killed. almost 4,000 people arrested. in the months following that period, there's been low level protests, if you will. h hundreds of people in this city. hundreds of people in that city. those protests have been picked up. there's been protesting in cities. what is not just happening at this point is the bulk of the iranian's, the iranian middle class is joining in this
protest. they feel the outcome of such protest is still too uncertain to join in. many people say they are fed up with their leaders and many people also say they dislike donald trump. they at this poipt in time don't yet see how this protest can change their life for the better. >> as always, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. next on "gps." when the hoover dam was built, it was perhaps the most ambitious and innovative project of its time. now nearly a century later, modern innovators have new plans for the dam that could rock the world again. find out what is going on when we come back. want to end the d. and we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor. join the fight at alz.org/walk. uhp. i didn't believe it. again. ♪ ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? ♪
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engineers want to turn it into what the times call a giant battery. in other words, place not just to generate but to store renewable energy. here's how it would work. they built a pump station as far as 20 miles downstream from the dam powered by the solar and wind farms that pepper the american west. that pump drive water upstream. this is what's known as pump storage. it's impressive. spinning solar and wind to hydroelectric power. it solves a problem. we're in the midst of an emergency revolution. the first phase was about generating. there's been lots of progress on that front as cheap chinese solar panels have flooded glow
ball markets. solar power generation increased by more than 25,000 percent. ball markets. solar power generation increased by more than 25,000 percent.glo. solar power generation increased by more than 25,000 percent.glol markets. solar power generation increased by more than 25,000 percent. now we need storage. solar and wind are so called intermittent sources. that means they're here one minute, gone the next. as they scale up, they start causing problems. take california which leads the nation in solar capacity. in the middle of the day when the sun is shining, solar floods the electricity grid but then disappears at night when people need electric power night. sometimes the state simply shuts down solar panels during the day to avoid overloading the grid. more isn't always better unless you have storage which is the next phase of the energy revolution. in taming the sun, a fascinating new book that tackles these
issues, the author reveals a startling statistic. in the united states turned off all its sources of electricity, it has enough storage capacity to power the country for just 43 minutes. storage has a long way to go but many smart people have very big ideas for what to do about it. last year elon musk made the world's largest lithium battery. the agile responding to outages in a fraction of a second and can store up to 129 megawatt hours of wind energy. that's still a drop in the bucket but it's a start. here's another wild idea. solar fuels. scientists are working on technology that would use the sun's rays to split a molecule of water and funnel the hydrogen for fuel.
fuel is a much easier way to store energy than batteries. bill gates is fupnding some of the research. these ideas might sound overly ambitious but so did building the hoover dam 90 years ago. next, the democratic party in the midst of a soul searching debate about its identity. bern kn bernie sanders has a clear idea where his it should go. pl i'm home. child, voice-over: she gave them some broth... without any bread... [siren in distance] and kissed them all soundly... lights out. good night. child, voice-over: and put them to bed. hunger is a story we can end. end it at feedingamerica.org.
american unemployment is way down. there's still more than six million people in is u.s. who would like a job but don't have one. what to do? my next guest has a plan. under her job guarantee plan, every one who wants to work would be guaranteed a job that pays at least $15 per hour. who would pay for this? the federal government. how exactly without racking up even more debt? stephanie who was an economic advisor for the bernie sanders campaign says the federal government doesn't have to worry about how to pay for it. i wanted to understand more. she started by telling me how she came up with the job guarantee plan. >> when fdr talked about a bill of economic rights, he was talking about really guaranteeing certain things to
all americans. number one on the list was the right to employment. this is an idea that's become sort of popular lately. you have a number of people in both the house and the senate who have introduced legislation to try to make fdr and martin luther king's dream a reality. it asks the question would we create a job for every one who wants to work in america. >> isn't that flying the face of basic capitalism which is to say the market determines whether there are needs and companies try to fill those needs. that's the process by which it happens. the idea of actually intervening in the job market is seen as more market unfriendly. >> i think it's extremely market friendly. it's extremely pro-business. what it does is say right now what we're doing is leaving millions of people behind.
they want work and they can't find it anywhere else in the economy. on some level the real economy, the private economy is failing millions of people. what the federal job idea guarantee does is say what if we ensure that everybody who wants to work is afforded the opportunity to a job. what we foinind is if we were t put people to work, we raise economic prosperity for everyone. it benefits private business as well. >> how much would it cost? >> it depends where are in the business cycle. if you start now, it will be less costly. if you're trying to do this when you're shedding 800,000 jobs a month it will be more expensive. the ooanswer is you're probably going to employ 15 million people and spending something between 400 and 550 billion annually. >> the premise is is it fair to say that your basic view is the
government can't run out of money. that all the people on the riepright and left who worry about social security and medicare and student loans and say trillions of dollars, what you seem to be saying is it doesn't really matter. you're saying the government can print more if it runs out. >> i don't you that terminology but that's what it is. the united states government, federal government of the united states of america is the source of the u.s. dollar. they are the issuer of the currency. they have given the exclusive right to create the currency. there's big trouble. they have the exclusive right to create the dollar. that gives them extreme power. they have the power of the purpose. they can never face bills that they can't pay. financial constraint isn't the relevant constraint.
it's inflation. do we have the machine, the factory, the materials to do as much as we'd like to do. >> isn't the problem that if you print all this money, you produce inflation because the expectations of everybody changes. this is what happened in germany in the 1920s which led to hyperinflation. this is what's happening in various countries. >> no. printing money doesn't cause inflation. spending money can be inflationary. that's why i keep saying the limits are real and governments can't just spend willy nilly. >> who do you think they aren't up against these already when you have debt to gdp levels that are as high as they were after world war irkii. people say we're already at the limits. >> if we had 21 trillion in debt
and the interest income was being received then i would say we have a limit. we have hit the limit. that's not the case. >> do you think the democrats are ready to be as bold and radical as you're describing? >> i think they are reaching really high. i don't know if are they are ready to be as bold as i'm suggesting we could be but what we're starting do s ining to set of democrats are some pretty ambitious policy proposals. i think they are reeaching high. >> behind ever politician was an academic scribbler writing way. if we hear these ideas, you'll know who was scribbling behind the scenes. >> thank you. up next, the godfather, the graduate. why the first few minute ofs of film can be so important. fascinating stuff from the woman who opened my eyes to the won r
wonders of movies. back in a moment. hawaii is the first state in the u.s. to have 100% renewable energy goal. we're a very small electric utility. but, if we don't make this move we're going to have changes in our environment, and have a negative impact to hawaii's economy. ♪ verizon provided us a solution using smart sensors on their network that lets us collect near real time data on our power grid. (colton) this technology is helping us integrate rooftop solar, which is a very important element of getting us to our renewable energy goals. ♪ (shelee) if we can create our own energy, we can take care of this beautiful place that i grew up in. ♪
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when i speak at college campuses, i'm often asked a question for me that's easy to answer. the question is what was your favorite college course. you might expect it to be something on foreign policy or history or economics. it was not. the course i took at yale that captivated me the most was classics in the history of american cinema or something like that. it was taught by the great film scholar. once a week in the class i was able to escape the pressures of a student's life and enter other worlds as imagined in the greatest films of all time. it's my great pleasure to be reunited with my professor today. welcome. >> i'm delighted to be here. >> why is it that you wanted to write a book about the opening
scenes of movies? why opening scenes so important? >> first impressions count. whether it's meeting someone for the first time or sitting down in that theater and watching the opening images. that's going to determine whether you want to stay with the person or the movie. in terms of film, i have found that most of the great movies tell you, they give you in first few scenes the keys by which to unlock the rest of the movie. >> you give an example of shindler's list. describe that opening scene. it's such a powerful illustration of what you're saying. >> it could have begun in a number of ways. it was the lighting of a sabbath candle and you hear the hebrew prayer. something with ritual and c continuity and survival. the smoke from the candle becomes the smoke of a train in
landscape that takes you into our view of world war ii. that's the second of say two layers of the opening. in that second one you see lists being typed introducing the importance of typing names. then you see a man but only through his hands in a room. the mystery. who is this person? we assume it's the title character but all we hear are details. even when he goes to a nightclub, spielbburg refuses to show his face. why? i thought about that a lot after watching the film twice. i decided he is introducing so many important elements of film such as the mystery. why did this profiteering, member of the nazi party list
his life to save 1100 jews during the holocaust? we'll never really know. >> there's a scene from the classroom but the godfather. many people think of as the greatest film of all time. that opening scene is extraordinary. the line that it begins with. this immigrant, he says i believe in america. >> i believe in america. >> i love the gradual reveal. this is what when i first saw the godfather, even though i was quite young, i knew i was in the hands of master story teller. it's not just the lines become spoken closely into the camera. it's the gradual reveal. the camera slowly pulls back to show you we're in darkened room. it's a slight wave of his wrist that tells me he's in the frame. then we cut to him, and i start to understand how the power of this man is indirect.
it's quiet. it's extensive. i didn't know there were other men in the room at the beginning of the shot. then i realized, this is his doma domain. >> you talk about how you can have a very intelligent film maker convey his intelligence immediately. >> the first line of dialogue as we see benjamin sitting in an airplane is we're beginning our dissent into los angeles. nichos said he was proud the entire theme was encapsulated in that. a vozoom flattens space. we move from benjamin's face in a way that's appropriate because it expresses his emotional situation returning to his parents home. that kind of flattening.
when ghhe gets to the airport, expresses his lack of control. he's on this conveyor belt much like suitcases. there's a line when you see the suitcase, do they match. some film makers are not content to merely tell a good story. they find the exactly appropriate cinematic language. >> in way your message to people who go to the movies is seeing a movie by an important director, they're being very thoughtful about how they construct these movie, particularly the opening scene, so pay attention. >> that's exactly my message. you said it. it's to be alert. to have an active engagement
with a movie. some people go and absorb like a sponge. i'm interested in another kind of cinema. i'm going to use that term. it's part of the history of art. it's part of how still so many of us learn about the world. >> pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. next on "gps," finding christ and finding votes. how the power of the evangelical vote in the u.s. is swiftly being replicated south of the border. that story when we come back. to. and we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor. join the fight at alz.org/walk. tremfya® is fors caadults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. i'm ready. with tremfya®, you can get clearer. and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90% clearer skin at 28 weeks stayed clearer through 48 weeks. tremfya® works better than humira® at providing clearer skin,
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favorite. now for the last look. that was no ordinary baptism. first the location was the jordan river. the same waters that christians sev receiving baptized christ. last week he officially announced his candidacy for his country's presidency. he's already the front-runner. that's in part thanks to evangelical christians. a new force in latin american politics but one whose foupower growing every day. from mexico's elected president to colomiba's conservative hard liner.
with conversions on the rise, they clout come continue to grow. what is the secret to gaining their trust? some in latin america have quickly learned how to win them over with anti-abortion and anti-gay rhetoric. let's hope in their urge to throw the bums out, latin's america evangelicals don't anoint too many false prophets. think they want something to get tough about, how about corruption corruptio corruption, crime and miss managememiss mismanagement. the answer is b. they could not prove they or their direct ancestors arrived prior to 1971. this war forced some ten million, mostly muslim refugees into neighboring india where 80%
of the population is hindu. the government said monday it has no immediate plans to deport anybody. human rights watchers warned that those left off the list risk becoming stateless persons. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i'll see you next week. i'm brian stelter. it's time for "reliable stou sources." this is our look at how the news gets made. breaking news from president trump. he's upping his language against the news media and robert mueller. new york times columnist is here with a theory about what's going on. plus, think of him as the story teller in chief. are we in the news media over analyzing his statements and stories. should we be analyzing him like
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting and investigations.
knowing that was illegal. cnn chief national security correspondent jim sciutto is covering the trial. he joins us. now what more did gates say on the stand? >> anderson, you had the deputy there sitting within ten feet of his former -- his long-time boss, documenting by his accounts numerous crimes, alleged crimes by his boss, paul manafort. and the list started with them setting up 15 foreign bank accounts which they did not report to the government for the purposes of hiding taxes. he said that they filed false income tax returns. he said they failed to file as foreign agents even though they were working as agents for a foreign government, in this case the pro-russian government of ukraine at the time. and rick gates said he did all of this, his words, all of this at the direction of paul manafort, saying these are crimes we did together, in
and that certainly holds true for rick gates. i should mention he also pleaded guilty to lying to federal prosecutors that is something you can expect the defense to bring up when they have their chance to question him. one final note i would make, anderson, is there you had paul manafort at the defendants table. about ten feet away was rick gates facing 90 degrees to him. rick gates did not make contact with paul manafort. but paul manafort sitting there with his arms crossed did not let his gaze leave the face of rick gates as he was making these claims. he was not happy. he was very stressed. you could sense some anger in his eyes as he was watching rick gates give this testimony against him. >> wow. and more from gates tomorrow. jim sciutto, thanks very much. i want to bring in our legal team, former federal prosecutor jennifer rodgers and another former federal prosecutor, cnn analyst renato mariotti. renato, you said rick gates was the most important gates in the manafort trial by far. there was an accountant in the last couple of days who
so they're expecting to hear some real dirt on rick gates. and if they've already heard it all already, if the defense questioning just sounds like it's repeating what the prosecutor already said, it really takes a lot of the thunder out of it. and that's why prosecutors do it. we called it fronting. and that's what prosecutors do all the time. >> jennifer, do you agree fronting works? >> oh, absolutely, absolutely. because, you know, you got to get it all out there. you don't want any surprises on cross. they'll beat him up for a while about you're a liar, you're a criminal, blah, blah, blah. but they've heard it all before. at some point, if they get too aggressive, then the jury starts to feel sorry for your cooperator. and that's really the last thing the defense wants. so they have to be a little careful with that. >> renato, what do you think gates is going to talk about tomorrow? he is back on the stand tomorrow. he wasn't really on the stand for all that long, a couple of hours today. what do you think we can expect? >> i think the prosecution is going to walk through all of their evidence with gates. they'll walk through the e-mails with manafort, ask him to
interpret those e-mails. what did you understand manafort to mean when he said that? what were you saying to manafort, back and forth? walking through each one of the counts, each one of the charges against manafort and explaining exactly what was happening and how it works. they'll really use it almost like a preview of a closing argument, allowing the jury to see how rick gates interfaced with all the evidence, having him explain as an insider how the scheme worked. >> renato mariotti, appreciate it. jennifer rodgers as well. more now on the star witness, how he became one and how he got in a position to be so valuable for the mueller team. randi kaye has more on that. >> reporter: rick gates, a 45-year-old father of four, was once a senior aide to donald trump's campaign. he entered trump's orbit through paul manafort, trump's former campaign chairman. gates and manafort met in the 1980s when gates interned at manafort's lobbying firm. gates teamed up with his old boss again in 2006 at manafort's new firm to do business in the
ukraine as lobbyists and political consultants. a decade later, in 2016, manafort joined the trump campaign and brought his trusted deputy along with him. >> paul manafort has done a fantastic job. and all of paul's people. paul brought on his staff. and we really do we have a great staff of talented people. >> reporter: eventually, manafort took over the campaign and gates became his number two. gates traveled extensively with then candidate trump, and together he and manafort oversaw trump's vice presidential pick and devised a general election strategy. >> i have to credit manafort and gates for putting so much of that together before we arrived. >> gates got caught up in controversy early on. sources say he oversaw the process of putting together the plagiarized speech melania trump gave at the republican national convention, which he denied. >> the only limits of the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for
them. >> the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them. >> reporter: things only got worse. in october last year, gates surrendered after being indicted by a federal grand jury. court filings exposed what prosecutors describe as an 11-year scheme in which gates and manafort laundered tens of millions of dollars they made doing foreign lobbying work. prosecutors say the two funneled $75 million through offshore accounts. among the charges, conspiracy to launder money and failing to report foreign bank accounts. the white house quickly tried to distance itself from him. >> look, i think that those are issues that took place long before they were involved with the president. >> reporter: but there is no denying gates' history with the trump campaign. gates' ties to manafort and his activities could mean he was briefed on the june 2016 trump tower meeting which manafort attended, along with don jr. and jared kushner.
a russian lawyer had promised to give them dirt on hillary clinton. gates and manafort reportedly also once e-mailed about trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos' efforts to set up a meeting between trump and russian officials. they reportedly dismissed the idea, but still, the special counsel may question gates' knowledge as part of the wider probe into collusion. randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> there is a lot more ahead tonight, including new reporting on what the president's associates are telling him about his twitter habit. that and the posting that might have been one tweet too far because it once again gives a new account of that trump tower meeting randi just mentioned. the question, does it clear anything up or does it just dig the president in a deeper hole? we're keeping him honest, ahead. later the debate on whether there's a racial component to the president's attacks. sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark.
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obvious to most people being investigated for something. don't tweet about that something. it's like fight club but with twitter and russians. cnn has learned that this is the seemingly obvious piece of advice that president trump is now getting from some people around him, do not tweet about the 2016 trump tower meeting. that was the meeting attended by the president's campaign chairman who is now on trial, by his son-in-law and donald trump jr. who decided to meet with a russian-linked attorney with link tuesday the kremlin who was promising intelligence on hillary clinton. this was the meeting that was first concealed, and once it came to light was surrounded by a stonewall of misleading statements, obfuscation, and outright falsehoods, lies. the tweet went up yesterday. the president writing, and i quote, fake news reporting a complete fabrication that i am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son donald had in trump tower. this was a meeting to get information on an opponent. totally legal and done all the time in politics, and it went nowhere.
i did not know about it. now, before going any further, we should just say this last bit, that he did not know about the meeting is now in question, with sources telling cnn that michael cohen is apparently ready to testify that he did in fact know, which would contradict don jr.'s sworn testimony to congress. the notion that everyone does it, that's just flat-out false, and we'll talk more about these things shortly. right now, i just want to focus, though, on the larger item. this is the first time the president of the united states has point-blank unequivocally said, and we're going put up the tweet again, that, quote, this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, period. now remember, before word of the meeting even broke, donald trump jr. was lying about meeting any russians in any campaign capacity. here's what he told "the new york times" way back in march of 2017. i did -- excuse me. "did i meet with people that were russian? i'm sure. i'm sure i did, but none that
were set up. none that i can think of at the moment, and certainly none that i was representing the campaign in any way, shape, or form." so that was a lie. actually, it was three lies. no campaign meetings, none that were arranged in advance, and none he could remember are three lies which began falling apart several months after they came out his mouth. on july 8th, 2017 "the times" revealed the meeting had in fact taken place a full year before. so then this became the new line. a statement allegedly crafted by don junior and his lawyers, at least that's what the president's lawyers said at the time. we'll goat that the statement read in part, we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children, but it was not a campaign issue at the time, and there was no follow-up. the president, with the help of his team, tried to distance himself from that statement, first totally and then less so and then finally really not at all. more lies. but those will come later as well. so on the 8th, we merely had that statement. again, allegedly written by don
jr. and his lawyers saying the meeting was primarily about adoption policy, not campaign politics. now even then, we knew and reported that adoption policy for the russian government, it's not about adoptions. it's about sanctions. not adoptions. so even in that statement, the notion that this was a meeting about helping orphans, it just didn't hold water. then the very next day, "the new york times" reported it most certainly was about the campaign, specifically about getting kremlin dirt on hillary clinton. so then the story from don jr., then it again changed once "the times" reported that. hoping to seem transparent, don jr. you may remember released some e-mails showing this is exactly what he had been promised. kremlin dirt on hillary clinton. and his e-mails also showed he was eager to receive it. and i quote from the mails, if it's what you say, he wrote to one of the go betweens, i love it. and remember, just a few months earlier, presumably with the memories that much fresher in his mind, he said he couldn't remember any campaign meetings with russians. and when he did, it wasn't about leveling dirt on hillary clinton, it was about adoptions.
just a couple months later don junior for reasons that still don't make much sense, he decided to go on fox news. >> did you tell your father anything about this? >> no. it was such a nothing. there was nothing to tell. >> nothing to tell. so now his memory refreshed about this meeting and what it was really about, he also remembered that he certainly never told his father about it before or after. never told his dad, despite the fact that don jr. had suddenly been told the russian government was supposedly supporting his father's campaign and had dirt on hillary clinton. that's pretty big news. allegedly he never told his dad that was big news. never mind donald trump has been hands-on his entire life, was hands-on his campaign, wanted to be in the loop. right above the floor each other's and the dad and son spoke often. never mind trump promised a
speech and after the meeting was allegedly bust, that speech was never given. to continue distancing the president from this meeting after the story broke, the president and his team denied any knowledge of the meeting. listen. >> did you know the time that they had the meeting? >> no, i didn't know anything about it. >> he was not aware of the meeting, did not attend the meeting and was only informed about the e-mails very recently by his counsel. >> so then when it was reported that the president on board air force one had dictated a statement that was released by don jr. about the meeting being about adoptions, the president's team denied the president had done that. listen. >> he certainly didn't dictate, but, you know, like i said, he weighed in, offered suggestion, like any father would do. >> that's what sarah sanders said when faced with factual reporting. her answer was kind of a half acknowledgment which became a fuller but still a dishonest acknowledgement in a letter from the president's lawyers to special counsel mueller. they wrote, quote, the president
dictated a short but accurate response to "the new york times" article on behalf of his son. sarah sanders said he didn't dictate. the lawyers, when they actually had to write the special counsel said oh yeah, he did dictate. publicly on tv the lawyers were saying the president didn't dictate the statement. privately, in a letter the lawyers admit yeah, he dictated, but it was short and it was accurate. but it turns out that too wasn't the whole truth. yes, the president dictated it. yes, it was short. no, it was not accurate. the statement mentioned adoption, not attempted collusion which the president and his defenders once denied until that story also shifted. last week it became if we did it, so what? >> which i don't even know if that's a crime, colluding about russians. you start analyzing the crime. the hacking is the crime. the hacking is the crime. >> that's certainly the original -- >> the president didn't hack. >> of course not. >> he didn't pay them for hacking. >> so now soliciting government intelligence from a hostile foreign power to get elected president isn't a crime, which
keeping them honest is far from clear, but is the whole framing of iticize a hys a hypothetical which is really interesting because the president actually flirted with admitting this meeting was about getting dirt on hillary clinton when the story first broke last year. listen to him on the 13th of july last year, standing next to the president of france. and that is after the president had dictated the air force one response claiming the meeting was about adoptions. >> i do think this. i think from a practical standpoint, most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research, or even research into your opponent. politics is not the nicest business in the world, but it's very standard where they have information and you take the information. >> so he's saying the meeting was about getting this information, which is not what he said in that statement. what's interesting is that statement we just played for you didn't get a lot of attention at the time, but it's now resurfaced because of what the president just tweeted yesterday, which we told you at the beginning of this. again, that tweet from yesterday. this was a meeting to get information on an opponent.
totally legal, done all the time in politics, and it went nowhere. so when the president dictated or crafted the statement for don jr. that it was primarily about adoption and not mentioning kremlin intelligence, he was lying. when his press secretary denied he did anything more than offer fatherly advice on that false statement, she was lying, or possibly she had been lied to as well. maybe she didn't know she was lying, but she had been lied. to maybe. but what she said was not true. and when the president's attorney publicly said that the president didn't write that statement, didn't dictate that statement, he was also either lying or he had been lied to. this is what his attorney now says about that. >> i had bad information at that point. i made a mistake in my statement. i've talked about that before. that happens when you have cases like this. i agreed to go on your network and others days within being retained on this and had a lot of information to process. i got that one wrong. >> bad information.
so he is saying he didn't know he was not telling the truth. it was just bad information. bad information, which must have come from the president, who lied to his lawyer, or from someone else around the president who was lying, or had been lied to by the president. have you ever heard the old expression, scratch a lie, find a thief? i don't know if it's true, but in this case you scratch one lie and you sure do start to find a whole bunch more. one more thing. if you're wondering what donald trump jr. has to say about this now, he went on laura ingraham's radio show today. she played for him clips of him and others claiming the meeting was about adoptions. here's what happens next. >> do you want any comments on that, donny? because they're hitting you on that for contradictions. they're calling it worse than contradictions, obviously. >> hello? >> yeah. donny, what is your reaction to all that? we're going to see if we can reconnect with donald trump jr. on this because we can't seem to hear him. don, you hear that?
we don't know where he went. >> he called back a short time later. >> somehow you got cut off. it was a 20 minute meeting, it ended up being about essentially nothing that was relevant to any of these things and, you know, that's all it is. >> cnn's dana bash has been reporting on the president being not advised to tweet about this. what are you learning the president and those around him were saying about these tweets? >> to stop doing it when it comes to the trump tower meeting. the president is according to people who i'm told are talking to the president is giving this story way more oxygen than it would get if the president just left it alone. and when i say this story i'm talking about just the notion of trump tower, the whole question of what happened inside trump tower. the fact is the president's impulse to tweet out really a
way to combat aster story by cn "the washington post" visa vi the trump tower meeting, in that tweet he talked about the idea this was actually all based on trying to find dirt on hillary clinton. so he exposes himself on mg t t something that is very real that robert mueller and his team are looking into. now, having said that, the president's team certainly is okay with the president's tweets on let's say calling the investigation a witch hunt, calling it everything under the sun having to do with trying to chip away at the credibility of the mueller investigation. because they think that that's ultimately good for them when it comes to the court of public opinion that they might face. but right now at this critical time i'm told he's being urged, you know, you're not making it better for yourself by tweeting about trump tower. >> what more are you hearing
about when the president's legal team will respond to a request from mueller's interview? >> soon. either today, monday, or tuesday at the latest i am told. and this is really procedural because how many times have we talked about a back and forth between team mueller and team trump on this whole question of an interview? i mean we've been talking about it for months and months and months. but we're really getting close to what the trump legal team hopes and thinks is decision time because we're now three to four weeks away from labor day, which is the unofficial start of the mid-term election season. and their hope and their expectation inside the trump team at least because the mueller team isn't talking, of course, is that the sort of this is left alone in that window of politics, in that window of campaigning. so we'll see if that happens. we don't know exactly what the counteroffer is going to be.
we know that the parameters have been, you know, something in terms of an in-person interview about the whole notion of collusion and the connections he or people who worked for him had during the campaign with any russians and what the president's team has been fighting is any question or questions about while he was president, and that would have to do with potential obstruction of justice. >> dana bash, dana, thanks. >> thank you. so now that the president's current strategy at least on twitter is to say the trump tower meeting was legal, something that's done all the time, it didn't go anywhere and he didn't know about it, there's a lot to talk about. the story has changed multiple times. we'll talk about whether that matters next. the louisiana purchase, is complete! instant purchase notifications from capital one . technology this helpful... could make history. what's in your wallet? but climbing 58,070 steps a year can be hard on her feet,
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boom! as dana bash reported just now, the president is being urged to stop tweeting about that trump tower meeting promising russian dirt on hillary clinton. it's advice the president doesn't seem to be taking judging by his twitter feed over the weekend where he admitted contrary to ever changing stories that the intent was to indeed get dirt on his opponent, something he claims was done all the time in politics. getting dirt on a opponent, sure. from a foreign adversary, not so much. gloria, the president now admitting in very clear terms that this was all about getting dirt on hillary clinton. how big a deal do you think that really is? >> look, it's a big problem for him at every level. first of all, he is changing the story. remember, he was the one who drafted or dictated the statement on air force one, saying that it was about russian adoptions, which as you pointed
out earlier was about sanctions. secondly, there is a legal issue here. if this dirt or so-called dirt on hillary clinton was exchanged, it's illegal from a foreign country. and third, what is he doing tweeting about this as bob mueller is conducting an investigation looking into exactly what happened at that meeting? he -- if he does testify before mueller, and i have my real doubts about whether he will, don't you think mueller is going to ask him about it? of course he will. so is he setting himself up for some kind of perjury trap? this is why his attorneys are saying to him you know what? stop it. stop doing it. >> you know, david, if i worked in the president's orbit in the white house, and i don't say this with any glee, i don't know how anybody who works around the president can believe what he says to them because just in this one example, he's undercut sarah sanders, his own attorney, i mean all the stories that have
been crafted over the last year plus have just, you know, he's now just totally shown the lie to them all. >> they have to be very hardened individuals not to be deeply affected by this, anderson, and wonder about the credibility of the president. i must tell you, we went through the same dilemma with president nixon way back when in watergate, inside the white house, whether to believe or not believe. and for a long time, we believed. but at some point everybody started to snap. and you wonder when that's going to come, if it hasn't already come with this story about the tower meeting. i want to go back to what gloria said. i do think this -- this tweet that now has raised the significance of the tower meeting and made a compelling case of why mueller needs to talk personally, person to person, asking questions about what happened after the elections because it ties in to what happened during the campaign season. so he has to have in this
testimony a full answer from the president. and finally, the president trump now has a dilemma that he's going to be asked by mueller did you know before that meeting about the meeting? and if he wants to protect his son, he is going say no, i never knew that. but that will be -- he would be possibly committing perjury on his own. if he said yes, i did know, then he throws his son under the bus, and his son has committed a perjury. >> and ambassador eisen, mueller would have access -- i mean, i've talked to intelligence people. mueller would have access to the blocked number to know who the blocked number was that donald trump jr. called. i think there was a call before and i think there was a call after the meeting. we don't know if he called his dad, but that would certainly be one option. and if in fact he did call his dad and talked to him about the meeting, then they both have been lying. >> that's right, anderson. of course it never comes as a
surprise when the president lies because we've had so many thousands of them by this point. we've never seen anything like it in american history. the problem here is that the unfolding, the constantly changing story is deepening the president's exposure and that of don jr., not just because of the lies, which are always a problem when you're trying to persuade a special counsel or another fact finder. but because that tweet, anderson, is a crime to seek information from a foreign government in a campaign. that's an in kind contribution. the tweet is basically a confession. so now as david says, the president is facing an ominous choice within the first few minutes of his interview with bob mueller if it ever happens. he's going to be stuck between whether to perjure himself, whether to confess to obstruction or to crime, or whether to throw his son under
the bus. he's just making his situation worse every day. >> and gloria, the president has reiterated he didn't know about it. that's obviously in contrast to the reporting that michael cohen may be willing to testify or may be willing to tell mueller that in fact he has information that the president didn't know about or the candidate at that point did know about it. >> right. and how about the president giving a speech? saying i'm going give you a speech in a couple days about dirt on hillary clinton. i think that's pretty interesting evidence that mueller could use and ask him about. and if trump's attorneys are saying, look, we'll let you talk to the president for a very short period of time about collusion, this would fit into that, the so-called conspiracy. and so they don't want him to -- they don't want the president to
talk about obstruction after he became president. this would be one of the major questions that mueller would want to and him, which is why i've now come to believe after reporting this for months and months. and don't forget they had a meeting setup in january at camp david that never happened. i'm now beginning to think his lawyers are so united on this they may just say to trump we're not going to let you do it. >> david, the narrative surrounding the purpose and outcome of the trump tower meeting has changed so much over the past year. even trump, jr. adding to that today calling it a bait and switch meeting. how do you think mueller's team is viewing all of this? >> well, i think they find there's a mountain of evidence out there they have to sort through because it's conflicting. and they're going to have to decide what the bottom line is bring it before -- i just don't see how they walk away from
this, anderson. much of what has come up you could argue either way and it would be hard to say for sure they've got something -- that might be put in front of a house of representatives. but the trump tower meeting has gradually gained all this prominence, and i think it's a very, very serious problem for the mueller team first to straighten out who says what about it and then to decide where to go with it. >> thanks, everyone. nba star lebron james opened a school in ohio using his money and fame for objective good. the question of course who could possibly criticize him for that? well, the president. we'll talk about that next. ugh we're gonna be late, we're gonna be late! hold on, don't worry, there's another way [siri: *beep beepá] directions to the greek theater. ♪ can i get a connection? can i get can i get a connection? ♪ ♪ i can see it in my, see it in my reflection. ♪
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i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. the president's once again lashing out at a well-known african american public figure, nba superstar lebron james who just opened a school in ohio. on friday night, cnn re-aired an interview with lebron james, and it seems the president tuned in
because he tweeted, and i quote, lebron james was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, don lemon. he made lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. i like mike. that was a reference to michael jordan, who said through his spokesman afterwards that he supported lebron james and the amazing job he is doing for his community. joining me are professor cornel west of harvard and princeton and cnn political commentator paris denard, former black outreach for president george w. bush. professor, i'm wondering what you make of this which is just the latest example of the president criticizing a well-known african american person on intelligence. >> well, i think we need to keep the focus where it belongs because it's clear that president trump doesn't focus on what he ought to. the focus is on first gloria marie james, a mother, a magnificent black woman raise as magnificent son and becomes one of the greatest athletes in the history of modern times who then use his greatness to serve
others. 230 very precious students of all colors who are being attended to. that's the focus. that's why i'm with my dear sister melania trump. she says that's what we need to be focusing on. let's focus on the children. let's focus on this magnificent act of service which is part and parcel what it means to be a great human being. and that's what i see in brother lebron. and i salute his mother for that. >> paris, what does it say to you that the president doesn't focus on what dr. west is talking about and what melania trump certainly was trying to focus on and instead just goes after him calling him dumb. same with don lemon as he has called maxine waters, low iq, and others. >> what we know about this president is he doesn't attack first, but he always responds. he responds if he feels something is said about him that is negative or harsh, he'll respond to someone that is black, he'll respond to someone that is a woman, he'll respond to someone that is white.
that's just how the president was when he was a private citizen, a candidate and now the president. the real focus should be on the president supporting things like charter schools and school choice and parental choice and trying to figure out ways how we can improve school systems across the country, not just in akron, ohio, which i think is a positive thing. but i think and hope that lebron james and others will come to the table with the federal government, with the trump administration and try to find ways to make this solution more of a national solution, not just singly focus on akron, ohio, which is still a very good thing. >> but of course none of that was said by the president of the united states, dr. west. what he did say and has said before about congresswoman waters is one of the oldest kind of racisttropes, you know, racist attacks on african-americans in this country, questioning the intelligence of it. it was an obsession among racists for centuries.
>> no, i think there's no doubt. we've got a whole line and lineage of racist, misogynist, homophobic things said about from this president. but that's like saying the sky is blue and grass is green. the challenge is, and i was raised in such a way you don't get in the gutter with a gangster. you respond with positive ways of accenting greatness, service, vision, struggle, courage. this cycle can go on and on and on with him saying these kinds of things. when he is talking about sister maxine waters, low iq. we know that's racist and sexist to the core, but you don't respond by somehow trying to react and simply counter whatever he said. >> a quick point, just to correct dr. west, the president, again, is not the one that is on the attack. he is always responding to things that have been said to him about congresswoman waters, by lebron james and by others.
and so the president is not sitting here going on the attack. he is responding to. that's a distinction. >> that's the response of a 12-year-old. a 12-year-old can't stop themselves if somebody says something, they say something equally mean or worse, or a 5-year-old. this is the president of the united states. i mean, he watched an interview in which lebron james is talking about, you know, this extraordinary thing that he's doing, and speaking about it in a really beautiful way about getting kids the power of a bicycle and a helmet for a kid that when he was a kid and going out and being able to see other worlds and giving him a sense of freedom, you know. and his -- he took none that of away from this. all he said, he tweets don lemon made lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. i mean that's -- >> anderson, you can gloss over the facts of what lebron james actually said about the president, which was not positive. i don't understand why he was even talking about president trump in this interview about his wonderful school. >> because we he was asked a question about him. >> exactly. >> and i don't understand why in past tweets he has gone on the
attack about president trump. >> because president trump has said -- has said. >> as a child, then you can say that lebron james is acting like a child because he is saying these things that are petty, that are childish about the president of the united states. so it goes both ways or it doesn't. >> no, no, no, no, no. lebron was telling the truth. it was donald trump who called the black athletes sons of bitches. it was donald trump who mistreated stephen curry and others who hadn't even planned ongoing to the white house. brother paris, let's be honest, it's trump who is using this kind of vicious language. >> vicious language? so if that's vicious -- >> that's right. >> then lebron james calling the president via twitter "bum" would be vicious as well. >> it's fascinating to me, paris. i get you're a supporter of the president, and that's your gig, and you can't publicly break from him because then you'll get in trouble, i guess. >> anderson, you're wrong. i'm a grown man and i have my own opinions. i don't work for the trump administration, i've never worked for the campaign and they don't pay me.
i have been republican since i was 16 years old. thank you. >> okay. let me ask you. you see no problem with the president of the united states going to the state of alabama and calling african-american football players who are exercising their right, whether you agree with them or not, sons of bitches and they maxine waters low iq multiple times, and calling don lemon stupid, or whatever he called him, and lebron james dumb. you don't see any through-line you don't see any through line to this? >> well, anderson, i have said on cnn a number of times and even said privately in the west wing that i did not think it was appropriate or the right word -- >> i'm saying do you see a through line in it? >> let me finish. saying that it was right to say sons of bitches, i did not think that was appropriate, and i said that wasn't a good thing to do. i said that on cnn. i said it privately in the west wing.
i do see a commonality, and the common denominator is the president is responding to people who have said things that have been negative or harsh and attacked him personally or attacked his character. the president has done this to african-americans, to white people, to white men, to white women, to members of his own cabinet. >> professor west, do you think there's a commonality in -- >> no. he has called some white sisters dumb. i think he called sister mika on msnbc dumb. he uses dumb across race, across gender. but the problem is that when he focuses on people of color and talks about that -- uses that kind of language, we have a history that goes a long way that accents the deep white supremacist overtones even as he's calling a white male dumb or white woman dumb. so that, yes, paris, it's true.
he's an equal opportunity gangster across the board. our challenge is going to be -- and i will tell you this, brother paris. if somebody call you a vicious name and i thought it was wrong, i would defend you based on principle even though we don't agree on a whole lot. but we human beings. and i know there's gangster in me. there's gangster in you. there's gangster in trump. there's gangster in anderson. the challenge is how do we get control of those gangster elements such that we live a life of some decency and a slice of integrity? that's what we're talking about. it's all about accountability. accountability. accountability. >> paris dennard, professor west, i appreciate the discussion. thanks very much. >> thanks, anderson. up next, we have more on the tweet by the president attacking lebron james. first lady melania trump has a much different take on the nba star. a more positive one it's not the first time she's pushed back after something her husband has done. i'll show you when "360" continues.
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her communications director released a statement that reads in part, quote, it looks like lebron james is working to do good things on behalf of our next generation. just as she always has, the first lady encourages everyone to have an open dialogue about issues facing children today. mrs. trump would even consider visiting james' new school in ohio. it's not the first time the first lady has contributed her husband, forged her own path. with more, here is cnn's randi kaye. >> i'm standing very strong on the ground, on my two feet, and i'm an own person. >> reporter: that was melania trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. as first lady, her independent streak continues to draw attention. take, for example, what happened during a recent trip overseas. melania trump was watching cnn onboard air force one when "the new york times" first reported her husband got upset, insisting all tvs be tuned to fox news. in response to that report, the
first lady's spokeswoman issued a statement saying, the first lady watches any channel she wants. mrs. trump has also weighed in on policy with a rare statement on her husband's controversial immigration plan for detaining and separating families at the southern border. her spokeswoman told cnn that mrs. trump believes we need to be a country that follows all laws but also a country that governs with heart. after that, the president signed an order to keep immigrant families together in detention, acknowledging his wife had urged him to stop separating children from their parents. and when melania trump took a trip to tour the u.s./mexico border, she let her wardrobe do the talking for her. the back of her jacket read "i really don't care, do you." the first lady's communications director insisted it's a jacket. there was no hidden message. still up for debate, was there a message, and if so, who was it aimed at?
these days melania trump is pushing back against the president's lawyer too. after news broke of mr. trump's alleged affair with porn star stormy daniels, rudy giuliani said this. >> she believes in her husband. she knows it's not true. >> reporter: the first lady's communications director issued this terse response. i don't believe mrs. trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with mr. giuliani. melania trump certainly isn't afraid to go it alone. after reports of another alleged affair, this time with a former playboy playmate, mrs. trump skipped a ride on marine one with her husband, instead taking her own motorcade to andrews air force base to meet him on air force one. >> people think and talk about me like, oh, melania, oh, poor melania. don't feel sorry for me. don't feel sorry for me. i -- i can handle everything. >> reporter: randi kaye. cnn, palm beach, florida.
unpleasant experience. thank you so much. only talk to rosenstein but also our coverage on cnn continues mueller to see what other information that he believes he right now. called to testify if you don't get it here. breaking news, i'm wolf it is a relace hearing. blitzer. i'm going to try. as the weekends all of washington is waiting and the white house is clearly worrying what it play contain. it is to the extent. president trump is trying to torpedo the special counsel's it is a comp hence ifr report work again calling it a witch and doj saying it is a hunt insisting there was no collusion and no obstruction and comprehensive report. warning if mueller finds otherwise people will not stand it is transparency. for it. sit principle conclusions.
>> he is doing his best to undermine the investigation. what is the mood at the white house right now as we brace potentially for the eminent release? >> that's right. i have been speaking to i can. officials today and i spoke with a white house official a few you know, it sort of begs the moments ago. they are bracing for the mueller question. it is a certain respect. report to drop this afternoon and thissen evening so we are it is that. the judiciary. waiting to find out what the and he said the bedrock pins special counsel robert mueller ends up delivering in terms of pal. he never disclosed information. if they honor that and the what he 457bds ovhands over. amount of information would be very small. it appears to be saying to it creates sort of a window for president or perhaps somebody release more information. with the administration to come he is taking with one hand and
out and say something to reporters later on this evening taking with the other but i think we just have to wait and presumably in response to see how much he actually does whatever happens with the mueller report in the next disclose. more importantly how much he does not disclose. several minutes it does not necessarily mean it's a done deal that the president would come out. the white house press secretary it does create that kind of and we don't have enough time to opening for him. get a graphic ready. we should point out if it comes it says the next steps are up to down as we are all expecting the attorney general barr. president was asked about this earlier this morning as he was we look forward to the process. heading out the door where he they have not been briefed on special counsel's report. will be for the weekend he was we know this, you know, leading asked about his anticipation and up to this moment that the white what he expects to hear and what he knows right now. he said he didn't know much house has sort of been in the dark on a lot of this up until right now. he was waiting for himself. the moment of the special counsel's report over the justice department. that is the tweet from sander a few moments ago. giuliani and jay the president's >> can i interrupt you? outside legal team they have also put out a statement also evan perez has the breaks news we have been waiting for. coming in. >> that's right. it says we are pleased the the wore is in. office of special counsel
the justice department telling delivered the report pursuant us bill barr has we sooreceived and it will determine the appropriate next steps. report. it is now over. so obviously it is a big moment for this white house. it is an investigation that has hung over the presidency of donald trump since is beginning it was apply kated. obviously. the question is what is in that or anything like that. report. they are we are viewing what he found in their investigation and will tell congress. it will be a bill barr report the special counsel report. and something that will be much less than what robert mueller provided in his investigation it was at the white house. let's step back a little bit. as ho how they are going to respond. i thought it was. if you compare it to just an and sources close to the white average justice department house, people inside the white investigation. let's go through that. house, inside the legal team all starting to sound much more 37 defendants including six trump associates that have been positive about this mueller
charged with crimes as a result of this investigation. we have five people sentenced to prison so far. 16 trump associates at least report. they have been telling us have been shown to have contacts privately they are starting to feel better and better about with russians as a result during the campaign or during the this. as pam brown was saying we don't flow what it is that exists in the universe of possibilities coming out of this mueller report. so when it goes up to capitol hill democrats may have a very different take in terms of the positioning right now. >> as the attorney general says transition. the big question is whether or the principal conclusions may be not there was any evidence of released as early as this collusion between people weekend. you were over there at the associated with russians, whether the president was aware of any of that, whether there justice department. what are folks telling you? wasful any conspiracy to throw >> quite the frenzy over here. we are learning that the report election. so far robert mueller has not is very comprehensive i'm told charged that in any of the cases for justice officials we have that have been made public. been asking for almost 10 15 is there something related to collusion in the report that
mueller has turned into barr? minutes now. all we are told is that it is is there any proof or evidence comprehensive and only a few select people have seen it. of obstruction of justice? any proof of crimes that he was you plimagine the attorney genel not able to bring charges on. and very small clutch over here that's the big question. of course big barr is going to who have been privy to it. review this report before he reports to congress on exactly our understanding is that the white house was notified around what robert mueller phone. 4:35 p.m. that the report has been delivered. it was delivered by a special counsel security official over >> i want to be previce. have they said the mueller investigation has been completed to the attorney general and immediately within minutes i'm and his report has been handed told transmitted to the attorney over to the new attorney general general's office to give you a and have they done that with flavor of how quickly it transpired over here. what they call a paper as for what comes next our understanding he will be reviewing the findings. as he says in his letter to congress he will be discussing with special counsel and deputy attorney general about what statement? we were just told this was just exactly can be made public but reiterating as he has said in told this by justice department officials that this the past that transparency is investigation is now complete. something that is important to him.
the report from robert mueller how far he is willing to go on has been received by the that is the next battle on the attorney general and so, look, again, this is an important moment for the trump presidency. it is something they have been horizon. >> you have been waiting tfor anticipating the day they could this report as all of us have. finally say that the investigation has been completed. they can now move onto what is essentially going to be what they believe is going to be a political process. it will be a fight over what are the contents of robert mueller's this was a letter to congress. report, whether members of congress will be able to see all along he has probably made i anything that mueller found in think most clear that he thinks his nearly two-year that he can't share the actual investigation. that will be something that will report. be a political and perhaps even that's a confidential report a legal fight whether or not they will be able to see that. from the special counsel's officer that comes directly to for the moment bill barr will bill barr but he wanted to share review this and he will decide as much as possible. how much of it he can make public and how much of it he can our understanding is he the distill it in whatever ways he turn over to members of congress to review. that's something we are going to thinks is appropriate. be waiting in the coming days to he will provide principle see exactly what that is. >> i want you to standby. conclusions. it means we could sit tight. >> will they be -- submits it to what are you hearing? congress will be submitting pub
>> this is now over. luckily or on a confidential basis to congress. >> i think you should assume if he will submit it it means everybody will find out about there will be no more it. if he understands that just as indictments from mueller. well as all of us do. when he submits it to congress he will submit it to all of us. >> you're getting more information as well. >> yeah. we are told that she here with it is people they still want to members of the white house question and they an open grand counsel's office. they report the counsel's jury investigation. officer intends according to we saw his team that's outside this letter from barr it was special counsel's office. we saw people leaving the office about this weekend and the early today. we did not see mueller going in. question will the president and we believe he was at work today. his lawyers be included in this the big news here is this is now over. now it's about what will we see? what will be the next steps in all of this? process? the president has publicly said let the people said see the
reporter. white house lawyers have been working up a legal strategy. >> we don't have any information democrats have already said may about this report, how many pages, what's in it, those details will come at some point not see the full report early but the big news. on. robert mueller, all of his work, it is certainly a long fight and the investigation is over. his team's work now they are done. they are moving on and we will >> it is this information that's see what the department of in this report. justice does and what the next if he is willing, if the steps will be in this investigation. attorney general is willing to >> and we just have received the review it this weekend. attorney ge leadership in the it is to release information. house and the senate. let me read from this letter for our viewers. this is william p. barr, the it is things they can't release. attorney general directs this they would be a little more letter to the respective hesitant and maybe waiting a chairman of these various little more before doing it. it could be why we have seen this delay. we have been reporting this for weeks now that this was going to happen. it could be they were going committees. he has concluded the through it for weeks now and finally determine what can we put together? the other thing i want to make a
point about you can understand investigation the special why the president is optimistic counsel investigation require that i provide you with a description and explanation of about that. instances in which the attorney so far when you look at the general or acting attorney general concluded that a people who have been indicted no one has been incited for proposed action by special counsel was so inappropriate or unwarranted under departmental practices that it should not be collusion. it was indicted for financial crimes, tax crimes, no one in pursued. there were no such instances. the special counsel submitted to this investigation up to now and now that this is over we don't me a confidential report explaining the prosecution or i expect anyone else. >> and the other investigation is they did not do a sit down am reviewing the report and anticipate i may be in a interview. position to advise you of it isn't inclined to talk about principal condition collusions people they decided not to take as soon as this weekend. charges about. it is not someone they felt they separately i intend to consult could bring charges against. with special counsel mueller to determine what other information from the report can be released to congress and the public it was meant to be like that not consistent with the law including the special counsel to proceed in an indictment
regulations and department's fashion. congress does in some sense have long standing practices and a right to this investigation as policies. i remain committed to as much they decide to make transparency as possible. investigation whether they think i will keep you informed as to the status of your review. something that was impeachment finally that he provide that the worthy. the white house certainly will. so i think it will be the attorney general may determine the public release of this difficult position we see all of these players going forward. notification would be in the public interest. >> i think we are going to see a i have so determined and i will lot more than we think. disclose this letter after i think the fact that they are delivering it to you. pamela, you have been covering doing this this weekend and this from the very beginning. doing it as quickly as they are a pretty specific letter he has doing it this line in this sent to the various chairman letter to congress i may be in a position to advise as soon as lindsay graham. this weekend that's a big >> and that's lot of news in shocker for all of us. >> it may have to go through this letter. the big question is were some kind of declassification process. they may have already scrubbed therefully there it. any requests that were denied? mueller wasn't born yesterday. he is saying that there were no such instances during the he knows that whatever he is submitting, no matter how special counsel investigation. the reporters covering this comprehensive is some day going to be out there. wondered was there ever a point he has got to -- i'm sure that's where mueller wanted to subpoena what was going on with scrubbing the sit-down with the president? things and making sure there are
he never had that sit-down with no privilege issues that the president trump. white house could object to. you know they are not going to according to this letter that did not happen apparently. tell us about deck lynn nations. he is saying he will brief the committees on the principle c n conclusions is significant. what would he provide the committees? i think mueller has been around he had wide discretion under the washington long enough to know special counsel regulations to this is going to get out and he determine what he wanted to is going to brief the committees and maybe, you know, maybe the share. he is saying the committees could learn about the principle attorney general won't have to conclusions of the this issue a summary. investigator. we don't have any idea at this our request we is will it answer point. if it is going to happen this the principal question of this investigation, the collusion, quickly i agree. was there collusion of any type it may be that he is handing of individuals associated with them over a comp hence ifr the trump campaign and document that the american obstruction of justice. public can actually read. the president and his team have that's how we do that. called this a witch hunt. you will likely see them say there were no charges related to collusion or obstruction of >> we may see an executive justice. my question is was there any conduct that was unindictable
that could be concerning and of summary. >> it is a boiled down version interest to congress? news coming from this letter. of all of that. dp you know, it also says that >> you know, what he has done in he may be in a position to these indictments is he told the advise you of the special story of how this occurred and counsel's principle conclusion as soon as this weekend. what happened and he may tell >> a very quick turn around. i think if the attorney general understands that the faster you make this information public we are getting word that they let the white house know at 4:35 p.m. the american public a story they it wasn't long they put the letter out to the public. have been waiting to hear for two years. >> he is getting reaction to this letter that was just sent he knows if he will do anything to the respective chairman and else the best thing he can do is ranking members of the house and handle this as fast as possible. senate judiciary committee. >> it is interesting they are what are you learning? saying the report is comprehensive. i think it is important to know >> yeah. the house chairman just we did not expect the department responded confirms he has been of justice to move so quickly in informed that mueller investigation is completed and terms of revealing some of their findings. they are saying we may be able to do that this weekend. saying that barr completed the that is much faster as pam was investigation. pointing out.
it also -- they reck cog fliezed we look forward to getting how serious it is and maybe they transparency and nothing less. the need for public faith in the will release more than we think. rule of law must be the we understand the public interest. priority. >> our chief legal analyst is now, what you'll hear from democrats, the top democrat on with us. the senate intelligence saying it is a pretty specific letter nothing is short of providing to ranking members of house and you dish area committees. au all of the materials. >> it is. i believe as pam said there's a he said in his statement exactly lot of news in this letter. that. he said this needs to be swiftly the fact that mueller was never declassified so nothing short of that will suffice. th during this investigation. he never said i want to do x. they have been pushing for not just the report to be released i want to subpoena this person. but also the underlying everyide i want to incite this person. i want to travel to this country and he was never told no. so that is a very significant of the report, the decisions about what to prosecute and not development with regard to his to prosecute, they want that but relationship with rosenstein who also to the public. was his supervisor for the vast they asking for perhaps a lot more than the white house may be majority of his tenure. the idea that we will learn willing to go forperhaps more something about the conclusions than bill bar may be willir mayo of the mueller report as early
as this weekend is very go for. significant and very they did give word from the interesting. i don't know what it means justice department today just exactly. i don't know what a conclusion moments ago that this is. investigation was completed. does that mean he is going to they have not been told of any say there was no collusion? is he going to say we could have of the findings so far. the discussions have been indicted president trump if we were allowed to? i don't know. relatively brief. conclusions can mean a lot of it goes back to the leaders of different things, but, you know, this process is going to move some what faster at least the key judiciary committee may initially than you would think. learn about principal one other point which is if it is true that this report is comp conclusions. the moment democrats say provide the full report and preserve any hence ifr hencive as we are being advised documents and if they don't it is going to take a while to that's when we can expect a evaluate whether there isfully subpoena fight going forward. classified information in it. >> there could be a significant you can't just send it to the court challenge. classified information doctor. you have to give it to the cia to the national security agency, ba based on this letter we have read multiple times to these any organization whose work was respective chairman and ranking used should be allowed to weigh in on whether it can be members judiciary committees can declassified. so i would think the process we draw conclusions about the
can't go that quickly but there principle focus of what the robert mueller special counsel investigation was all about? is -- it is certainly moving he was charged nearly two years faster than i expected. ago with authorization to >> there is also the possibility that this has already been investigate any links or scrubbed to a great degree. coordination between russia and the trump campaign, in other that is why barr said he i to n words so called collusion. can we draw any conclusions yet? >> yeah. we can draw the conclusion that he is going to tell congress what he found. you know, it is true as gloria and others have been pointing out that in the legal papers, in the indictments that mueller has told a story. he has told an incomplete story. he has not said whether the trump campaign was involved. he has not said one way or the other. he to on lijed to answer.
and remember too the whole reason that mueller was appointed by rosenstein was the firingov firing of james comey. mueller has not said whether he believes that the president obstruct obstructed justice by firing james comey and all of the related activities. i think he owes congress an answer on those questions. >> i get it. >> i think the principle conclusions is was there any sort of conclusion? we don't flow the answers to that yes. >> they have told a story and have been very complete. there were in addition to this question of whether the president obstructed justice big questions that remain understand unanswered. they never said whether they actually believe that stone was successfully or got any information from him. they haven't charged him. they suggested he was colluding
in various courtroom instances. they didn't charge him with any of these things. they never fully on whether they believe. it is with russians. they sort of dropped these bread crumbs. it will be very interesting. congress has every right no deplan the answers to those questions. >> i don't know that mueller will even reach those conclusions. this is a criminal investigation. the point was investigating crimes, whether or not i can bring charges, whether or not i can indict people, whether or not there is more steps i need to take for criminal reasons. what the president may have done here. who roger stone was with. that may be a political issue here. that is not for 3450u8mueller t decide. we play see some of that here. we may see instances where there
was not enough to prove this. there was not enough to prove that. we didn't pursue charges here. we don't want to see a repeat. certainly the attorney general does not want to see a repeat whether he stood up and went through everything that hillary clinton did bad. this attorney general, this department of justice, this fbi does not want to go through it. >> he has not -- during his confirmation hearing he did not answer the question of what he would do. he wasn't asked what he would do with any impeachable information. if there was conduct in the report that he couldn't bring charges for whatever reason but that's concerning or derogatory. we don't know what he is going to do, if there is that kind of information in the report. they just said special counsel's
report must be provided. nothing short of that will sufficient. so we are in for a fight. >> we are in for a fight. >> getting more information. evan, what else are you learning? >> i think one of the things we want to step back and talk about is as jeffrey and some of the others have talked about the special counsel has not proved the one thing that everybody has been expecting which is whether or not there was any collusion or something that looking like collusion or something that looks like a conspiracy. of the 199 counts that the special counsel has charged. if you look at some 37 people and entities charged, severen people pleaded guilty and the most important one of those is the chairman of the campaign who was facing charges and tried in
alexander virginia. he was found guilty there. one of the most curious things in that case was the fact that the special counsel said that at the center of this investigation was this curious etssentially ties had with the special counsel said was a russian operative. they never explained at this point whether this the questions on whether the fbi will keep for the counter terrorism mission it is to see whether return shans or anyone else or what was that
about. special counsel has not answered and at least not in public. so we are going to be waiting to see whether or not that is answered in his report. there were all of these curious connections. as many as 16 of them people associated with the trump campaign had contacts with russians. it made the fbi suspicious. it is one reason this investigation has gone on. we don't flow what happenknow w. >> hovering over all of this william barr, the attorney general has been precise during the confirmation hearing that he will deal with all of this. he wachbs as much as possible within justice department
guidelineses. the second guideline is if you're not going to formally charge someone criminally you can't release a lot of damaging with private american citizen. that will be hovering over the decision how much to release publicly, right? >> if you believe both of those, you know, principles that you just described donald trump is the kind of heads i win and tails you lose situation. you can't indict me and you can't say anything bad about me either. i find it hard to believe that that will be the principle that governs the release of these documents. it does underline the challenge that barr will face in add dr s addressing these issues. we saw from the statement from sflart warner and even republicans will be saying
similar things, let's see what the conclusions are. mueller, the idea that we are going to simply learn nothing about donald trump's behavior seems incon sooeceivable to me. he was appointed immediately after james comey was fired. >> i'm sorry. >> let me ask you a question. remember when afterdonald trump was referred to as individual one at one point and his legal team went ballistic about it. is the president in any way shape or form even going to be mentioned in these documents? >> it is inconceivable to me. there was a conflict of interest
with the president of the united states. he has to be mentioned but that tension between not disparaging non-charged people which was of course i believe i believe evan said the issue with james comey an hillary clinton indicting her but not denouncing her, how you release information about an uncharged person is a challenge here. the idea that we will simply have him ignored. the report is inconceivable. >> i agree with you. >> laura is at the justice department. she is speaking to officials over there. what else are you learning? >> one of the issues is whether those principle conclusions that
bill barr is planning to put together would be made public. i know you asked about that so i asked about it. that will be made public. the expectation is it will be made public knowing that congress is going to see it. the public will see it as well. that is to answer one of the looming questions out there. the other one that we had and i'm told at this hour the white house has not seen the report however the attorney general's chief of staff called over and spoke to the top lawyer over there who has been running the russia flfrgs and he was informed about everything that was happening but that the white house does not have the report at this hour, wolf.
the full report and provide underlining documentation. attorney general barr must not give his lawyers or his staff any sfleek preview of the special counsel. mueller's findings or evidence and the white house must not be allowed about what parts of those are made public. the statement adds the special counsel's investigation focused on questions that go to the integrity of the democracy itself. >> i think we are going to get that here. he is smart enough to know we will be questioned about his interactions. >> i still go back to this. >> saying do not give a sneak
preview to the president or his staff. the president and his staff are expecting a sneak preview. >> that's right. >> he didn't get it. >> as he reported before anything is -- >> let me get back to laura. i want to be precise. when you expected it to be made public, all of the information that pelosi and schumer -- >> it is not even close to all of the information they are deplanning. they want to see the report and underlying facts and juicy details. as we have been reporting the expectation has been that he will distill it and he will figure out what he thinks is able to be transmitted to congress and by extension the public and there will be a fight about it is enough to go to to
courts. when i say the expectation is that it will be made public it is only the part that he is promising to give kons here. >> go ahead. >> the real controversy here is the sneak preview. the white house lawyers will want to say we want to be able to assert executive privilege. we have to see it before it is released. you know for a fact that the minute that goes to the white house the president will start tweeting about what a vindication it is. the president will see this thing before anyone else and be able to shake public perceptions before anyone else gets to see it. i think that's something that the democrats may be concerned about but i don't know that they
can do anything about it. >> well, i think the minute barr decides to do what he wants to do it becomes a political document. the democrats will say if it is jus a summary. we want to know the whole story. he can read it any time he wants. i wonder if the principle conclusions are that the president did nothing wrong. is that something that the attorney general puts out the r? if the attorney says no collusion he will see that as a huge vindication. >> i don't think he will use the
word. >> right. but i think from the president's standpoint i think you'll hear no collusion pretty quickly, wolf, no matter what simply because we flow there's not been any charges -- >> but a sitting president can't be charged. >> when he talks about no collusion he means about anything. that's one of the questions that's been hanging over him. from now on he will be able to say see, i told you so. >> remember, what the president's lawyer said there was no collusion between the president and the russians. >> exactly. >> i'm not talking about the campaign. he suggested there may have been. >> i think he has done a good job of trying to cover all of the bases. here is the deal. one of the things i think we have talked to officials about is the fact that they have set a prin precedent of some kind by releasing a lot of underlying
information in the health caill clinton e-mail investigation. there is a lot of concern they created a precedent that some judge is going to apply when it comes time to get some of the underlying product of this investigation. i think that's one of the concerns that they have. bill barr can do his bill barr report. he can try to produce a version of this he believes should be made public. the question is the urn underlying parts, how much of that goes to congress and becomes public? >> we are getting a lot more information. everybody is working their sources right now. i want to get reaction to the dramatic developments. eric of california is joining us. he is on the intelligence and judiciary committees. thanks so much for joining us. tell us what you're looking for plab as early as this weekend when you're going to get what the attorney general says the principle conclusions of this
report. >> good evening, wolf. we want to full report. we want it now and we want it before the president is going to get it or able to make any edits. >> let me interrupt. why should congress get it through the legislative branch get it before the executive before the president of the dwrie united states himself? >> he is a subject. there is an honor code that presidents when they are subject to investigations back off but they followed the rule of law. it is inappropriate he would even touch this. if he didn't do anything wrong he would keep his hands off of it and say the public could read every word, every sentence. he is not going to do that. i think it will taint its release. >> do you full confidence that he will give you, members congress, as much information from this report as he possibly can within legal guidelines? >> i'll trust but we have to
verify. so we will ultimately see the full report because the president is outnumbered. we have the subpoena power and judiciary that will uphold from the nixon era. i think we will probably have to hear from bob mueller himself. i don't know how we could accept at mr. barr's word without telling us whether there were lines he wanted to pursue and was not able to. i think the american people will need to hear from mueller. >> what will democrats do if the attorney general declines to make everything, all of the documentation, all of the backgrounds, everything in his nearly two-year investigation available to congress? >> we'll fight and we'll win. the moern peopamerican people v have the subpoena power now and we have the courts that will back us up. i want to say this. i do not want to hear from a president that was unwilling to go under oath as a subject of
this investigation, attack a report where others so willingly did go under oath. he has no credibility. the state of the evidence will not include his testimony. so anything he says about it i think >> will democrats subpoena robert mueller? >> that's a decision for chairman nadler. it's my view that the report will not be fully accepted by the american people until we hear from bob mueller. >> were you surprised that additional indictments weren't handed down as this nearly two-year investigation has now concluded? >> i haven't been surprised by anything in this investigation. there have been dozens of indictments. people have gone to jail. people are on their way to jail. i don't know if other work has been farmed off to other offices like the southern district of new york with respect to michael cohen. i will accept the mueller report if i hear it from mr. mueller. i have respect for the rule of law. i know my colleagues do.
this is a test for the rule of law and our country right now. it's had a wrecking ball taken to it. what we do next will determine whether it stands. >> do you accept the current justice department guideline that a sitting president of the united states cannot be indicted? >> that's their guidelines. i don't accept that a president should escape criminal liability by being re-elected or running out the statute of limitations. we are working on this. we will put in place a law in congress, and hopefully the senate, that would say the statute would not run if a president is not indicted because of doj policy. i don't see how he does not have indictments waiting for him considering he is individual one and the conduct that michael cohen talked about when he came to congress and testified. >> if there's no criminal charge, the other justice department guideline is you don't release negative information about someone who isn't charged. >> right. that's a guideline i think we're going to fight.
we have the subpoena power for two years when i was on the judiciary committee, we saw the republicans subpoena every single document relating to the clinton investigation where secretary clinton was not charged. they had all of that aired out. we warned them. adam schiff was clear over and over on the intelligence committee, you are setting a precedent you will have to live by. now they have to live by that while we have a president of the united states, a greater figure in our democracy, under investigation. the american people, they will see all of this. it's a matter of when. >> at the time, you strongly condemned -- i'm talking about the democrats -- the then fbi director james comey for releasing all that damaging information about hillary clinton, even though wasn't formally charged. >> others may have done that. i did not condemn comey. i'm a former prosecutor. i understand the reasoning that went in the position that he was in. i was not among those. what i will say is that, what they did later in the house
judiciary committee in the years after the election was over, that was a private citizen who was not in office and they were going back in time to look at that conduct. we're not dealing with a private citizen. we're dealing with the president who makes national security decisions every day that affect us. the american people want to know whether this president violated conduct, whether he violated not only the law but that honor code that we count on and whether he needs to be held accountable. >> thanks so much for joining us. you will be very, very busy in the coming days, probably as early as this weekend when these conclusions are going to be sent from the attorney general over to congress. thanks very much for joining us. >> of course, my pleasure. >> laura is at the justice department. >> one big piece of news that we received is the special counsel robert mueller is not recommending any further indictments. obviously, that's a significant development as there have been many looming questions out there, many open question marks
i should say about whether we would see more, any superseding indictments. i'm told no further recommendations of any indictments whatsoever. it's not as if when we see the conclusions that bill barr eventually submits to congress that we will see any mention of any recommendations of any indictments. i'm told that's not happening. we can put to rest that speculation once and for all. >> that doesn't necessarily mean that other u.s. attorneys in the southern district of new york or the u.s. attorney here in washington, d.c. or northern virginia, they can pursue legal action? >> absolutely. we should make that point, there have been spinoffs from much of mueller's work. we have seen him farming out certain cases to the d.c. u.s. attorney's office, also the eastern district of virginia and, of course, the southern district of new york which is handling the michael cohen investigation. we have seen outputs from his investigation. but we are not going to receive
any further recommendations from mueller about the core work of his mandate, which was russian interference in the election, obstruction of justice, all of those issues were central to what he was put here to do. no further indictments on that front. >> from the special counsel. presumably, some of those who were brought before grand juries, some individuals who have not been indicted, they can't necessarily completely breathe easily because there could be indictments coming from other u.s. attorneys. >> certainly, anybody who has been before a grand jury, anyone who has lied, they are in jeopardy. that's certainly not off the table here. in terms of any fresh indictments, any fresh investigative work, that has been put to rest. >> you have been watching this from day one. you are watching the drama unfold even as we speak. >> yeah. this line that we're getting now from the justice official that laura is talking to is probably
one of the most significant pieces of information. there's been so much speculation from everywhere. a lot of pundits, certainly. people on both sides, democrats, republicans, all speculating, certainly a lot of people speculating more is coming. robert mueller will indict. that's not happening. that's a very important point. what you said, the fact that this is now -- there are parts of this investigation as we have seen -- evan talked about curious connections. there are a lot of curious connections. the fbi is going to continue to investigate those curious connections. that's not ending any time soon. there's an entire counterintelligence investigation into russia. there are other people certainly that are involved that they are investigating. the investigation itself in terms of other parts of this is not over. it's very important -- it's a very important line. there's a reason why they're saying this. no other indictments from robert mueller. >> can we assume -- i will ask jeffrey. can we assume -- jeffrey -- >> let's be specific.
this is really good news for a lot of people around donald trump. donald trump junior, jared kushner, jerome corsi, the writer who had a draft indictment presented to him by mueller's office and they decided not to go forward with this. let's be fair here. there has been a lot of suspicion around certain people. a lot of negative things have been said. mueller has said, i am not proceeding. there is no better news to receive than you are not being indicted by the united states government. >> you once worked as a prosecutor. when the senior justice official tells laura the special counsel is not recommending any further indictments, can we conclude there have been no sealed indictments that would be unsealed at some point down the
road? >> wolf, you are like a lawyer. that's an interesting question. i think the answer is, we can assume that. that is a very good follow-up question. i think that would be very coy if no further indictments -- in plain english, it means to me that there are no further -- >> let me ask laura that question. it's your reporting that the special counsel is not recommending further indictments. as far as you know, have there been sealed indictments that potentially down the road for whatever reason could be unsealed? >> wolf, i was channelling you. i asked that very same question. i pressed them at length. sealed, unsealed, in any form, you are telling me it's not coming down the pike in any way in the coming weeks and months. i was told, no. it's done. >> also, wolf, you also mentioned about perjury. if robert mueller thought that
witnesses committed perjury, he would have charged it. he did charge several people with making false statements. the idea -- i know there are democrats out there who want to keep the mueller investigation alive until malia obama is running for president. but it's over. this investigation is over. >> don't forget -- >> the southern district will continue. that's significant. the mueller investigation is over. >> don't forget that this is a president who has been tweeting, talking, whatever about witch hunt. >> 175 times. >> thank you very much. he has been doing that for the last two years. ever since comey almost two years to the day testified before congress that the fbi opened an investigation into potential russian collusion. so if, as jeffrey is saying, they get great news, the great news is there's no more
indictments, but if suddenly the president has to say those angry democrats who were working with bob mueller were actually just part of a justice department doing its job after he has criticized the justice department -- >> he has been vindicated by them. >> he is now vindicated, exactly. how do you manage that politically? we obviously can't jump the gun here. we have to see what comes out from barr and what's in the report. if i'm at mar-a-lago with the president as pamela has been reporting the lawyers are -- >> feeling good. >> that i would be very happy. >> absolutely. let's not forget -- i know we have said it. but this investigation is over. the president never sat down for an interview with robert mueller. that's huge. that was always the big question and something the lawyers never wanted to happen. they were able to prevent that and a subpoena fight. robb eert mueller never put in
>> you are recognized. >> thank you. madame ambassador, like a hallmark movie. you ended up at georgetown, this is all okay. [laughter] but it was not your preference seven or eight months ago, correct? >> no, it was not. >> it was not your preference to be a victim of a smear campaign, was it? >> no. >> it was not your preference to be defamed by the president of the united states including today, was it? >> no. it wasn't your preference to be ousted at seemingly the pinnacle of your career, was it? >> no. >> you wanted to finish your extended tour, correct? >> i did. >> what did you want to do after that? did you know? >> i was not sure.
>> there is nothing wrong with georgetown, it is a fine place, right? >> it is a wonderful place. >> but it is your only choice at the end of a distinguished career after all of that. it is not the end of a hallmark movie. it is the end of a really bad reality tv show. brought to you by someone who knows a lot about that. [laughter] why did you, you previously testified that you sought advice from ambassador sondland at this time about what to do, is that correct? >> i did. >> why did you reach out to the ambassador? >> because this was clearly so political, and was not going to be -- you know, the state department was not in a position, shall i say to manage the issue. it did not appear to me.
and so, i asked ambassador sondland who said that he, you know, he was a political appointee. he said he was close to the president. and so, he had just been in ukraine for a ship visit with some of his e.u. colleagues from brussels, so i reached out to him for advice. when this was no longer a ukraine kind of interview with mr. lutsenko, kind of ukrainian, but became sort of the american politicians and pendants, et cetera were repeating those allegations, i asked him for advice. >> it meant a lot to you. this is an extraordinary time. and the advice meant a lot. and what was his advice? >> well, he suggested that i needed to go big or go home. and he said that the best thing to do would be to, you know,
send out a tweet. praise the president, that sort of thing. >> and what was your reaction to that advice? >> well, my reaction was that i'm sure he meant well, but it was not advice that i could really follow. it felt, it felt partisan. it felt political. and that was not something that i thought was in keeping with my role as ambassador and a foreign service officer. >> did he give you any specific suggestions on what to say about the president of the united states, or just say something nice about them? >> just to praise him. >> thank you. i yield the balance to the chairman. >> i want to follow up on the line of question, and also hearken back to something you were asked by the minority counsel earlier. asked a couple of questions. do you think you could have done
more to push back against the smear campaign? and i'm not suggesting this is what the council was getting at. but sometimes victims are asked, aren't you responsible for your own victimization, what would you say to people who say isn't it kind of your fault, ambassador that you did not fight your own smear harder? >> well, i think that, you know, i've been a foreign service officer for a long time. and just like the military, we have our own culture. we have our own kind of chain of command, so to speak. and i did everything that i could to -- yeah, to address these issues and ask the state department to do what i felt was the right thing. which was support me. when it was important to do so.
because it was also about supporting the policy. i think it was for others to stand up to me -- for me. >> i quite agree. >> thank you, since the chair man has gaveled out all of my colleagues with their unanimous consent. i am going to read for the record many of the chairman's comments in september of the importance of hearing from the whistle-blower. again, ambassador, thank you for your patience. thank you for your service, but since we have not been able to conduct ourselves in normal procedures, i'm just going to use a 5 minutes for this. september 29th in "the wall street journal" "the whistle-blower at the center of the impeachment instigation of president trump will testify very soon." ""usa today"" september 29th. talking with abc news, schiff said that the whistle-blower would testify very soon. the only thing standing in the way was getting security clearances for the attorneys representing the whistle-blower.
from "vox" adam schiff said sunday the whistle-blower at the center of a growing scandal surrounding president donald trump will testify before the house intelligence committee very soon. on cnn, september 29th. schiff said on sunday as well as nbc's meet the press that he expects to testify very soon. "the washington post," september 2,029th. schiff echoed pelosi's message to hear from the whistle-blower very soon, pending a security clearance, joseph maguire. in "the huffington post," schiff told abc this week that he expects a whistle-blower to appear before the committee very soon. in "the new york post" "we will get the unfiltered testimony of that whistle-blower." in "the washington times" "that whistle-blower will be allowed to come in." these are all quotes from chairman adam schiff. in the memo, this was by george stephanopoulos, have you reached an agreement with the
whistle-blower and his or her attorneys about coming before the committee "yes, we have" schiff responded, and promised during the hearing that the whistle-blower will be able to come in without the justice department to tell the whistle-blower what they can and cannot say. we will get the unfiltered testimony of that whistle-blower. in daily kos, we are ready to hear from the whistle-blower as soon as that is done, and we will keep riding shotgun to make sure that the acting director does not delay in that clearance process. in cnbc "we will get the unfiltered testimony of the whistle-blower." market watch, adam schiff said that an agreement had been reached where the whistle-blower will testify before the committee very soon. i can keep going, but again, the chairman refused to allow us to put these into the record with unanimous consent. so i've read those out, and as we know, it is important to protect whistle-blowers from
retaliation and from firing. and we want to make sure that whistle-blowers are able to come forward, but in this case, the fact that we are getting criticized by chairman adam schiff for statements that he himself made early on in this process shows the duplicity and just the abuse of power that we are continuing to see with 1:54 seconds left i will yield. >> thank you for yielding, i will add that the chairman says that we get to see the transcripts, but there are four people that we have deposed that have not been able to see their transcripts, user transcripts, and relief and therefore, the testimony they provided were not able to use in these open hearings. if it is an open hearing, all of the available testimony from the deposition taken by the committee should be available to be discussed for the american people to see. but no, no, no, mr. morris and mr. hale, and a two other, miss williams and another one have not been released. i hope the chairman releases
that. one other point i would make in the last minute of miss elise stefanik's time, releasing that the whole thing, ambassador yovanovitch wasn't some some sinister scheme by the white house, to get mr. zelensky to do an investigation. if we are calling ambassador yovanovitch a part of some scheme by trump and pompeo, and giuliani to get president zelensky to do an investigation, why would they replace her with the democrats first witness? their star witness, bill taylor? i mean, if that is the plan, not the best plan that i've ever seen put together. their star witness, their first witness, mr. taylor is here wednesday. that's what they were up to? that just demonstrates that that is not what went on here. mr. zelensky never undertook any investigations. and the reason the aide was
released as we discussed on wednesday was because vice president pence, and ambassador bolden, u.s. senators all talked with president zelensky and were convinced that he was the real deal as ambassador has alluded to in her testimony. that's why it was released. i yield back. >> mr. chairman, a lot has changed since the whistle-blower came forward. two things in particular. first, most of what the whistle-blower has alleged has been cooperated by the witnesses that we have heard from. second, the president who my colleagues so shamelessly continue to defend continue to pressure, threatening, and intimidate the whistle-blower. so i would like unanimous consent to put into the record a september 26, 2019 article from "business insider" trump suggested the whistle-blower who filed the complaint against him was treason, punishable by death. how about september 26, 2019,
"vanity fair," trump suggests executing the whistle-blower like "in the good old days." third, september 29th, the whistle-blower lawyer raises fear for client safety. mr. chairman, the whistle-blower has an absolute right to anonymity. the whistle-blower's lawyer says he fears for his personal safety and will only answer question now in writing. i wish my colleagues would join me in protecting the whistle-blower's right to anonymity. but miss doral, we are here to talk about you and what you witnessed. and you saw a lot as a relates to mr. giuliani. i want to read a quote from you from mr. giuliani, but ask when you were in ukraine, you understood that rudy giuliani was donald trump's personal lawyer, is that right? >> yes, that is correct. >> are you familiar with rudy giuliani's quote in "the new york times" describing himself as a lawyer saying "he basically knows what i am doing,
sure, as his lawyer." were you familiar with that quote? >> it sounds familiar. >> and you have a lawyer with you today, ms. yovanovitch. and you understand that lawyers act on their client's behalf, is that right? >> yes. >> that it would be improper for a lawyer to go outside any directive that a client gives, is that correct? >> that is my understanding. >> are you familiar with a "new york times" story on may 29th, 2019 where rudy giuliani says that he intends to visit ukraine and says, we are not meddling in an election, we are meddling in an investigation? are you familiar with that quote? yes. >> that was 11 days before you were removed as investor, is that correct? >> yes. >> he is talking about on designs coming to ukraine, but what is interesting is that mr. giuliani said we're as in we are. he does not say i am not
meddling in an election. not i am not meddling in investigation pete he says we. he is speaking for himself and his client. and i want to talk about that quote, we are not meddling in an election, we are meddling in an investigation. is it proper for you or anyone who acts on behalf of the united states government to meddle in an investigation? >> no, i do not believe so. >> why not? >> well, there are law-enforcement channels, and things need to be handled properly. and without any kind of political bias. >> now this anticorruption crusader, president trump, who my colleagues have touted out as having such a great interest in anticorruption, and both the calls referenced today. the august 21 call and the july 25 call, isn't it true that president trump never mentions the word "corruption?" >> yes, it is true.
>> as regard to the foreign aid my colleagues says cannot be guilty, he did not completely achieved. the aide went to the ukrainians. isn't it true that the only reason the aide or they only time the aide went to the ukrainians was after the whistle-blower complaint became public? >> yes, it was after the whistle-blower complaint became public. >> so you don't really get points when you get your hand caught in the cookie jar and someone says, hate, he has his hand in the cookie jar, and then you take your hand out. which is essentially what to my republican colleagues and the president are trying to take credit for. finally, i want to put up the disgusting tweet from the president today. where he attacks your character, but i think i know who you are ambassador, i think the country knows who you are, he smeared you when you were in ukraine, and he smeared on that phone call with president zelensky on july 25, he is smearing you right now as you are testifying,
ambassador yovanovitch, are the president's smear is going to stop you from fighting corruption? >> well, i will continue with my work. >> if your country asks again to fight corruption will you do that despite the smears? >> yes. >> thank you, i yield back. >> your excellency, 33 years -- i will move over here. 33 years, six senior foreign service awards. five state department superior honor awards. the presidential distinguished service award, and the secretaries diplomacy and human rights award. you're tough as nails, and you are smarter is hell. you are a great example of what are ambassador should be like.
you are an honor to your family, and you are an honor to the foreign service. and you are an honor to this country. and i thank you for all that you have done and continue to do on behalf of your country. i am nervous about what i am getting ready to do. i want to do a five year history of ukraine in about 45 seconds. and as a professor, you can grade my paper. okay. valentine's day 2014, ukrainian people get fed up with the ukrainian president and basically overthrow him. he goes on the run. this was the revolution of dignity. who was the acting president during that time when he went out? >> i think it was -- >> church enough. excellent. in march of 2014, that is when we saw a little green men coming into ukraine and ultimately the
russians invaded the ukraine, and not only, but try to annex crimea, but it's also trying to -- they invited an entire country as well. >> yes. >> than there wasn't a lecturer in and to the ukrainian president was in june of 2014, then you came to post in 2016 of august, is that correct? >> two years later. later. >> january 2017 trump was elected, and in december of 2017 is when the javelins were approved, right? and we saw those delivered in april 2019 to be put to use. then we had zelensky elected in 2019, april? correct? now as zelensky defeated the previous president poroschenko. no loss between those two dudes, is there? >> i don't think so. >> and then in may of 202019,
zelensky is sworn in? >> yes. >> so my question we talk a lot about rudy giuliani, do we know what officials within the zelensky regime he actually met with? i know two, a gentleman by yermak who was a senior adviser. and we know of the former attorney general that we have already established here, was corrupt lutsenko. and he served under mr. zelensky for a couple of months. until august? >> that is correct. >> and their parliament voted him out, is that correct? >> yes, that is right. >> so if rudy giuliani is trying to influence the zelensky regime, what a guy that worked under the previous regime under pershing company, would he be the right guy to do it? >> are you saying mr. lutsenko?
>> yes. did mr. lutsenko have much credibility within the zelensky regime? the current regime? >> i don't think so. >> he did not. and to do you know of any other ukrainians that mr. giuliani was meeting with that was part of the zelensky regime? >> just to her mind, i would have already left ukraine by that point. i'm not aware. >> even with the administration to come. zelensky won the election, there was a two-month period of preparing to be installed in the president, even during that time, were you aware of any -- >> there is one of the oligarchs as we have heard about. one of the oligarchs is named, who met with mr. sherman and
parnas to get a meeting with rudy giuliani. >> but those are not people in the zelensky regime? >> no. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. castro. >> thank you chairman, think you ambassador for your 32 years of service to our nation. a big question here today is why you were pushed aside as ambassador, for example, americans know that an employer has a right to fire an employee, but they should not do it for certain reasons. you should not be fired because you are disabled, because you are a woman. , because you are black, and for other reasons. and most americans agree that a president should not recall in a basilar because ambassador standing in his way of doing a corrupt act. so i want to ask you, did the president ever tell you why he was recalling you? >> no. >> did anybody at the white house tell you why you were being recalled? >> no. >> did the president consult you
about who the good guys and the bad guys were i in the ukraine? >> no. >> did secretary pompeo ever tell you why you were being recalled? >> no. >> and it appears in the testimony that we have heard in the intelligence committee so far that there was a group of the presidents men, perhaps secretary perry, rudy giuliani, ambassador sondland who were in on this game to help the president get the bite ins and burisma investigated. and i want to put aside president trump for just a second and ask you, and all of your years of service, have you ever come across a president, been asked for a president or known of colleagues who were asked by an american president to help that president get an american investigated overseas? >> i'm not aware of that.
>> and if a president asked you to investigate a former vice president for this purpose, what would you say? >> i mean, with what i know today, i would have said "no." >> would you consider it an unlawful act? >> i don't know that it is unlawful, per se. but i think, again, that there are channels for conducting proper investigations. and that that would've been the best way to handle something like this. >> but certainly, it is bizarre for a president to ask that some american be investigated? by another government? >> it is very unusual. >> and also, you mentioned that there is corruption in ukraine.
ukraine is not the only country that confronts corruption. if the people in power in a country where corruption is rampant are being asked by a foreign leader, who has a lot of leverage over them to conduct an investigation, could that be dangerous, because they could trump up charges against someone if they wanted? >> they could. >> and i also want to ask you, i spoke to ambassador kent, he made a comment yesterday about selective prosecutions, and what it means going forward. what kind of precedent it sets. and you have spoken about a dangerous precedent for the state department and diplomats. but i want you to help us consider the president going forward, if there is no consequences for president trump or any president who does this, what are the consequences for this country and for any american? not just a former vice president
or presidential candidate, or even somebody in politics, but a person in business who does business in saudi arabia, or some other country. if a president is going to speak to another head of state or some foreign official and tried to get that person investigated, what does that mean for the future of the country and for americans? >> well, i think that investigations, prosecutions, judicial decisions properly should remain with investigators, prosecutors, and the courts. and i think that, as i said before, i think senator vanderburg, when he said that politics needs to stop at the water's edge, he was right in that. >> i yield back to the chairman. >> thank you, chairman, and ambassador yovanovitch, i would like to join in all of my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle in thanking you for your service. i would like to ask you about your earlier testimony about your senate confirmation and congresswoman stepanek had asked you how the obama-biden state department had prepared you to answer questions about burisma and hunter biden specifically, do you recall that? >> yes. >> she mentioned that you had been asked or prepared for questions about hunter biden's role on the board of burisma, but i don't think that you gave us the answer or answers that the obama-biden state department prepared you to give in response to that question. do you remember what those answers were? >> yeah. it was something along the lines of i would refer you to the vice president's office on that. >> so did they in the course of that brief you about the amount
of money that hunter biden was ? >> no, this was not part of their briefing. i had big old books with questions that might come up. >> in preparation for your confirmation? and they thought that hunter biden's role at burisma might be significant enough that it would come up during your confirmation, is that correct? >> apparently so. there were hundreds of questions. >> well, hundreds of questions, but where there are hundreds of companies? how many companies other than burisma did the obama-biden state department prepare you to give answers for? if there were others, which on ones? >> i just don't recall. >> you don't recall that there were any other companies, is that correct? >> i'm quite sure that there were some companies. but you know, this is a while ago. i don't recall. >> but you specifically recall
burisma? >> yes. >> all right, out of thousands of companies in the ukraine, the only one that you recall the obama-biden state department preparing you to answer questions about was the one where the vice president son is on the board? is that fair? >> yes. >> you understood from deputy assistant secretary george kent's testimony as it has been related to that he testified a few days ago, you understand that that arrangement, hunter biden's role on the burisma board caused him enough concern that as he testified in his statement that in february of 2015, i raised my concern that hunter biden's status as a board member could create the perception of a conflict of the ukraine -- ukrainian policy as one of those factors. do you recall that? >> yes. >> do you agree with that?
>> yeah. >> that it was a legitimate concern to raise? >> i think that it could raise the appearance of a conflict of interest. >> did you discuss that ever with mr. kent? >> i don't believe so. >> shortly before your confirmation august of 2016, prosecutor general shogun was fired by president poroschenko, correct? >> yes. general was the one who opened the investigation into burisma, correct? >> i think that is right, but i'm not actually sure? >> he was in charge of it at the prosecutor general, are you aware of the very public statement by the vice president that that firing of the prosecutor general occurred in march of 2166 hours after the
vice president told petrenko that he needed to fire at the prosecutor general or he would not receive $1 billion from the united states, do you beliee that? >> yes. >> do you think that that raises a potential concern or conflict of interest to that to the vice president of the united states was ordering the firing of the prosecutor in charge of a company that had been identified as one that was substantially corrupt? >> i actually don't. i don't think that the view that mr. viktor shokin was not a good prosecutor fighting corruption, that did not have anything to do with the burisma brief. >> the concern about hunter biden's role was legitimate, correct? >> it creates a concern that there could be an appearance -- >> based on your testimony, ambassador, i would like to renew my request, mr. chairmant-
>> the time of the gentleman has been expired. >> it being legitimate rather than a sham -- >> you will suspend. your time is expired. >> i have a unanimous request. >> ambassador, i would like to thank you very much. add my voice to gratitude for your years of service. frankly, you're the best of this nation. and i cannot think of anybody else i would rather have representing us in a foreign capital then you. my colleagues have gone to a great deal of effort to better understand the facts surrounding your removal. i think the facts are pretty clear. it was a smear campaign. it was orchestrated by a corrupt ukrainian prosecutor. the president's attorney. the president son, and even some of the president's allies at his favorite tv station. so that campaign led to your removal, despite 33 years of
outstanding service and responsibility and awards. so i kind of sit here with a mix of emotions, on the one hand, there is some pride and gratitude for all of your outstanding service, and on the other hand, i am angry. like my friend from connecticut. in fact, i am very angry. about how it is the most powerful person on the face of the earth would remove you from office after your stellar service, and somehow feel compelled to characterize you as bad news. and then to ominously threaten that you are going to go through some things. so i am angry. but i am not surprised. after all, as was suggested earlier, he said the whistle-blower may have committed treason, a crime punishable by death. even though the whistle-blower strictly adhered to the letter of the law as independently attested to by both the trump
appointed inspector general and the acting dni. after all, he even demeaned the memory of senator mccain after he lied in his grave at the naval academy grounds despite a lifetime of public service and serving six years as a prisoner of war in a tiny cell being beaten and tortured every day. and after all, he belittled the gold star family whose son captain kahn gave his last full measure of devotion out of this country. and let me tell you, as somebody who's older brother never saw his 35th birthday because of service in the vietnam war, those words are deeply offensive. words matter. and the words leveled against you constitute bullying of the worst order. your good character, your outstanding reputation have been been -- besmirched in a way that
is a void of common decency. but here is my message to you, there is nothing, ambassador yovanovitch, nothing he can do, not a thing that will in any way diminish the nature and quality of the service you have rendered to our great nation. not a thing. and there is not a thing he can say or do that will diminish our gratitude to you for that service. and i thank you again for it. >> thank you. >> so as to the larger point. i would like you to answer what does this mean to ukraine when the united states actually engages in the kind of behavior that we are attempting to discourage them from engaging in? namely a politically motivated prosecution? what does that mean to them in their struggling efforts to
become a robust democracy? what is the impact in ukraine for this behavior? >> i think ukraine, like many countries looks to us for the power of our example. and i think that when we engage in questionable activities that raises a question. and it emboldens those who are corrupt who do not want to see ukraine become a democracy, a free market economy, a part of europe, but once ukraine to stay under russia's role. and that is not in our national security interests. >> thank you, ambassador yovanovitch. thank you so very much. i yield the balance of my time to the chair.
>> i understand that the council would like to take a short break. let's take a five minute recess, if members of the audience could please remain in their seats to allow the witness or counsel to leave ahead of us, we will resume in a few minutes. we are in recess. >> we will take it over from there while they give us a five minute break at 2:35. this hearing started at 9:00 a.m. sharp, took a break for lunch, but going at it with the members of congress five minute each, and we had the 45 minutes of republican questioning from the lawyer that they have hired to do that, john castor. let's take it around the table. we still ever amazing panel, bret baier, chris wallace, we have ken mccarthy, and here with me here martha maccallum, and juan williams in new york. bret baier, can i turn to you first for any thoughts over how this afternoon has gone? >> well, slowly.
the republican counsel at times, i think it was tough to follow where exactly he was going to try to land at some of those questions. there were some moments that he had from the witness from the ambassador that she was not a part of some of the decision-making. that she was removed, that she was not a first-hand witness to a lot of what has happened. some of the questioning from the congressman, especially devin nunes got that out a little bit more. what we have not seen as any questions about this. this is the rudy giuliani statement and letter paid any questions about the conspiracy that he talks about on 2016 that was happening inside the ukraine. any questions about george soros and his activities. any questions about her knowledge of any of that. that questioning has not happened. and that raises questions about giuliani statement and where it has gone from here. >> dana: chris wallace, do you have any thoughts why they would not bring that up? maybe it was too new, they were not able to check it?
>> it is not new, because a lot of it is the basis for the whole campaign to giuliani involved than with other people to try to force out. and destroy the credibility of marie yovanovitch, so this has been out for a long time that she was somehow linked to george soros, that the ukraine embassy was linked to interference in the 2016 campaign. that she was personally bad mouthing president trump and telling people in ukraine, you don't have to pay attention to him, because he is going to be impeached anyway. and she flatly denied today under direct questioning from adam schiff and from his counsel danny goldman that she had done any of those things. and when we saw the giuliani memo that bret just pointed out, maybe there's something there, maybe she has not come clean about what she has done and the republicans will bring it up. they have stayed away from this with a 10-foot pole, and the
only reason i have to think they have is because it is not new, they are not comfortable with it and they do not think it is credible. with all full credit to sherlock holmes, i would say that the story this afternoon has been the dog that did not bark. we expected a lot more pointed attacks by the republicans on the credibility of marie yovanovitch that maybe she was a bad actor. maybe there was a reason she was forced out. and the republicans really have not been able to make that case at all. >> dana: martha maccallum, we were here talking during the hearing that a lot of the members of congress are really trying to lay it on pretty thick about their appreciation for her 33 years of service. the democrats really pointing out that she has been treated very unfairly, she still has a job, and the republicans are saying shouldn't she be glad that she has a job and no harm came to her, but you talked earlier today about whether any of this so far this week has moved the needle, how do you feel at 2:38:00 p.m.?
>> not so much. it does not feel that way when you watch what is playing out here. it feels like we are sort of going over ground that has been tried before, i did think that was an interesting moment from mr. quigley, congressman quigley who said after mike conaway had questioned her and basically sort of laid out a scenario where he said, you are fine, right? you have a job at georgetown, you came back. euro state department employee. sort of painting the picture that all of this egregious behavior has not really hurt you, now has it, and then the democrat mr. quigley said, boy, this is just like a hallmark movie. everything turned out great, you got a job at georgetown, right? which was an interesting moment, i thought as we watch all of this carry out this afternoon. but one of the things that continues to come up. and it is a very salient point, we expected some pushback based on what rudy giuliani has said. nobody has tried to nail her
down. what about when you said this about president trump? or when you pushed back in this way against president trump? none of that. which definitely leaves a big question mark about whether or not there is anything there. republicans have been criticized for not addressing the substance of the allegations here, and focusing much more on the process. this would go right to the substance, and they are not going there. >> dana: juan, one of the things i did come up, mr. radcliffe, the congressman from texas brought us up, and a least a phonic did as well, that apparently there was sufficient concern in the obama administration that they provided a q&a guidance in case you were asked about hunter biden and being a part of buris, that at least that was a p.r. cn in the administration. >> that's right, a perception issue, dana, that was a legitimate point to raise the dead to no matter whether or not you can say that hunter biden
vice president biden were ever found to have been guilty of any wrongdoing, there was a perception issue and was one that a democratic administration thought was sufficiently problematic that they were calling state department's attention to the issue. i think overall that might've been the strongest point. but just to get back to what everybody else has said. i thought this afternoon was going to be a republican effort to make it clear that there were holes in what we were hearing from marie yovanovitch. but that has not occurred. in fact, her statement seemed to stand strong as we are here this afternoon. it has not been a good day, really, if you stop and think about it for the republican side with roger stone's conviction, and on seven counts. and that adds the idea that it's really now, you are wondering about the president's men. and here i am using worldly terminology, but where is mick mulvaney who could come in and say, here's what i know? he had a problematic press
conference, where's john bolton? is he able to come up and give any support to the president's perspective? if the president was not involved. >> dana: both of them saying, we will go to andy mccarthy, both of those men that you mention, mick mulvaney coming on john bolton, the former national security adviser saying it will take a court to compel them to testify. that will not happen right away. but andy, i understand in washington, d.c., you also picked up on the point that there was a q&a that is sent around that is supposed to be guidance for the ambassador and her staff if they are ever asked about hunter brian? >> yes, and the interesting thing is they raise it so that it obviously shows that they are concerned about it, but she was also told -- her instructions were to put any questions to the vice president's office. and i think that is pretty typical too. you don't want to load people up with information if the position that you want to take in the hearing is that they don't have an information and you have to seek it from elsewhere.
so it is not surprising that they raised it with her. it is also not surprising that she did not have a lot of information to impart about it. >> dana: what else did you think, andy, about the questioning today. we had john castor since we have had the break, asking questions for 45 minutes, what did you make of what he was trying to do? excuse me, on that note, we will go to president trump talking about this right now. let's go to him. >> president trump: people not allowed to ask questions. nobody has had such horrible due process. there was no due process. and i think it is considered a joke. all over washington and all over the world, the republicans are given no due process whatsoever. we are not allowed to do anything. it is a disgrace what is happening. but the american public understands it. that's why the poll numbers are so good. and that's why other things are so good. what they are doing in washington with that hearing, and by the way, it is a political process. it is not a legal process. if i have somebody saying i'm allowed to speak up, if somebody
says about me, we are not allowed to have any kind of representation. we are not allowed to have almost anything. and nobody has seen anything like it. in the history of our country there has never been a disgrace like what is going on right now. so you know what, i have the right to speak. i have freedom of speech just as other people do. but they have taken away the republicans rights. and i watched today as certain very talented people wanted to ask questions and they were not even allowed to ask questions. republicans. they were not allowed to ask questions. it is a very sad day. go ahead. >> reporter: sir, with your freedom, were you trying to intimidate ambassador yovanovitch? >> president trump: i just want total freedom of speech. that is a political process. the republicans have been treated very badly. i watched a little bit today. i was not able to yesterday because we had the president of turkey here. i watch some of it this morning. i thought it was a disgrace. when we have great republican
representatives, people elected by the people, and they are not allowed to even ask a question. they are not allowed to make a statement, we are not allowed to have witnesses. we are not allowed to have legal counsel, white house counsel. that is a disgrace and an embarrassment to her nation. >> reporter: sir, do you believe -- >> president trump: quiet. quiet please. >> reporter: do you believe the words to be intimidating? >> president trump: i don't think so. i should not be, and last night it ended. spin on the president is talking in the roosevelt room, we will bring it back to the panel, andy mccarthy, i wanted to play something for you. he was referring to a least a phonic, the congresswoman who was trying to ask some questions and was shot down by the chairman, let's take a look and get your reaction. >> will determine continue to prohibit witnesses from asking questions as you have done in closed hearings and as you did when he interrupted our
question. >> suspend. the gentleman will suspend. it is not recognized. chairman is not recognized. gentleman is not recognized. >> i want to respond. >> the gentleman is not recognized. it is out of order. the gentleman is not recognized. >> holy cow. >> dana: holy cow is what jim jordan said, andy, what are the rules? president trump said the republicans are getting no due process and are not allowed to ask questions, is the chairman following the rules? is that the way it is supposed to go? or does the president have a point? >> there are technical rules and what you're doing the circumstances, so i think it was a tactical error on schiff's part. he did not make many today, but this was a tactical error to interrupt congresswoman stepanek when she was asking these questions, because she would ask them at some point at any event. the four corners of the rules say that the majority, schiff
and his counsel and devin nunes the ranking member and his counsel each get 45 minutes in tandem. the majority first and then the minority. and then the members get 5 minutes rounds unless schiff decides to have another 45 minute round. and technically speaking those 45 minutes rounds belong to the chair of the ranking member or the council that they have there, not the other members of the committee. to have relied on that for purposes of interrupting, if i were chairman schiff, i think i would've just just let her do her thing -- >> dana: get that done. ken starr if i can bring you income of the republicans continued to hammer on the point of process, what about the substance as you hear it so far today? >> well, we have moved once again the focus from bribery to poor behavior, abuse of power,
smear campaigns, so this clearly was in the nature of a political exercise today that probably drew some blood. when you hear without any rebuttal whatsoever that this was a smear campaign is going to resonate. and then you say, wait a second, are we going to remove the president of the united states from office because he engages in this kind of behavior, which he did again this very day. he attacks people. he attacked people during the 2016 campaign prayed he is an attack person. are we going to impeach and remove someone from that? this is impeachment in search of a solid rationale. >> dana: ken starr, thank you so much pride we have a great panel here at the fox news channel, we are going to see the chairman of the committee adam schiff getting ready to gavel back end. there he goes. we are back. >> you are recognized for 5 minutes. >> mr. ambassador, thank you for being here. >> thank you for your service to
our country. should ambassadors try to interfere with host country elections? >> no. >> as you said in your opening statement, partisanship of this type is not in the as service officers, right? yes. >> that's what happened in august of 2016, he went to ukraine as our ambassador, the ukrainian ambassador here wrote an op-ed in the hill said this, trump's comments send wrong message. our ambassador to the ukraine rights that op-ed, and it was not just that attack as was getting into earlier. not just that attack on the president. we had the ukrainian prime minister, we had mr. yanukovych, earlier you said that mr. yanukovych was the individual that first alerted you to the efforts of giuliani.
mr. yanukovych in the same period, prior to the 2016 election called then candidate trump all kinds of names. called him a terrorist, and of course you have mr. lutsenko, member of parliament who is a source for fusion gps, and now somewhat famous dossier that flowed from that work. he said this in the financial times, again in august of 2016 when he first arrived in ukraine. he said this "the majority of ukrainians politicians are on hillary clinton side." several high-ranking officials in the government and the ukrainian government, and president poroschenko is president of ukraine criticizing president trump, then candidate trump all in the late summer and fall of 2016. what i want to know, ambassador, when this was all happening, did you talk to anyone in the
ukraine government about this? did you go say to some of these officials, you guys need to knock this off. their perception, the majority of ukrainian officials on hillary clinton side, did you have that conversation? >> no. >> you did not talk to anybody in the government? president pershing company? >> no. >> you did not alert anyone in n the government? >> no. >> one of the things we have heard so much over the last six weeks in the depositions and in the hearings on wednesday is how much importance bipartisan support is for ukraine. democrats and republicans agree that we want to help ukraine. in fact the democrats first witness on wednesday, mr. taylor said ukraine's most important asset is this bipartisan support. you agree with that? >> i do. >> he said this in his testimony on wednesday, on september 11th, i learned that the hold had been
lifted the next day. he said i conveyed this news to president zelensky, and -- not getting involved in other countries elections. what i am wondering is, this is the day after the aid has been lifted that ambassador taylor made the statement to the ukrainian government. and he makes this after there has been nothing done by ukraine to influence our election. because president zelensky did not announce he was doing an investigation and the aide was lifted. but he felt he needed to say that. but in 2016 when we know that the majority of ukrainian officials want clinton to win it, because it was said by a member of parliament when the ambassador to the united states from the ukraine writes an op-ed criticizing then candidate trump, when mr. yanukovych calls president trump all kinds of names, nobody goes and talks to them and tells them to knock it off. did you have any conversations
coming ambassador, with victoria nuland? or secretary of state perry about what was going on in 2016 and the ukrainian politicians being for candidate clinton and not -- and opposed to president trump? >> no, i did not. >> no one did anything? no one did anything? you see why maybe the president was a little concerned? about what went on in ukraine, and you couple that with the corruption level that we know exists in the ukraine. you add to that this idea that he is not a big fan of foreign aid, why he might be a little bit concerned about sending the hard earned tax dollars of the american people to the ukraine? >> i'm sorry, was there a question there? >> there was. >> could you repeat it, please? >> i am asking --
>> the time has expired, but i will allow you to repeat the question. >> maybe we can kind of see why the president was a little concerned when you have the highest ranking officials in the government. members lutsenko requesting it, when you have yanukovych criticizing. all of this going on, and then a couple that with the concerns of corruption and you're not doing enough, the concerns about the reluctance to get hard earned tax dollars -- >> i have indulged you with extra time, but the indulgence is running out. >> i appreciate it. our indulgence ran out for you a long time ago. >> i'm about to gavel you down. >> i'm asking her if there was a reason that president trump's concern was justified? >> you know, i cannot speak for the president on this. but what i would say is you
listed a number of actions, i think from my point of view, that does not, that does not create a ukrainian government strategy to interfere in our election. >> please allow the ambassador to answer the question. >> i would just say that u.s. politicians will often set aside policies of foreign counterparts, even perhaps during their election. this happens in politics, and i think that it does not necessarily constitute interference. >> would you ever right an op-ed -- >> jordan, your time is expired. mr. welch, you are recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like dul
like everybody here i am thank you for your service, like your colleagues you do not complain. you are doing your job. i feel badly about the insults, the tweet this morning, the fact that you were smeared, not fir fired. but the question as you know is not how you were treated, the question is why the president did what he did and whether what he did was a breach of trust. the question really is about whether the president of the united states, any president has the authority to withhold congressionally approved aid to condition a white house meeting on extracting from a foreign leader a willingness to assist him in his political campaign. that is the question.
and that brings us to you as part of the story. because the question is, why were you fired? from that position? i want to read a portion of the president's call on july 25th with president zelensky. this is the painful part 21st heard about it. "the former ambassador from the united states, the woman was bad news. and the people she was dealing with in the ukraine were bad news. so i just want to let you know that, the other thing -- he goes right into this. there is a lot of talk about biden's son that he stop the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great." you indicated in response to my
colleague mr. castor's question that if you were asked to approach a foreign leader in condition american support on their being involved in our campaign that you would refuse to do that. >> yes. >> you are aware now, but i don't know if you were aware then, but that july 25th occurrence happened after director mueller directed that the interference was not from ukraine, it was acted concerted energetic and by the russians. correct? >> yes. >> now as ambassador, you had no knowledge of whatever it is president trump ultimately seems to have wanted to get for cooperation in this investigation, that is correct?
>> yes. >> you have been asked about whether a president has authority to replace and ambassador, and you have agreed that that is the president's prerogative. >> yes, that is true. >> but assumes that the reasons are not related to the personal private political interest at the interest of the national security, right? >> yes. >> you have been the target of insults from the president. you join some very distinguished company, by the way. senator mccain, general kelly, man i admire. i think all of us do, general general mattis. we are not here to talk about that unless the reason you get insulted as you did today. essentially blaming you for
>> [ laughter ] >> i'm so sorry. >> it's just a lizard. heather: it was a pet lizard that jumped out of his pocket. this happened in california. well, that wraps up this hour of "fox & friends first" of. thanks for joining us. "fox & friends first" continues right now. bye-bye. >> it is tuesday, november 12th. air raid sirens and air strikes rocking israel overnight as gaza militants lawn of a daybreak attack following the assassination of their terror leader. rob: the situation is intensifying by the minute. fox news has the only live crew on the ground. plus, we know the democrats' path toward impeachment. for the first time we're looking at the republican playbook. >> the he key evidence revealed in closed door hearings that's coming to light as the fight goes public. there won't be a christmas tree there's a company that's talked than me: jd power.people to rock around in one state
448,134 to be exact. capital. rob: the pc item that will they answered 410 questions in 8 categories stand in its place. about vehicle quality. and when they were done, "fox & friends" continues right chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across now. cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. so on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say ♪ they go, we go, hey, hey, hey. "thank you, real people." ♪ oh, here we go. you're welcome. we're gonna need a bigger room. ♪ feel it in my soul. ♪ we need it, need it. ♪ take control. ♪ we need it, need it. rob: a check of the top headlines this morning, we begin with a fox news alert, dozens of rob: if you live along the east rockets fired into southern israel overnight, after the coast, winter is about to get israeli military killed an real here in a matter of hours. >> real quick. yes, it is. islamic jihadist leader in an rob: sprinkles of rain might air strike in gaza. turn to snow. a second jihadist militant was >> might be icy. also killed in an air strike. rob: might be a nasty tuesday. jillian: president trump could release the transcript of his good morning, you're watching "fox & friends first" on this first phone call with ukraine as tuesday morning. soon as today, this comes as i'm rob schmidt. republicans lay out a strategy gillian.>> let's get to this fs ahead of this week's public impeachment hearings. fox news obtaining the alert.
israel bombarded, over 60 penned by top republicans rockets overnight after an air containing key points of evidence found in t strike killed an islamic jihadister iist leader in gaza. rob: people lining up outside the supreme court overnight watch. ahead of the case regarding [sound of explosion] rob: you can see the fireball daca. there, the smoke from that daca protects about 700,000 targeted explosion, the violence immigrants who came here as now escalating this morning. children from deportation. >> trey yingst is live in gaza jillian: republican kimberley klasik wants to add her voice to city with more on the cross border attacks. what's the latest good morning. congress, announcing her run for the house seat left by the late >> reporter: rockets are elijah cull cummings. she went viral for this shocking currently being fired into southern israel. footage of baltimore. early this morning a senior it caught the attention of president trump. this morning, kimberley joins me jihad militant was assassinated. live to explain why she thinks they say he was responsible for she is the best candidate. firing a series of rockets into good morning. good to see you. israel last week and had more >> good morning. how are you? jillian: good. let's start off taking a look at attacks planned. the commander's name, abu percentages of voters in the el-atta, the islamic jihad seventh congressional district, this is an uphill battle, 68.26% leader, as as mate assassinated. democratic voters there with a
his wife was also killed in the about 16% almost republican. strike. kimberley, the nul numbers are t a militant, moments ago who was in your favor. planning to fire rockets into how of do you plan to sway some southern israel, he was also taken out by an israeli air of those voters. >> it will be an uphill battle. strike. things are very tense and they after bringing so much attention are changing by the minute. what we do know so far, 60 to deplorable conditions in west rockets were fired into southern israel. we did attend part of the baltimore and surrounding neighborhoods, i think we have a funeral for that islamic jihad shot. i talk to people, and they were commander earlier today. very happy that president trump emotions were running high. take a look. shed some light on the situation there. i believe there's a lot of >> funeral of abu el-atta is people there living in fear. there are a lot of people living below the poverty line. underway in gaza city. therthere's a simple fix that cn he was killed overnight in a help in this situation but local targeted as as nation by israel. leadership and those that are have been in office don't seem -- as a assassination by israele to care. jillian: there are a lot of democrats who are vying for this position, 10 of them right now, foreigns, inclue -- for demanding a response from the fact shoves inside gaza. republicans including your se. one person that's getting a lot we are getting video from the of attention is elijah cummings' israeli side, showing rocket wife, maya cummings. impacts along a highway near the israel, gaza border. we saw online a direct impact to take a look at what she has to
say. >> i will announce that i will be running for the congress, the a small factory in the town, a seventh congressional district of maryland. i fought right alongsid alongsie small town along the border. gentlemaalongside elijahfor the. i received a text from a senior hamas official. he wanted me to continue this hamas is in control of the gaza fight. i'm going to continue this fight. jillian: what do you have to say about her entering the race? strip. the official said major >> can you hear me. escalation is expected. benjamin netanyahu is expected >> say it again. to make an announcement from the jillian: what do you have to say about her entering this israeli side in a few minutes. race? >> i think i expected it. i think a lot of people expected islamic jihad is pledging what it. but you know what, i look at it they call a war with israel amid the heightened tension. like this. i understand she's been working we expect more rockets here hard and she's a dnc chair and later this morning, into the afternoon a. certainly going to keep an eye has been working hard alongside on what's happening here in her husband. gaza. a building was struck by a a lot of money is missing, millions of dollars, the misfire from a rocket right next education system is failing, the to where we are standing. the building we're inside of did crime and violence, we hit 295 take shrapnel. there were no injuries. homicides, we'll go well over rob: trey, you're certainly in 300 for five years in a row. the middle of it there. stay safe for us. transparency needs happen on not just the low l call level but we appreciate the reporting. the congressional -- local >> great reporting out there. breaking right now, three l level, but the congressional level. taliban leaders are being federal grants have gone into l
released from custody in baltimore city. afghanistan as part of a no one knows where the money as prisoner swap for an american gone. i applaud her for getting and postage. kevin king and timothy weeks are professors at a university in doing it. i welcome the chance to debate afghanistan. they were abducted at gunpoint her and ask questions. in 2016 and have been prisoners jillian: we showed the video since. of afghanistan's be president says the swap will help pave the you shot, i believe in july, way for face-to-face peace talks where the conditions were dirty. we're taking a look at it right with the terror group. now. and take a look at this. you can see trash all over the new video shows what appears to place. it was after this that president be an american isis fighter trump started giving some of stuck at the border of turkey that attention to baltimore. he said, quote, as proven last and greece. week during a congressional the unnamed man waving his arms, tour, the border is clean, trying to get into greece after efficient and well run, just very crowded. authorities refused to let him cummings' district is a in. turkey is working to deport disgusting, rat and rodent captured fighters back to their infested mess. home countries. if he spent more time in bat rob: family members of the americans killed by a drug baltimore, maybe he could help cartel are now leaving northern clean this dangerous and filthy mexico. they tell our martha mccallum they don't feel safe. place. you drew a lot of attention to >> to me, this was an act of the problems in bat mosh. terrorists, terrorism against our community. baltimore. i imagine you'll continue the we're a community, a small fight. >> that's right. community but we're quiet, quiet i drew attention to it and i et community. should come up with solutions.
i have many of them. it's been safe. we've been there for over 60 people got on trump's case for years. we never had an issue or run-in basically repeating what so many people in baltimore said. with the law. rob: so mexico announcing an the former mayor said the same unspecified number of arrests in thing, rat infested. that ambush that sadly left nine there's problems there. americans dead including six there's problems on capitol hill. we need answers. kids. the fbi is now joining in that we need somebody to support trump's policies on immigration investigation. and many other things. people lining up outside the so i believe that republicans supreme court overnight ahead of today's blockbuster case over can win this seat and a i'm ready to fight. daca. they will hear argument toss jillian: we'll be watching. decide whether president trump's make sure you check back in with efforts to end the obama era us. all right. >> i will. thank you. immigration program is lawful or jillian: rob. rob: president trump demanding not. cobs tuesdayal law attorney ken iran turn over the longest held hostage in u.s. history. --s constitutional law attorney iran add a mitted this week to ken bellkerr joined heather to opening a case on fbi agent weigh in. >> there was a ruling in the robert levin soson who went misg census case that liberals are going to try to expand upon in 2007. where justice john roberts said his son dan praising the add a there has to be reasoned medicine strayings' work on his decision making. they're saying that is sort of -- administration's work on his father's gleys th case. an expanded level of burden of >> ts proof. rob: it's a big decision determined to get my father
regarding what happens with immigration in this country. daca protects about 700,000 home. president trump tweeted about immigrants who came here as it. secretary pompeo cared about my dad's case for years. children, protects them from we're very encouraged. we believe the trump administration is doing deportation. >> president trump could everything they can. release the transcript of his rob: dan levinson says he and first phone call with ukraine as the administration will continue soon as today. pressuring iran until his father griegriff jenkins joins us livem is set home. duvall patrick may be the next washington as republicans lay democrat to jump into the 2020 ouout a strategy. race. the long-time friend of >> reporter: republicans are president obama mulling a white leaving nothing to chance when it comes to messaging. house bid after ruling out a white house run earlier this the gop staff of the three year. one person who is definitely investigating committees writing to its members, four key pieces running for president is don of evidence they say show blankenship. he launched a third party bid there's no treason or high under the constitution party. crimes or misdemeanors. 36 minutes after the hour. joe biden making another slip-up the call itself showed no on the campaign trail. this time involving our pressure. second, president zelensky military. >> u.s. troops dead, died, stated there was no pressure. third, the ukraine government was unaware of a hold on any 6,900, yesterday was 6,989. funds. and president trump met with rob: all right. president zelensky and a bit of a math mistake there ultimately aid flowed to ukraine that's concerning voters. and booted in the ballroom,
in settlement. this as democrats release forelleformer whiter taking his another closed door transcript from laura cooper who detailed final bow on dabsinhimkus concerns with dod over withholding funds, she testified there was not an understanding how this could legally play out. joining us with reaction on president trump says we could this, coming in on social media see the transcript of his first phone call in april with overnight. ♪ i've got no rhythm. president zelensky as early as ♪ it's easy to pretend. today. and we're waiting to find out if ♪ i know you're not a fool democrats will allow any of the gop witnesses called for they as soon as the homeowners arrive, the open door hearings. among them, former vice we'll inform them that liberty mutual customizes home insurance, so they'll only pay for what they need. president son's hunter, here's what the former veep had to say your turn to keep watch, limu. wake me up if you see anything. about that. >> there zero rational for that [ snoring ] to happen. no one suggested anything was [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] done that was inappropriate. this is all a diversion, this is classic trump. only pay for what you need. focus on the problem. we have a president who is one ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ of the most corrupt people to serve in the office. >> reporter: we'll see what today brings. tomorrow get your popcorn ready. that's the first open hearing.
you'll have bill taylor and career diplomat george kent set to appear. on friday, former ukrainian ambassador marie yovanovitch. it will be really busy. rob: thanks so much. an arctic blast rollin rolls ace country, bringing bitter cold and look at the snow. >> in chicago, terrifying moments when a plane slid right off an icy runway l. >> no, no, no,. >> i think we landed. >> wow. the landing gear snapping on this american airlines flight, landing at o'hare airport. the weather causing more than 1200 flight cancellations in the city. rob: everybody was okay though. i think we landed, she said. janice dean is tracking the bitter cold as it heads towards the east coast. a lot of snow, a lot of people got snow last night. >> just a taste of what's to
come. and the cold, i mean, we're going to set cold air records, probably hundreds of them across the country. there are your current temperatures. it's a balmy6 degrees in minneapolis. this is actual air temperature. we're below zero in a lot of areas in terms of wind chill. you can see the cold front. we're dealing with 50s ahead of it. so 24 hour temperature change as far south as san antonio texas a. we have the potential for icing across portions of texas. l i'll show you had that on the radar. so ahead of, along this front that's where we see the potential for snow as far south as austin, texas. there's the future radar. will we get some of those snow flurries in new york city? i'm not sure. i don't think so. the front's going to move through. we could see a few snow flakes. it's not going to stick. it's not going to be a big deal. but the cold air is what is
going to be the story. there is your snow map across the great lakes, certainly parts of new england, northern new new england. we could see snow along the appalachians but not a huge deal. there are your highs today, 55 in new york. watch what happens, 34 tom he t. >> i carry in my pocket, it lists everything on thigh schedule and has a black box in we'll be in the 20s overnight. it will drop significantly as we it and lists in the black box get in the afternoon hours. rob: maybe snow on the u.s. daily troop update, u.s. backside. troops dead, died, 6,900, >> maybe a little bit. it's really dry right now. you need moisture to get the yesterday was 6,989. snow flying. maybe not. but it will be cold, my friends. jillian: joe biden caught rob: we're ready. sweating in the hot seat when an >> at some point you will see audience member asked what he snow. let's not rush it. did to improve mental health rob: thanks, janice. >> a new memo sheds light on care for veterans. house republicans' impeachment rob: carley shimkus joins us strategy. will the evidence they collected with reaction on social media. >> he bobbled the numbs betters behind closed doors help make their case in the court of numbers abit. public opinion? our next guest says adam schiff one twitter user says you and is actually helping make their key point. obama's plan failed in >> what i want to do is honor california. we have many veterans living in my grandpa, who is no longer tents under fre freeways, on
with us. he was in the korean war. sidewalks because they can't get i grew up hearing stories about help. kathy, a callback to the 2016 pork chop hill and his time in korea. presidential election, saying i wanted to honor him. and hillary carries hot cause rob: jj watt recognizing with her at all times. this twitter user taking a jab at him. as for policy, biden's veterans veterans nationwide, starting withwith his own family tree. stay tuned. plan has four pillars including improving health care, decreasing the suicide rate and ♪ . we learned that he asked his [ tires screech ] staff every day to give him an the big idaho potato truck is touring america updated number of the amount of telling folks about idaho potatoes. service members killed since and i want it back. 9/11. what is it with you and that truck? so pretty nobel of him there. rob: fair enough. if you ever want to watch really bad tv, vh1 is your channel. carlie, this sounds like another one. >> yes. so take a listen to this. the wife of he'l he'll el chapor on a vh1 show called cartel crew. >> i'm like whose attorney are
you. and she said i represent a di by by the name of emma. >> he'll ch el chapo's wife. >> he she ain't come to play. >> the news sparking backlash and accusation that's the show is glorifying the cartel lifestyle, especially in the wake of the nine brutal murders in mexico last week. melissa says, this is exactly why this world is a mess. another twitter user chiming in saying i had no idea this was a show. so her husband was responsible for many deaths and now she's going on vh1. one of the cast members, michael bdefended the show, saying we're not glorifying the life we lived, we're glorifyings us reinventing ourselves. the show is called cartel crew. to me it doesn't sound like they're distancing themselves from being a part of a cartel at one time. rob: what a joke. i mean, you've got to be
kidding. jillian: sean spice sean sea. let's the take a look at this. ♪ why haven't i found another. ♪ a baller. ♪ someone to help me out. jillian: i like the song choice. it was a longer than expected run for him. he was in the show for nine weeks but he was finally given the boot. the president tweeted his support, saying a great try by sean spicer. we're all proud of you. spicer responded, thanking the president, saying i can't begin to he express how much your continued support has meant especially during my time on "dancing with the stars." >> he did a great job. >> yeah. i wonder if he gets to keep the costumes. rob: he got to five or six or sleep this amazing? how many? >> he almost made to it the that's a zzzquil pure zzzs sleep. semiknesemifinals. our liquid has a unique botanical blend,
>> nine weeks on the show. while an optimal melatonin level means no next-day grogginess. rob: thanks so much. san francisco's new district zzzquil pure zzzs. naturally superior sleep. attorney just elected wants to get rid of cash bail, lessen the sentences for gang members, and is not going to prosecute a lot of these quality of life crimes like public urination. jillian: in a city riddled with crime and homelessness, how much more radical can it get? a california state lawmaker joins us next to weigh in. rob: republicans laying out four key pieces of evidence in their impeachment defense of president trump. according to a newly attained memo by fox news. jillian: will the game plan make their case if in the court of public opinion. joining us now is former doj of usualofficial. let's get into the four key pieces of evidence, starting with the july 25th call, showing no evidence of conditionality or pressure.
ukrainian government stated they were not aware of a hold of funds at the time of the call. in the end, ukraine received aid in set. we have seen what the democrats' strategy is going to be here, a lot of them talking about extortion versus quid pro quo these days. break it down for us. >> look, all of that evidence shows there was no quid pro quo. and that is what will make the public realize that this really isn't an investigation intended to come out with the truth. adam schiff is helping the republicans. why? his refuseal to allow them to call key witnesses such as the so-called whistleblower who started all of this out, makes it look like he's trying to run a show trial, a one-sided partisan investigation. like i said, instead of trying to get at the truth. rob: democrats will say to the idea that there's no quid pro quo in that phone call, they'll say there didn't need to be, that the republicans that
giuliani went in early and sent a message to ukraine before that phone call, that this is what we want if you want your money. and democrats also say this guy lev parnes, associate of giuliani will say just that and will say in may, giuliani, months before the phone call, went there and set the whole thing up. what's the defense for that? >> well, look, it's very hard to prove a quid pro quo when the person on the other side, the one who is supposedly supposed to do some kind of favor, says, well, i didn't see a quid pro quo. of course, that's what the president of ukraine says. it's also interesting in this case -- remember, what the president was concerned with was corruption in the ukraine over the self-dealings and profiteering of the biden family. once again, schiff refusing to allow hunter biden to be called. if there was nothing unethical in what biden was doing there, why wouldn't he want to testify
and why wouldn't joe biden want his son to testify? jillian: piggy backing off that, don't you feel like at this point a lot of people in the publication public, a lot ot to know more about what went down with hunter biden, they want to hear more about that. >> they do. particularly because, look, the vice president himself admitted on videotape that he pressured the ukraine saying they would withhold a billion and-a-half dollars in loan guarantee unless they stopped a corruption investigation of the company that was paying his sonen r nor muse amount oson -- sonan enorm. ome back. why would anyone think this is the acting white house chief of staff is filing a lawsuit to not a key issue in what happened fight his subpoena in theulvanel here and why we would not want to look at that. rob: biden's defense is it was a different reason than that. how does this play out on television? the mueller probe didn't go very well on tv. former national security these are people that most advisor, charles cupperman. he was subpoenaed by democrats.
people have no clue who they the request has been dropped. are. do people watch this? >> i think a lot of people will rudy giuliani could soon discuss not be watching this. i think things are very different than they were when, the democrats' impeachment push on a new platform. for example, bill clinton or sources tell cnn giuliani was richard nixon were impeached. heard talking about possibly i think a lot of people are launching an impeachment going to ignore this. podcast. frankly, they're going to be lawyer and president trump watching folks like you to get a critic, michael afte often neatn summary of what happened during the day. jillian: and we lean on you for some of that too, hans. twitter, let's do the podcast thank you for joining us. together. >> thank you. jillian: have a good day. that would be interesting. rob: san francisco's new it is 19 minutes after the hour. district attorney elect says he wants to end cash bail, stop kanye west's sunday service sends a spiritual wave across prosecutions for quality of life the country. >> i'm just excited about how offenses, and a number of other god touched his life and he's things, supporters call this willing to share it with the world. >> i came here just to be able progressive. critics say he's anti-law to get -- be filled with the enforcement and way too soft on crime in a city that has a big spirit. rob: what is sparking this new problem already. joining me live this morning, revival. jonathan morris attended his sunday service to find out and he joins us live next to ten uss tom bikaro. let's get into the bullet points about it. of what this man wants to do in ♪ don't stop believing. ♪ hold onto that feeling. san francisco, endings mass ♪ street lights, people, oh,. incarceration, ending the gang
enhancement, when you talk about sentencing. we'll get to that. eliminating cash bail. another one we hear about. ♪ (contemplative synth music) divert first time nonviolent dui cases and reject tough on crime - [narrator] forget about vacuuming for up to a month. prosecution, rejecting tough on shark iq robot deep-cleans and empties itself crime prosecution. what do you make of that? into a base you can empty once a month. >> well, look, california's and unlike standard robots that bounce around, already beset with crimes. if you look at it, there is a it cleans row by row. if it's not a shark, it's just a robot. car break-in every 22 seconds which for a very small city, san francisco is only 750,000 people, it's out of control. it's even worse than what he's describing. he says he's effectively going to legalize prostitution because he says he won't prosecute the a offerinoffering of sex. he calls these quality of life crimes that he won't prosecute anymore. that includes what he says is public camping. in the rest of the world, that's known as as people living on the streets in neighborhoods, blocking people from their businesses. my own daughter, i wanted to send her a piece of mail and she said well, you can't send it to
my home because the homeless steal the mail. so california in general, but san a fran in specific is -- san francisco in specific is out and my lack of impulse control,, control. rob: there's needles, there's is about to become your problem. feces on the street. ahh no, come on. they're doubling down with this i saw you eating poop earlier. mentality of the new da. hey! his parents were a part of this my focus is on the road, radical left group called the and that's saving me cash with drivewise. weather underground. his parents were convicted in an who's the dummy now? whoof! armored car robbery in 1981 in whoof! new york that led to the deaths so get allstate where good drivers save 40% of two cops and a security guard and this man says that that for avoiding mayhem, like me. story is his inspiration for sorry! krill nail-criminal justice he's a baby! reform. what do you make of that. >> that's amazing. now you get jeep employee pricing as if you work here. he was brought up by bill ayers, at the jeep black friday sales event, you pay what we pay on select models. the weather underground founders like the high-tech luxury of jeep grand cherokee. and he worked for hugo chavez -- the most awarded suv ever. rob: a dictator. or other deals on the off-road capable jeep gladiator. >> he almost single handedly and the legendary jeep wrangler. the most technologically advanced wrangler ever. brought down venezuela and this
is his inspiration. move fast and take advantage of employee district attorney, he has no pricing plus at the jeep black friday experience as a prosecutor. sales event. jeep. there's only one. he was a very liberal public defender many what you have is a very left city going much farther left and the problem of course with that is san francisco's already suffering. it's ticked up to 35% of the people want to move in the near future. someone like me who has his own tv show within san francisco, i only go in there under protected parking. i won't bring my car into the streets because of the risk of break-in. rob: of course. a lot ofs those are gang related break-ins, gangs stealing cars and they want to get rid of the gabbing enhancement. -- gang enhance machine. sament.san francisco residents o what are you doing back there, junior? since we're obviously lost, jeep black friday i'm rescheduling my xfinity customer service appointment. ah, relax. i got this. go through another four years of which gps are you using anyway? a little something called instinct. the policies. been using it for years. have they moved further left? this is a district attorney who yeah, that's what i'm afraid of. has never prosecuted a case.
he knows exactly where we're going. >> absolutely. my whole body is a compass. oh boy... he was opposed by feinstein, the my account app makes today's even kamala harris who wants the xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. world to believe she was super not my thing. liberal as a d after. a. san francisco is badly divided. this guy comes out of the far left, obviously. jillian: good morning. he's pushing left. welcome back. former president jimmy carter this is why california i call it will undergo surgery in atlanta today to relieve pressure on his a dying city because it has the brain. the carter center says he's he lowest child per capita rate of any major city in america and experienced bleeding due to recent falls at his home. people want to get out. the 95-year-old is the langest t this is going to rush that. it's really sad. san francisco used to be a living american be president in beautiful, beautiful city. history. essayed to be resting rob: it really is a beautiful comfortably with his wife by his part of the country. tom, thank you so much. we appreciate your time this morning. >> all right. side. rob: dan dangerous mold shutsn thank you. jillian: it is 7 minutes until the top of the hour. next time you need quick cash beware. some rooms at a children's the brand-new way thieves are hospital. it is the second time the targeting atms and waking away medical center has closed this year over this harmful fungus. with all of your personal information. the hospital's planning to close all operating rooms to investigate thed mold this week. jillian: consistent yea kanyey
rob: gibbing a whole new services are encouraging people meaning to road rage. this guy is proving horns not from all walks of life to explore their faith. just for the street. look at this. and it's going viral. >> jesus, give us strength. stay tuned. gejesus, make us well. ♪ joe sujesus is arock. it is nice. >> hallelujah, hallelujah. nice? this is the most-awarded minivan three years in a row. rob: so there's some video the van just talked. sales guy, give 'em the employee price, right there. then gimme your foot. jonathan morrises was at one of hands-free sliding doors, those services and he joins us stow 'n go seats, man, y'all getting a hook up this morning with more on that. and y'all don't even work here. . you said you were somewhat skeptical before you went in. >> going in, i would say yes. . i came out having great conviction that he is at least very sense sea sear in sincere d his intention. i loved it. i would say it's one part i need a ride. hip-hop concert, one part kanye
being kanye. two parts a gospel choir, an awesome one ott tha at that ande parts kind of a billy graham style crusade in which the gospel is preached in a straightforward way. i was impressed. i think we're going to throw to a few people i interviewed as they were going into the forum, a few of 17,100 people who packed that stadium. let's take a listen. >> i'm just excited about how god has touched his life and he's willing to share it with the world. >> i'm intrigued by what he has going on now and i'm curious to see how that's going to mix in. >> i came here just to be able to get -- be filled with the spirit and like being able to hear some great gospel music and singing. jillian: something struck me there, the young woman said i'm intrigued by what's going on right now. do you think a lot of people
feel that way? >> yeah. i also interviewed people as they came out which was fascinating, a young man was 17 years old, i said do you go to church on sunday usually. he said i never walked into a church in my life and he said this changed me. this was -- his word was transformative. so, hey, i congratulate kanye. we'll see what develops. rob: i remember when i was a kid, would you go to church. a lot of times you're bored, l l asleep sitting in the pew. maybe people need a different way to look at this. >> there are a lot of people right now among the nones, meaning they have no affiliation with any religion, over 25% of the american population, the highest it's ever been, say they're not affiliated with any religion. those are the people that are going to these concerts saying hey, i want to learn something. if kanye can have a transformation in his life, maybe there's something to this. i loved it. jillian: it can reach people
and have an impact on people, then at the end of the day -- >> it's complicated. his wife is kim kardashian. there's a lot of elements to this. but i love it. here hold this. and god has used a whole bunch follow that spud. of people who are imperfect [ tires screech ] the big idaho potato truck is touring america throughout history. jillian: we love you. telling folks about idaho potatoes. thank you for joining us. rob: it is 27 minutes after the and i want it back. what is it with you and that truck? hour. the widow of the late congressman elijah cummings wants to continue his work. >> he wanted me to continue this fight and i'm going to continue this fight and run the race and prayerfully win. jillian: she's not the only voice answer aing the call to public service in baltimore. republican strategy kimberley klasik went viral for this look at filthy conditions in the city. she's throwing her hat into the ring and she joins us with reasons why she is the best candidate. that's next. ♪ i recently spoke to a group of students about being a scientist at 3m. i wanted them to know that innovation is not just
about that one 'a-ha' moment. science is a process. it takes time, dedication. ♪ from's no stopping us right now ♪ i feel so close to you it's a journey. right now. we're constantly asking ourselves, 'how can we do things better and better?' what we make has to work. we strive to protect you. at 3m, we're in pursuit of solutions jillian: rob can't help that make people's lives better. himself. tuesday is here. rob: i love it. jillian: rob hates tuesdays. target selling what it calls gender inclusiv inginger bred lg sleeve sweater. a person wearing a red bow tie. rob: yea. tony wants a politically correct holiday season. the democrat reinstating the name holiday tree at the state capitol. officially changed to christmas tree in 2011 by then republican governor scott walker. he tweeted about the new name holiday tree writing this is a christmas tree that is used by people celebrating christmas. this is not a holiday tree.
we will hear more from scott walker in the 8:00 hour of "fox & friends." jillian: time for the good, the bad, and the ugly. we start with the good. jj watt will donate proceeds from new sneakers to honor flight which flies veterans to washington, d.c. for tours. features his great grandfather's name and division of the korean war. rob: a pair of researchers say they found two issues with atms that could let criminals steal your cash and your information. they say they were able to get full control of the machine by control of the effort it praise on: jillian: finally the ugly, a guy carry as corn horn to fight crowds in new york city. watch this. [horn]
jill producing a horn out of a steering wheel and seat belt. he says it's not for sale. i will admit i have total sidewalk rage walking around new york city trying to get to the train it is crazy sometimes. but that thing honking at you is going to be even worse, i think. rob: yosef is going to get his butt kicked if he is not care unfortunately. this is new york after all. jillian: thanks for watching. rob: "fox & friends" starts now. steve: dozens of rockets being fired into israel after airstrike killed an islamic jihadist leader in gaza. watch this. [explosion] brian: violence escalating of course as benjamin netanyahu reveals the islamic leader was planning a new attack.
today's proceedings. i would like to recap my recognition of the timeline in which these events played out. i testified about all of this at length in my deposition. in july, i became aware of a hold being an obligation of the state department's foreign military financing and dod's usai funds. in a series of interagency meetings, i heard that the president had directed the office of of management and budget to hold the funds becausf his concerns about corruption in ukraine. let me say at the outset that i have never discussed this or any other matter with the president and never heard directly from him about this matter. at a senior level meeting i attended on july 26, chaired by national security council leadership, as at all other interagency meetings on this topic of which i was aware, the national security community
expressed unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u.s. national security interest. at the july 26 meeting, there was a discussion of how ukrainian anticorruption efforts were making progress. dod reiterated what we had said in our earlier certification to congress, stating that sufficient progress in defense reform including anticorruption had occurred to justify the usai spending. i and others at the interagency meetings felt the matter was particularly urgent because it takes time to obligate that amount of money, and my understanding was that the money was legally required to be obligated by september 30, the end of the fiscal year. in the ensuing weeks, until the hold was released on september 11, i pursue three tracks. first, starting on july 31, and at interagency meetings, i made clear to interagency leadership my understanding that once dod
reaches the point at which it does not have sufficient time to obligate all the funding by the end of the fiscal year, there were only two ways to discontinue obligation of usai. a presented directed rescission or dod directive reprogramming action. either of which we need to be notified to congress. i never heard that either was being pursued. second, i was in communication with the dod security assistance implementing community to try to understand exactly when they would reach the point at which they would be unable to obligate all the funds by the end of the fiscal year. i received a series of updates and in a september 5 update, i and other senior defense department leaders were informed that over 100 million could not be obligated by september 30. and third, i was advocating for a meeting of the cabinet level principles with the president to explain why the assistance should go forward.
although i heard of attempts to discuss the issue with the president, i never received details about any conversations other than a status update of the hold had not been lifted. after the decision to release the funds on september 11 of this year, my colleagues across the dod security assistance enterprise worked tirelessly to be able to ultimately obligate about 86% of the funding by the end of the fiscal year. more than they had originally estimated they would be able to. due to a provision in september's continuing resolution appropriating an amount equal to the unobligated funds from fiscal year 2019, we ultimately will be able to obligate all of the u.s. ai funds. given how critical these funds are for both ukraine security and deterring russia, i appreciate this congressional action. that concludes my opening statement, but before answering your questions, there is one
other matter i would like to address. i testified in a deposition before this committee and other committees on october 23, 2019. at that time, i was asked questions about what i knew about when the ukrainian government may have learned about any hold on security assistance funds. i answer those questions based on knowledge at that time. since my deposition, i have again reviewed my calendar and the only meeting where i recall a ukrainian official raising the issue with me this on septembe september 5 at the ukrainian independence day celebration. i have, however, since learned of some additional information about the subject from my staff. prior to my deposition testimony, i avoided discussing my testimony with members of my staff or anyone other than my attorney to ensure that my deposition testimony was based only on my personal knowledge.
my deposition testimony was publicly released on november 11, 2019. members of my staff read the testimony and have come to me since then and provided additional information. specifically on the issue of ukraine's knowledge of the hold or of ukraine asking questions about possible issues with the flow of assistance, my staff showed me two unclassified emails that they received from the state department. one was received on july 25 at 2:31. that email said that the ukrainian embassy and house foreign affairs committee are asking about security assistance. the second email was received on july 25 at 4:25 p.m. that email said that the hill knows about the situation to an extent and so does the ukrainian embassy. i did not receive either of these emails. my staff does not recall informing me about them and i was not aware of their content
at the time. i do not have any additional information about precisely what the ukrainians may have said, what may have been their source of information about a hold or any possible issues with the flow of assistance, or with the state department officials may have told them. my staff also advised me the last few days of the following additional fact that may be relevant to this inquiry. again, my staff does not recall informing me about them and i do not recall being made aware of them. on july 3 at 4:23 p.m., they received an email from the state department stating that they had heard that the cn is being blocked by omb. this partly refers to the congressional notification state would send for ukraine fmf. i have no further information. on july 25, member of my staff got a question from a ukraine embassy contact asking what was going on with ukraine security assistance. because at that time, we did not know what the guidance was on
usai. the omb notice of apportionment arrived that day but the staff member did not find out about it until later. i was informed that the staff member told the ukrainian official that we were moving forward on usai but recommended that the ukraine embassy check in with state regarding the fmf. sometime during the week of august 6-10, an officer told a member of my staff that a ukrainian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting. my understanding is that the issue was not raised. i have no further information about what concerns about the security assistance ukraine may have had at that time. my staff recall thinking that ukrainians were aware of the hold on security assistance during august but they cannot pinpoint any specific conversations where it came up. i staff told me they are aware of additional meetings where
they saw officials from the ukrainian embassy in august and they believe that the question of the hold came up at some point. they told me they did not find any corresponding email or any record of those meetings. consequently neither they nor i knew precisely when or what additional discussions may have occurred with the ukrainians in the month of august. if i have more details on these matters, i would offer them to the committee but this is the extent of additional information i have received since my deposition. mr. chairman, i welcome your questions and i will answer them to the best of my ability. thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. for this hearing, we will forgo the first round of questions by committee counsel and proceed to member questions under the five minute rule, i do want to respond to the comments of my ranking member however that i think suggested since it was as apprised of the minority. we informed the minority last
night after overhearing that we would, because the nature of testimony today, we do not believe that a staff member around was necessary and the message we got back from the minority was okay, got it. thanks for the heads up. the minority was not noticed and raised no objection about going directly to member rounds. i want to point out that the minority has representative that we have called -- not called any minority witnesses and that is not accurate. mr. hale appears tonight as i minority witness. i know that's not how you characterize yourself but your testimony was requested by the minority. two of the witnesses yesterday, ambassador volker, as well as mr. morrison, were both minority requested witnesses. ambassador volker testified he didn't believe any of the allegations against joe biden and in retrospect that he should've understood that an investigation into burisma was
really an investigation into biden which he acknowledged would be inappropriate and mr. morrison gave testimony as to conversations that he had with ambassador sondland about the conversations that he had relayed to the ukrainians about the hold on security assistance being a result of the failure to secure the investigations. i can understand why the minority does not want to know characterize them as minority requested witnesses but nonetheless they were minority requested witnesses. i now recognize myself for 5 minutes and i want to begin by asking you, ms. cooper, about what you just informed us of, to make sure i understand the import of what you're saying. as early as july 25, the same day president trump spoke with president zelensky on the phone and asked for this favor, the same day president zelensky
thanked the united states for its military support and signaled it was ready to purchase more javelins, on that date you got inquiries, your staff got inquiries from someone at the ukrainian embassy who was concerned about the status of the military assistance. is that correct? >> sir, that is correct. i would say specifically ukrainian embassy staff asked, what is going on with ukrainian security assistance. >> did that could otu that they were concerned that something was in fact going on with it? >> yes, sir. >> you received, i guess your staff receive more than one inquiry on that date. what was the nature of the other one? >> sir, that was the one inquiry to my staff, but the other points that i had raised were emails reflecting outreach to the state department.
>> so the ukrainian embassy was also contacting the state department to find out about its portion of military assistance. >> yes, sir. >> was not similarly -- was that are concerned about was going on with our military aid? >> it was similarly a question about what's going on with security assistance. >> your staff are one of the other department staff also heard in august additional inquiries from the ukraine embassy about a potential hold up in the military assistance? >> sir, i want to be careful about how i phrase it. my staff recall having had meetings with ukrainian embassy representatives during the month of august, and they believed that the topic came up at some point during those meetings but they don't recall the precise date or specifically what the nature of the discussion was. >> but your staff at least
gleaned from those conversations that ukrainian embassy was aware that there was some kind of a hold on the assistance. >> sir, the way i would phrase it is that there was some kind of an issue. yes. >> you are now, ms. cooper, the third witness before our committee who has testified that the ukrainians found out about a problem or a hold on the security assistance prior to becoming public but you are the first to indicate that may go back as early as the date of the president's call with president zelensky. let me move to a related issue. in august, you testified that your deposition that you met with kurt volker i believe it was august 20. the hold on security assistance was still in place. you testified that ambassador volker told you that if he could get zelensky to make a public statement "that would somehow disavow any interference in u.s. elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election
interference, it might lift a hold on security assistance. "is that correct? >> sir, i believe i testified that it was my inference that that would lift the hold on ukraine security assistance. >> that was your inference because of the time you were talking about the hold on security assistance? >> that's correct. the first part of our conversation was about the hold on security assistance. >> and it was during that portion of the conversation that he brought up the effort to get this public statement? >> it was during that conversation. i would not say am sure it was that part of the conversation. >> what else did you discuss? >> the other two topics i recall are the urgency of lifting the hold on security assistance and him relating the separate diplomatic effort that i had previously been unaware of. >> so you didn't have any discussion about any white house
meeting? >> sir, i don't recall specifically talking about the white house meeting. but i've had many conversations about the desire for the white house meeting. it's likely that was part of the conversation. >> the two things you do recall are you talked about the hold on security assistance and that he brought up this public statement that they wanted zelensky to get, that he thought might be useful? >> that is correct, sir. >> mr. nunes. >> yield to mr. ratcliffe. >> thank you for yielding. ambassador hale, ms. cooper, thank you for being here. it is opening, ranking member's may 24 referenced president trump's general skepticism of providing aid and the amount of foreign aid being provided to foreign countries.
would you agree with that characterization, ambassador hale? >> we have often heard at the state department that the president of the united states wants to make sure that foreign assistance is reviewed scrupulously to make sure it's in u.s. national interests and that we evaluated continually. >> since his election, is it a fair to say president trump is looking to overall how foreign aid is distributed. >> yes, there was a process launched to review. >> throughout the campaign and the administration, president trump has repeatedly sought to reframe american foreign policy in economic terms and as he described, america first policy. consistent with that, well before there was a whistle-blower talking about a pause on aid to the ukraine, the president had expressed genuine concern about providing u.s. foreign assistance. to that point is a very say the president has wanted to ensure
that american taxpayer money was being effectively and efficiently spent outside of the united states? >> yes, that is the broad intent of the foreign assistance review among other goals. >> had the president expressed he expects allies to give their fair share of foreign aid. a point that he raised in the july 25 phone call. >> the principle of greater burden sharing by allies and other like-minded states is an important element of the foreign assistance review. >> is it fair to say usaid is withheld from foreign countries for a number of factors? >> correct. >> you have testified that it's normal to have delays on aid. >> i may have said it that way. it is certainly an occurrence. it does occur. >> in the past year ukraine was not the only country to have aid withheld. is that correct? >> correct. >> was aid withheld from
pakistan? to go yes, sir. >> why was aid withheld from pakistan? >> because of unhappiness over the policies and behavior of the pakistani government toward certain proxy groups that were involved in conflicts with the united states. >> was aid also withheld from honduras? >> aid was withheld from the 3m states in central america, yes. >> was aid withheld from the lebanon? stay go yes. >> one aid was withheld from lebanon, were you given a reason why. >> no. >> having no explanation for why aid is being withheld is not uncommon. >> i would say it's not the normal way that we function. >> but it does happen. >> it does happen. >> when it was being withheld from lebanon, that was at the same time aid was been withheld from ukraine. >> correct. >> you have testified that the
aid to lebanon still hasn't been released, is that right? >> that's correct. >> but aid to ukraine was released on september 11, correct? >> i read that, yes. >> it's fair to say that eight had been withheld from several countries across the globe for various reasons and in some cases for reasons that are still unknown, just in the past year. >> correct, sir. >> the surgeon has been made that president trump's ukraine policy changed when there is a pause in the aid or the aide was withheld. is that an accurate statement? >> that was not the way i understood things to be happening at the time. we were not given an explanation. >> in terms of aid to ukraine, you describe it as robust, our aid to ukraine. >> yes. >> as evidenced by president trump's policy decision to provide with all defensive weapons.
javelin missiles. >> very robust, yes. >> that was a decision president trump made that the prior administration, president obama, had not done. lethal weapons had not been provided to ukraine in the obama administration. >> i was not involved in ukrainian affairs during the obama administration. >> when aid to ukraine was put on pause, believe you have testified there may have been concerned by secretary kent and by ambassador taylor that it was intruding to a potentially negative effect on u.s.-ukraine relations. do you agree with that? >> the state department position was to advocate for the continuation of the assistance as an important element, a key element of our strategy to support ukraine against russia. >> my time is expired. i yield back.
>> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses. i am delighted to follow is to radcliffe because he perfectly summarize the defense by republican colleagues are mounting. the defense goes like this. the president is acting on some deep, historical concern apparently invisible concern about corruption and that because he's so concerned about corruption in ukraine, he's holding up aid in being prudent and judicious. the first part of that is pretty easy to dispose of because president trump wasn't worried about corruption in ukraine. in fact in the two conversations he had with the president of ukraine, april 21 and july 25, not once does the president of the united states use the word or mention corruption to the president. the second part is a little more interesting. holding up aid, it's not just
wrong but it's illegal. ms. cooper, help us walk through this. since the impoundment control act of 1974, the president has not have the authority to on a whim or out of prudence or as republicans say because of general skepticism of foreign aid, to stop foreign aid. this cooper, under the constitution, it is congress not the president that controls the power of the purse. correct? >> yes, sir. >> the security assistance authorized to ukraine was authorized and appropriated by the congress, correct? >> yes, sir. >> congress is also concerned about corruption. it was to ensure american foreign assistance is spent wisely and does not worsen corruption. so when congress authorizes this money, it built in conditions, as mr. ratcliffe suggested, by law ukraine wouldn't get all the money until he demonstrated that a that undertaken substantial anticorruption reforms. ms. cooper, the department of
defense works with the state department and other agencies to establish anticorruption benchmarks and determine whether ukraine has met them. correct? >> that's correct. that provision pertains to ukraine security assistance. >> that is a legally specified process. it's not the president in the oval office manifesting a general skepticism of foreign need, right? that's a process. >> it's a congressionally mandated process. >> to the process take place for the dod funding that was held up in july? >> sir, the process that took place for the certification took place prior to the may certification to the u.s. congress. >> right, not only did it take place before, as required by law, but months before president trump froze the money. the department of defense in consultation with state sent a letter to congress certifying, and you said this in your
opening statement, the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutiona institutios for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing tolerability and sustaining improvements in com combat capability. by the time president trump froze the aid, the department of defense had spent weeks if not months determining that the ukraine government met every requirement in the law and made significant strides in combating corruption. is that correct? >> that is correct. we made that determination in may. >> this wasn't about corruption. the timeline proves it. in fact, if there was any doubt about what was going on here, the chairman referred to your inference from the conversation with ambassador volker, that if ukraine made a statement committing to the investigations, the aid would be lifted. you cover that with the chairman
and then we have the press conference of october 17 when mick mulvaney left the cat fully out of the bag. he revealed president trump talk to him, "the corruption related to the dnc server" and admitted "that's why we held up the money. any other explanation for the hold is a farce. in my remaining 30 seconds, so people understand what i referred to, in the 1970s, richard nixon arbitrarily decided, i don't know if it was because he had a general skepticism of foreign aid but richard nixon decided to hold up congressionally mandated aid and as a result congress went to work and passed the impoundment control act of 1974 which prohibits the president from withholding congressionally appropriated funds without the approval of congress for any reason. is that correct, ms. cooper? >> i'm not a lawyer but that
approximates my understanding of the provision of the impoundment control act. >> i will go with that, thank you very much. >> mr. conaway. as paul harvey said, here's the rest of the story. certain issues with respect to the certification. dod certification was not corruption writ large through the entire country of ukraine. it was focused on defense institutional reforms and combat capability. >> that is correct. >> ms. cooper, thank you for being here. i appreciate it. my colleagues seem to leave that out. he left off the correct emphas emphasis. certification in may didn't really speak to the broader concept of corruption throughout the rest of ukraine that the president would be familiar with, the -- >> the main certification was specific to the defense sector,
defense industry, and it did reference the importance of civilian control of the military which relates more broadly. >> none of us would argue that that fixes corruption throughout the rest of the country. ms. cooper, maybe you can shed light on the details. the security assistance program. 250 million. someone argued that because the pause, that people died in august because of the pause. can you help us understand exactly what obligated, and was there things there were about to be delivered, was ukraine out of ammunition, where they out of javelins and because of this pause they didn't get certainly full equipment that they needed in order protect their folks during the month of august? >> sir, we will deliver all of the -- >> i'm trying to get a timeline. >> there was no shortfall in equipment deliveries that were expected within that time frame. obligate means you're putting the funding on contract.
you're starting the process. >> contracts will be fulfilled fourth-quarter perhaps. >> sir, i have to say i am a policy official. i'm not contracting expert. my understanding is we will be able to make up for lost time in the contracting process. >> fantastic. the three or four steps that you went through because you disagreed with the holes being placed on the assistance and i certainly agree with that. did you get any kind of criticism from the folks that you deal with because you were going against the omb's direction to put a hold? did you get criticized for that? >> absolutely not. my entire chain of command was supportive of advocating for removing the hold on the funds. >> you weren't restricted on the full throated advocating on behalf of getting a hold lifted. >> no, sir, i face no restrictions. >> thank you for that.
i thought you might be more in touch with the specifics of accounting process. thank you for being here tonight and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador hale, when did you actually find out about the hold on the ukraine assistance? july 21? >> yes, in the deposition that i did come over close hearing, i misspoke. i was confused. i confused june 21 which is when state first sent the cn up to the department for clearance. the 21st is when i was hearing there was a potential hold. >> did you intend the july 26 deputies meeting, deputies committee meeting? >> i did. >> is it your understanding that the president directed the hold? >> we were told and then meeting by the omb representative that
they were objecting to proceedings with the assistance because the president had so directed through the acting chief of staff. >> what was the state departme state department's position? >> the state department advocated, as i did in the meeting, for proceeding with the assistance consisting with our policies and interests in ukraine. >> you believe what you said. you believed in the release of the hold. >> i did. >> did anyone at the interagency meeting at the end of july support the hold? did anybody want the hold to remain? what agency? >> the only agency representin representative in the meeting that indicated they supported the hold was omb. >> ms. cooper, did you understand that there was an overwhelming interagency consensus to lift the hold and that omb at the direction of the president was the only roadblo
roadblock? >> yes, ma'am. >> how is the security assistance in the national security interests of the united states? what is our interest? explain that to my constituents in alabama who are wondering why we should care about the security, the hold on the security assistance. >> yes, ma'am. the specific assistance helped build the capacity of the ukrainian armed forces. it's important to understand that these are forces that are fighting to defend themselves against russian aggression every day. it's an ongoing war. they do need this equipment. to support their ability to defend themselves. i would say there is a larger issue here that relates to u.s. policy on russia. we believe it's very important to strengthen the capacity of ukraine in order to deter russian aggression elsewhere around the world. >> exactly. were you ever able to get a
reason why that hold was on? did you ever get a reason? >> no, ma'am, the only thing that i heard about it, this is again, second, third hand, was that the president was concerned about corruption. but that was all i ever heard. >> were you ever provided any additional information about the reason for the hold? >> no, ma'am. >> i think -- i think you mr. hale, we asked, is it common to have hold on military aid and you said it would be unusual. would you agree would be unusual to place a hold on military aid to leverage a foreign country to get them to investigate a political opponent? >> yes. >> i take it you would agree would be completely inappropriate. >> it would be inconsistent with
our conduct in the foreign policy in general. >> it would also be wrong, wouldn't it? >> it is certainly not what i would do. >> mr. turner. >> it'll be interesting if witnesses testified that was the case. i yield my time to mr. jordan. >> i thank the gentleman. i want to go where the chairman started. you said ambassador hale was one of our witnesses. they are all your witnesses. you called 17 witnesses. you subpoenaed 15 of them. they are all your witnesses. we didn't get to subpoena anyone or call anyone. you gave us an opportunity to get a list to you a couple weeks ago where we made suggestions on who you might allow us to have. we put three people of those 17 on that list so they can provide some semblance of context and framework. once again, misleading the folks watching this hearing is not
helpful. thank you both for being here and for your save service to our country. ambassador. pakistan, lebanon, jordan, served in tunisia, bahrain, event about every hot spot on the planet. thank you for those hardship assignments. we appreciate your service. first, earlier today ambassador sondland said he was denied access to some of his records. the state department said "ambassador sondland, like every current department of state employee called before congress in this manner retained at all times and continues to retain full access to a state department document terry records and his state department email account which he has always been fully. access and review at will. that's an accurate statement? >> i had not seen it until shortly before entering the
hearing room but it sounds accurate. >> appreciate that. ambassador, you are aware of no connection between the pause in aid in exchange for any kind of investigation, is that correct? >> i missed a keyword. >> you're not aware of any connection between depositing aid and exchange for some kind of investigation being announced or done by ukraine, is that right. you're not aware of secretary pompeo having any knowledge, direct knowledge of the connection between investigations and security aid. >> i'm not aware of that. he did not speak to me about that. >> you're not aware of any the various motive to withhold aid to ukraine, is that correct? >> correct. >> you testified that what you know was that president trump was skeptical of foreign assistance in general, mr. ratcliffe highlighted that, and two, skeptical of the corruption environment in ukraine. is that accurate? >> we had heard that. that was he general impression
at the state department. >> the aid was released to ukraine, is that correct? >> yes, i read that. >> there was a 55 day or less than two months pause in the actual hold on the aid, is that right? >> seem so, yes. >> is a top principal in the state department, an investigation into the bidens, burisma, the 26 teen election, never happened by the ukrainians. is that correct? >> i don't know that i have the ability to answer that question, having taken this job in august of 2018. >> all. well, since you've taken the job, how about that. >> to my knowledge, that's correct. >> i yield back. >> mr. carson. >> thank you, chairman. mr. cooper, ukraine is the fern first line of defense against
russia's expansion into europe, numerous witnesses testified ukraine is vulnerable to russian influence. at your deposition, sir, you testified that providing security assistance is "vital to helping the ukrainians be able to defend themselves." what did you mean by that, sir? >> its long-standing policy of helping ukraine become a resilient state in order to be able to defend itself. want a reliable and resilient and self-reliant secure and economic partner in ukraine they can stand up to russian intimidation and aggression. >> you testified at the time of russia's 2014 attack that the ukrainian armed forces were "significantly less capable than today." would you say that ukrainian forces were outmatched by russia's military in important ways?
>> i did not so testified. i am ambassador hale. miss cooper may -- >> i believe that was my deposition. could you repeat the question? >> during the time of the 2014, eight the ukrainian armed forces were "significantly less capable than it is today." would you say ukrainian forces were outmatched by russians military in critical ways question marks to go absolutely. >> are the ukrainian forces self-sufficient? >> no, sir, they have a long way to go. >> would you say the ukrainian armed forces are completely self-sufficient? how much of an impact does the u.s. need to have in terms of that deterrence and how critical is the relationship between ukraine and the u.s.? >> so, the ukrainians are on the right path to be able to provide for their own security but they
will still need u.s. and allied support for quite some time. they need that support in the form of tangible assistance, as well as political and mimetic support. >> this question is this to both of you, why was russia's illegal annexation of crimea so significant in your mind? madame cooper. >> russia violated the sovereignty of ukraine's territory. russia illegally annexed territory that belong to ukraine. they also denied ukraine access to its naval fleet at the time. to this day, russia is building a capability on crimea designed to expand russian military power projection far beyond the immediate region. >> in 2014, were there concerns
in washington and european capitals that russia might not stop in ukraine? >> i was not in my current position in 2014 but it is my understanding that there was significant fear about where russian aggression would stop. >> what about today? if the u.s. were to withdraw its military support of ukraine, what would effectively happen? >> it is my belief that if we were to withdraw or support, it would embolden russia. it would also validate russia's violation of international law. >> which country stands to benefit the most from such a withdrawal? >> russia. >> ambassador taylor testified about the importance of the u.s. upholding the international
system. it has underwritten peace in europe since santa world war ii. a credible aspect of defending the system is ensuring russia cannot change -- there is strong bipartisan support for providing ukraine with security assistance. that's why its own critically distractive of the president, of the united states to withhold the assistance as part of a scheme to pressure ukraine into investigating a defunct conspiracy theory and attack former vice president biden. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> dr. wenstrup. >> thank you. as an army reserve surgeon, i can say i served proudly for two republican and two democrat presidents myself. ms. cooper, page 3. i had heard the president
directed the office of management and budget to withhold funds because of concerns about corruption in ukraine. you are coming from the dod side. i served a year in iraq and it was important and i think it's something that the army always does, as i have seen, that we don't want to deliver aid or assistance if it's going to some corrupt, or being delivered in a corrupt way. if we are going to build a medical treatment facility for the iraqis, we want to make sure we are not getting charged ten times as much. we are concerned about corruption in general when we are delivering funds through the dod. is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> i think that's a normal thing to want to be concerned about and we would do that in iraq. especially if we are providing payment for something. so i want to go through a few things with you because multiple witnesses have testified that the action to provide javelins
to ukraine by the trump administration demonstrates strong u.s. support to ukraine. ambassador yovanovitch in her deposition said president trump's decision to provide lethal weapons to ukraine, that our policy got stronger over the last three years. she also said in terms of legal assistance, we felt it was significant that this administration made the decision to provide lethal weapons to ukraine. ambassador taylor said it was a substantial improvement in that this administration provided javelin antitank weapons. strong political message that said the americans are willing to provide more than blankets. ambassador volker testified that providing lethal defensive arms do ukraine has been extremely helpful. mr. volker stated mrds and blankets is fine but if you are being attacked with mortars and artillery's and tanks you need to be able to fight back. george kent stated javelin's are
incredibly effective weapons at stopping armed advance in the russians are scared of them. special advisor catherine croft stated javelins help ukraine defend themselves. the decision provide javelins is counter to russian interest. do you dispute what these witnesses have testified to, including ambassador yovanovitch, taylor, volker and others? >> circle i absolutely agree that the javelin system is an important capability. this was an important decision to support ukraine with his capability. >> thank you. you already testified that you are personally proud of the trump administration's decision to arm ukraine with javelins. >> that's correct. >> on page 3, talking about the july 26 meeting and after that he said "i was aware the national security community express unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the
u.s. national security interests." that is correct? >> that is correct. >> i take question with resuming because we don't want to resume as is. would that be correct? as is would not include javeli javelins. >> sir, i'm not sure and following. >> the previous administration, javelins were not provided. even though they could've been. president obama stopped the javelins. he could have delivered javelins. >> i think i should clarify what i meant by that statement. resuming was referring to the fact that omb had placed a hold on the assistance that we weren't spending. and i wanted to resume the spending. so we could maintain this policy, maintain the strength. >> maintain the policy. i guess what i'm asking, there's a difference and i think
undersecretary hale, i thought i saw you nodding. the difference being that as it's resumed in this case, now it included javelins which the obama administration denied. is that correct. >> it is true that the trump administration approved the release of defensive lethal assistance to include javelin where is the previous administration did not support that policy. >> mr. hale, do you have a comment? >> that seems correct. i defer to ms. cooper. >> we can conclude that more than blankets and mres have been aiding ukraine. thank you. >> ms. speier. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. this mystery surrounding the
hold on the aid in july it appears. back in may, ms. cooper, i believe you said that there was aid to that was conditioned but you certified in may that the conditions have been met. they included progress on command-and-control reform, commitment to pursue defense industry reform, and pass laws to enable government procurement. is that correct? for going us ma'am, that's correct. >> and you find out in july they are concerned about corruption, you are scratching your head, right? >> yes, ma'am, we did not understand it. >> do you know of any effort that was undertaken then to assess the corruption in ukraine in june, july, august? >> ma'am, as i believe i said in my deposition, the only specific
discussions that i am aware of related to that series of interagency meetings. the sub pcc come as we called it, the pcc, policy coronation committee, and deputy small group and in those meetings if participants did discuss the degree to which corruption was a concern and the degree to which there was progress. my recollection of what the participant said in these meetings was that there was a very positive sense that progress was being made. >> you have these meetings. progress is being made. nothing really changes from may until september that would trigger the release of the money, except a whistle-blower came forward. >> ma'am, i do not know what triggered the release of the funding. >> all right.
the fact that there was reference made to money being withheld for other countries was made by some of our colleagues, but in those situations, in countries like pakistan, lebanon, their multiyear funding streams, correct? >> ma'am, those accounts fall outside of my purview. i cannot answer that question. >> i was told that indeed the case. so there is not the immediate angst or hit financially they would potentially accrue. the difference, as i see it, in ukraine as compared to these other countries is that ukraine is engaged in a hot war with russia right now. and it seems that withholding that money was irresponsible considering that they had made all -- taken steps to meet all the conditions that we had
requested of them and congress had appropriated the funds. is that not the case? >> ma'am, i and my dod colleagues advocated strenuously for the release of these funds because of the national security importance. >> so basically the entire interests of the department of defense and state department were consistently supportive or releasing the funds. everyone was mystified as to why the funds have been withheld and everyone's running around trying to get an answer and you're getting kind of obtuse responses saying it was the president because of corruption. what we see is president zelensky gets elected in april. the expectation is vice president pence is going to attend the inauguration in september and then the president pulls the carpet out from under him in terms of him going and then he proceeds in june or july
to withhold the funds. there is a concerted effort by the president of the united states to act in a manner that is not consistent with our interests in wanting to protect ukraine and help them deal with the russian aggression at its border. would you agree with them? >> ma'am, i have advocated for the security assistance and i have advocated for high-level engagement with a government of ukraine because i think both are in the national security interests. >> i yield back. >> mr. stewart. >> thank you, chairman. undersecretary, assistant secretary, thank you for being here. you are recognized as experts, dedicated public servants and i've got to tell you even the president of president of the
united states is perhaps the most complicated endeavor in the history of the world. no one could do it without people like you to rely that backbone you do and thank you for doing that. i don't mean to repeat the same questions and nausea him, but i think we have reached a point of nausenauseum. ms. cooper, i have questions based on things you said previously and i want to add for clarification there's a question about these emails, they claimed withholding the aid and it'd come from capitol hill or someone on foreign affairs. is that true? >> sir, are you referring to my statement today or something? >> i believe this is previous. are you aware of such an email? theo i'm sorry i don't think i have enough information to make an assessment. is it from a particular page in my deposition? >> just reporting we have heard
that there may have been communications with you and someone on the foreign affairs committee. is that not true? >> that there were communications with me? sir, i'm not aware. >> thank you. for clarification, someone may have asked you or queried you from the ukrainian embassy about the withholding of aid, is that true? did you hear from them? >> sir, i testified earlier that the communication from the ukrainian embassy was to my staff and my staff mentioned this to me after my deposition. the only specific communication that i recollect with the ukrainians about this specific issue was on, i believe september 5, at a reception at the ukrainian embassy. >> just to bore down on that, was that a query generally about the forthcoming aid or was it specific regarding them being aware that the aide was being
withheld? >> sir, to be cleared, the september 5 conversation that i had was specific to the hold. there was an awareness of that and there was a question of concern. >> okay, thank you. ms. cooper, well, both of you, undersecretary hale as well. at the end of the day, and i've done this before, it comes down to this. the transcript i'm holding up of the transcript of the phone call between president zelensky and president trump. i would hold every american would take the opportunity to read it. it's only a few pages long. much more information beyond that is may be helpful to inform but it really comes down to those conversations, those few sentences. mr. hale, going quickly through series of questions and i have your answers here so this won't take long. and you've answered them generally anyway. you agree the united states should evaluate whether countries are worthy of our aid.
>> yes, sir. >> you understand president trump has been skeptical generally of foreign agents for the money that we've given. is that fair? speak i think so. >> i think that's fairly consistent. he's done that since before he was elected. others in the process of testified that ukraine has a long history of corruption. that's not going to surprise do you think it was right that the president would test, is a word he used previously, that he would test president zelensky prior to providing some of the security assistance? >> president zelensky was new, i had met him in february. i was impressed by him, but i think it was understandable for the administration as a new precedent in ukraine was coming to office to understand better what that president's attitude would be in the attitude towards the united states. >> secretary, i think that is key. we had a referred to from the dod at the same time. this is a person elected and we knew nothing about him.
he did not have a history of president in the ukraine prayed he came i president trump himself, he did not come from a background that we would have much information on him. that seems prudent to test him and to see if he was serious about ukraine. at some point i will conclude. i believe that it was labor day. the secretary was able to engage the president on the security assistance, about the same time, by the way, that you had some others secretary, vice president pence and bolton, and bolton as well as a burden sharing review is completed. and shortly after the aide was released, is that your understanding? >> i was never informed as to why the assistance was released. i did read about it. >> okay, those events did happen, and it seem like they were the reasons that the aide was released. thank you both, i yield back. >> think you both for being here and thank you for your service. you both have been asked about the importance of this military
assistance as it affects ukrainian sovereignty. and it is important, because of potential greater ambitions by the russians. let me try to put it in context, and please get your reaction from both of you from someone who had been there before, a renowned international policy expert on such things. his quote seems to strike home today, he wrote "russia can either be an empire, or a democracy. but it cannot be both. without ukraine, russia ceases to be an empire. but with ukraine, and subordinated, russia automatically becomes an empire." your thoughts on how this could be put into context today, please? >> sir, that is a very powerful and accurate quote. >> i would agree.
>> miss cooper, you talked about emails that were drawn to your attention, that they were sent to your staff, is that correct? >> the emails that i discussed this evening were email sent to my staff, that is correct. >> okay, i think, first of all it is important to point this out that it is not something you were aware of. it points to a larger issue that the defense department and the state department have refused to comply with a duly issued subpoena to provide this committee with documents that which further shed light on when exactly the ukrainians knew about the hold. so this is not something -- there is untold information out there being blocked that would draw greater light and help us understand. is there anything else out there that you are aware of, or possibilities that are out there with the dod or the
state department that could help us shed light on what the ukrainians knew and when they knew it? >> sir, i have shared with the committee all that i recollect, but i have not done an exhaustive investigation. i really cannot speculate on what else might be available by combing through all of the defense department records, which are substantial. >> did the state department or the department of defense ask you for your information? or did they coordinate with you to get information that you had? >> sir, i was told not to destroy anything, and our i.t. personnel have been collecting documents is my understanding. so that occurs without the individual having to -- >> they were collecting and passing it on to state or dod, is that correct? >> i'm sorry, sir, could you repeat that? >> you said your department was
well, that's what it says. to faithfully execute the law. is there anybody here -- i don't care what comes out of your mouth today -- is there anybody here who believes that this president has faithfully executed the law? and faithfully executed the duties, the sacred trust that has been put in his hands and on his shoulders. he's supposed to faithfully execute the law, not ignore it. not abuse it. and not forget it. president is supposed to be motivated by public interest. public interest. the interest of the people. but rather than remembering that or caring about that, i'm not really sure he ever really did. the president chose to try to coerce a foreign power, a newly-elected, young president that we all were excited about.
an anti-corruption president. president tried to coerce him into interfering in the 2020 elections. the things that i have heard today about vice president's child. things i've heard about the vice president's son. when we have millions of people in this country who are suffering from addiction. i just believe to protect this president at any cost is shameful. article two. in the nixon impeachment, said this, the article principally addressed president nixon's use of power. including powers vested solely in the president to aid his political allies, harm his political opponents, and gain improper personal, political advantages. and explain in this article of
impeachment, the house judiciary committee then stated that president nixon's conduct was undertaken for his personal, political advantage. and not in the furtherance of any valid national policy objective. the president abused his power. and to me, and at least the members on this side, that matters. and with that, i yield the remaining time to mr. richmond from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman. very quickly, i just want to remind people that when -- the people watching that when you look at the credibility of a testimony. and weighing the evidence. you can look at other things. i want to enter into the record unanimous consent t"the guardia" article. roger stone, michael cohen, the men in trump's orbit implicated in crimes. >> without objection. >> cnn politics. six trump associates have been
convicted in mueller-related investigation. wise grandmother who said birds of a feather flock together. and then also, president trump has made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 990 days. >> the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does ms. jackson lee seek recognition? >> to strike the last word. >> gentle lady is recognized. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i wanted to speak first to the underlying amendment that calls for the acknowledgment that the aid was released in the article, first article, i believe. and i want to, again, recount not only the july 25th call
where previously, i'd indicated the president's language. i would ask -- like you to do us a favor, though. that that was not tied to the us representing the entity of a public representation, which would be the united states of america. established foreign policy by the secretary of state. establish foreign policy by the secretary of defense. and that is because, of course, the secretary of defense and state had already certified that ukraine was working to graduate to -- working to ensure the end of corruption that had met the standards required for funding. the other thing is that when lieutenant colonel vindman thought that the words that he heard were appalling and seemed, to him, to be inappropriate for
a call to the president as relates to a question tying the military aid to investigation biden and others. sons and others. not official policy. he immediately gave it to the nsc counsel john eisenberg. john eisenberg took the information. and then ultimately, put it in a separate coded filing. and asked that the lieutenant colonel not say anything about it. that is unusual because you would think that if it was normal business, if it had to do with standard u.s. foreign policy, it'd be okay to talk about that call. but they knew a major mistake had been made. they knew that the president had offered to give military aid if he got an investigation against
his political rival and his political rival happened to be joe biden. and he knew that that was, in fact, conspicuously using public office and public money for public and private desires. let me also say that our friends talk about the courts. we have not shied away from the courts. in fact, judge howell regarding the 6e grand jury materials specifically said there is an impeachment inquiry. you can't stand in the way. mr. president. judge jackson indicated in her decision that the president was not a king. and so we're here to talk about not as a mother, someone's child who may have some concerns, like every american's child may have. which i am saddened that those personal matters were raised. we're here to talk about the
abuse of this president and the obstruction of congress. another amendment that we voted against. because in rodino's statement during the nixon proceedings, he made it very clear to president nixon regarding his failure to comply with subpoenas. issue pursuant to the watergate impeachment inquiry. and the constitution reinforces the fact that we have the sole power of impeachment. and the underlying decisions of the two court decisions i mentioned was that we were in an impeachment inquiry. and as a reminder to my colleagues, this committee ultimately approved an article of impeachment against richard nixon on the obstruction of congress matter. i wanted to clean up and bring some more points on that. and it was clear that it was a case where the president could not dictate to the house impeachment inquiry what he was refusing to give or not. this is where my friends steer off the rails. they refuse to acknowledge the facts of the case. the president took public money
with a public intent, with a private intent, to use those moneys to deny mr. zelensky, who was going to go ahead and announce investigations on cnn. but was stopped in his tracks when the whistle-blower -- whistle-blower's letter or statement was released. it was out the bag that the president had done this on the july 25th call. let's be clear. this is about facts and the constitution. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> gentle lady yields back. for what purpose does ms. mcbeth seek recognition? >> thank you, mr. chairman. ladies and gentlemen -- >> gentle lady strike the last word? >> yes, excuse me. i move to strike the last word. i've been anxiously sitting here all day long. and i just want to be able to say this to the american people before our day ends today. my colleagues and i have been explaining the evidence that we have heard.
we've been talking about all the documents and heard from so many witnesses along the way. and as we've been -- as we have been upholding our constitutional obligation to defend the constitution, some today have argued that we have not upheld our constitutional obligation to legislate. to solve problems. and that all we want to do is impeach the president of the united states. and i truly want to assure the american people, and to give you hope, that this is not true. i want to make sure that we set the record straight so that you know that we have been working on your behalf. and despite what many people in this country think, congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. this congress has been working very, very hard on behalf of the american people. in spite of everything that's happening with this impeachment. this very day, a bill.
we passed a bill that lowers the cost of prescription drugs for hundreds of millions of americans. hr3. it will save our taxpayers over $456 billion over the next decade. and allow for the expansion of medicare coverage, including hearing, dental, and vision benefits. just this week. we achieved monumental changes to the u.s./mexico/canada trade agreement. yes, we've been waiting a very long time for that. this agreement is huge. it's a huge win for our families. our workers and business owners in every district across the united states. and we continue to work to make sure that we stay competitive in a global environment. yesterday, we voted to support the ndaa, legislation that will keep our country safe. and will give a raise to our service members and includes
important reforms like paid parental leave for all federal employees. and repealing the whittles tax. and even on this committee, we've worked together. this week, my republican colleague, congressman and i were among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who introduced legislation that would end online child exploitation. since we've been sitting in this room today, a deal has been forged by our colleagues to fund our government. and avoid another shutdown. throughout this investigation, my colleagues and i have been fulfilling our duties as members of congress. do not be deceived. we have been working on the american public's behalf every single day in spite of the tragedy that we're in now with this impeachment.
this congress, the house of representatives, we have passed over 275 bills. 275 bills. and we are defending our democracy. and delivering on the promises that we made to each and every one of our constituents. i want the american public to know this. we are truly disheartened by what is happening here with impeachment. but do know that we are working on your behalf. each and every single day. we will continue to do what we swore an oath to do. and that is to protect and serve you. even in this moment, in this tragedy, be rest assured we will do just that. and i yield back the balance of my time. >> gentle lady yields back. for what purpose does mr. raskin seek recognition?
>> move to strike the last word. >> gentleman is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, in law school, i teach my students to try to take the best argument of their opponents and not the worst arguments. and so i'm going to ignore all of the frivolous process objections about the rooms and the temperature and all that kind of stuff we've heard about. and i'm going to try to make what i think is the -- the best argument or reconstruct the best argument that's come out today. and i understand that our colleagues face a difficult task because 70% of the american people believe that the president has done something wrong in these actions of trying to pressure a foreign government to get involved in our election. and so they've got a problem there. and they've got another problem, which is that there is an
overwhelming and uncontradicted body of evidence that the president did that. the president withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance that we had voted for, besieged for an all , resisting russian aggression. because he was trying to get the president of that country, zelensky, to agree to conduct a press conference in which he would say he was investigating the bidens. and he also wanted president zelensky to validate vladimir putin's favorite disinformation conspiracy theory about the 2016 campaign. which is that it was ukraine, and not russia, that engaged in this sweeping and systematic campaign to interfere in our election. so what do you do with that? well, we can understand why they've been talking about process for months. but i think they understand this is a serious investigation.
with rigorous methods and serious, inescapable conclusions. and the american people are focused on it. a majority not only support the investigation, a majority would like to see the president impeached. according to fox news anyway. but any event, huge number of americans are very disturbed by this. so what have they come up with? well, they've not found an alibi. there's no fact alibi. he can't claim somebody else did it. but they've come up with a defense which, to me, looks like really a mitigating factor. a plea for mercy. the president did all of these things. but his motive is misunderstood. all of us think that he was doing it because he wanted to advance his own re-election prospects. and in some sense, he wanted to help, for whatever reason, his friend vladimir putin. and putin's already been on tv bragging about the fact that everybody's focused on ukraine
and the 2016 election and not russia. note to mr. putin. that's not right. we understand exactly what's going on here. but any event, the new argument is that the president was not trying to advance his own political interests. what he was trying to do was to advance his passionately-held, and yet little-known, campaign against corruption. that's why so much of our discussion today has been about corruption because they're trying to say he was waging this campaign about corruption. now, we've noted a number of problems there. and i want to just try to catalog some of the other ones. to try to put this into some order so people can understand the problem with their best argument. the first is that the president never raised the word corruption on the july 25th telephone call.
biden's name was mentioned several times. it wasn't corruption, corruption, corruption. it was biden, biden, biden. and he never raised any other companies at all. it was all about burisma. hunter booi hunter biden's company. that's all that he mentioned. and as far as we know, he's never mentioned any other company in connection with corruption in ukraine. in 2017 and '18 when congress voted money for ukraine, the president passed it along. he didn't raise corruption in ukraine. he didn't even raise the bidens at that point. it only became an issue in 2019. in 2019, why? because joe biden had surpassed him in the public opinion polls. and now, suddenly, it was a big issue. and so he cared about it. well, what's the other evidence here? the president's team, rudy giuliani, and parnas and fruman engaged in a smear campaign against the u.s. ambassador, who
was crew saidiusading against cn in ukraine. sq and the president got her out of the way. so all the evidence shows they were promoting corruption in a corrupt scheme. they weren't trying to attack it. >> gentleman yields back. who seeks recognition? what purpose does the gentle lady seek recognition? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i move to strike the last word. >> the gentle lady is recognized. >> and briefly, mr. chairman and members, mr. raskin, my colleague mr. raskin just said biden's name was used multiple times. well, i think that's a little misleading. again, the only place in this whole telephone call where biden is even brought up is in one little paragraph. and that is on page four of five pages of the transcript. i mean, most of this call was about congratulating president zelensky and the new parliament.
talking about how, you know, a lot of these european countries aren't pitching in with the aid that was to ukraine as much as the united states has. and, you know, all kinds of things. it was a long phone call. and it's really disingenuous to say that the whole thing was about this and biden was mentioned several times. let me read, again. in fact, i know that the president trump tweets this out. read the transcript. and i wish people would because everybody watches tv and they get all these comments. but i did this with my husband. i said, would you just please read the transcript? it's only five pages long. doesn't take that much time. and, you know, after he read it, it is like that's it? that's all they got? but here. this is the mention about biden. again, page five. the other thing.
there's a lot of talk about biden's son. that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. that's it, folks. that's all there is. so, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. the question now occurs on the amendment. those in favor say aye. >> aye. >> opposed. no. the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. a roll call is requested. the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. nadler? >> no. >> mr. nadler votes no. ms. jackson lee? >> no. >> ms. jackson lee votes no. mr. cohen? mr. cohen votes no. mr. johnson of georgia? mr. johnson of georgia votes no. mr. deutch? ms. bass?
ms. bass votes no. mr. richmond? mr. richmond votes no. mr. jeffries? mr. jeffries votes no. mr. swalwell? mr. swalwell votes no. mr. raskin? >> no. >> mr. raskin votes no. ms. jayapal? ms. jayapal votes no. ms. demings? ms. demings votes no. mr. kcorrea? mr. neguse? mr. thneguse votes no. mr. stanton? mr. stanton votes no. ms. powell? ms. powell votes no. ms. escobar? ms. escobar votes no. mr. collins? mr. collins votes aye. mr. chabot? mr. chabot votes aye. mr. gohmert
? mr. gohmert votes aye. mr. ratcliffe? >> yes. >> mr. ratcliffe votes yes. mr. gates? mr. gates votes aye. mr. johnson of louisiana? mr. johnson of louisiana votes aye. mr. biggs? mr. biggs votes aye. mr. mcclintock? ms. lesgo? mr. klein? >> aye. >> mr. klein votes aye. mr. armstrong? >> yes. >> mr. armstrong votes yes. mr. stubey? >> yes. >> is everyone voted who wishes to vote? >> mr. correa, you are not recorded. mr. correa votes no. >> anyone else who wishes to vote who hasn't voted? the clerk will report. >> mr. chairman, there are 17 ayes and 23 noes. >> the amendment is not agreed
to. any further amendments in the ame amendment in the nature of a substitute? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. >> amendment at the desk. the clerk will report. >> amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to h 755. >> gentle lady reserves a point of order. >> page five beginning on line six. strike article two. >> i withdrawal my point of order. >> the gentleman is recognized for five minutes to explain his amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my amendment would strike all of article two, which is the obstruction of congress charge. the facts simply do not align with the democrats' claim of obstruction. our government has three branches for a reason. when there is a disagreement between the executive and the legislative branch, it's supposed to be resolved by the third branch, the court. republicans recognize this in
2011 when they investigated president obama's fast-and-furious scandal. the fast-and-furious scandal allowed 2,000 firearms to fall into the hands of drug cartels and resulted in the death of an american border patrol agent. people actually died in president obama's scandal. throughout the republican's investigation of that scandal, they made numerous attempts to accommodate the obama administration. yet, despite their efforts, president obama invoked executive privilege and barred testimony and documents. so what did the republicans do? the appropriate thing. they went to the courts. compared those efforts with what we have seen from the democrats during this impeachment sham. house democrats could have worked with the administration to reach accommodations for their requests. but they didn't. house democrats should have worked through the courts. but they didn't.
and why is that? it's simple. because they have a political, expedient deadline to send this mess out of congress and to the senate before christmas. so despite what you hear from my colleagues, the administration has consistently cooperated with democrats. even though they have been out to get this president since the very moment he was elected. let's just go through the numbers. over 25 administration officials have testified before the house oversight committee. over 25. over 20 administration officials have testified before this very committee. the administration has also handed over more than 100,000 pages of documents since the start of this sham impeachment inquiry. now, let's contrast that with the conduct from the democrats. democrats have threatened witnesses that quote/unquote any failure to appear in response to a letter requesting their
presence would constitute evidence of obstruction. let me just go through that language. it's a letter would constitute evidence of obstruction. that's not a subpoena. that's a letter. democrats have also told the state department employees that they insisted on using agency counsel to protect executive branch confidentiality interests. they would have their salaries withheld. that kind of sounds like abuse of power but i digress a little bit. democrats have not afforded this president basic procedure protections such as the right to see all the evidence. the right to call witnesses. or the right to have counsel at hearings. but just not the trump administration that's been railroaded by the democrats. judiciary democrats voted down my own subpoena. my own motion to subpoena the whistle-blower. even though i said that he or
she could testify in executive session, which would be private. and yet, they voted it down on party lines. chairman nadler also reviews requests that chairman schiff testify before this committee. house democrats also have denied every republican request for a fact witness. so i ask, who is really obstructing congress? the democrats have no case when it comes to obstruction. this obstruction charge is completely basis -- baseless and bogus. if they really wanted to charge someone with obstruction, how about they start with adam schiff? thank you. i yield back the remainder of my time. >> gentleman yields back. what purpose does ms. bass seek recognition? >> strike the last word. i'd like to begin by answering my colleague's question. he asked who is really obstructing congress? who is obstructing congress? president donald trump. the text of the constitution devotes only a few sentences to
a discussion of impeachment power. yet, among those few sentences is the clear statement that the house possesses the sole power of impeachment. and what that means is, is that within the sole discretion of the house to determine what evidence is necessary, then, for it to gather in order to exercise that power. so it's unnecessary for the house to go to the court to enforce subpoenas issued pursuant to an impeachment investigation. if it did, the house's sole power of impeachment would be beholden to the dictates of the judicial rather than the executive branch. past presidents have disapproved of impeachments, criticized the house, doubted its motives, and insisted they did nothing wrong. but no president, however, including president nixon who was on the verge of being impeached for obstruction of congress, has -- had declared himself and the entire branch of government he oversees totally exempt from subpoenas issued by the house.
pursuant to its sole power of impeachment. president trump has made compliance with every demand a condition of even considering whether to honor subpoenas. and he has directed his senior officials to violate their own legal obligations to turn over subpoenas and provide testimony. indeed, the house was only able to conduct its inquiry into the ukraine matter because several witnesses, like the ambassadors, the lieutenant colonel vindman, had the courage to defy the president's unlawful command. president trump's conduct toward the current house impeachment inquiry is unprecedented. my colleagues talk about information that we should wait to get from the courts. we really wouldn't have to wait to get from the courts if the president would comply and provide documents. i remember when ambassador -- when ambassador sondland was testifying. and he said that he was testifying from memory because he wasn't even allowed to have
access to his own notes in the state department. president trump has abused his power and is a continued threat to our democracy and national security. he's put himself before the country. and no one is above the law. when i think of our elections and my concern for our election next year, our election should be decided by us. our foreign policy and national security should be based on america's interest, not the president's personal and political interest. we talked over and over again about the real reason for all of this was his concern about corruption. but as one of my colleagues said earlier today, if he was concerned about corruption, he would be concerned about what is going on in the white house. and all of the people who he has been affiliated with who are either awaiting sentences, sent to prison, serving time, or awaiting court. so it's noteworthy that members of the minority never actually
defend president trump's misconduct by disputing the facts of the case. but instead, try to deflect and distract with irrelevant issues. so i -- i just want to end. someone asked this earlier but i don't believe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ever answered. forget president trump. is it ever okay for a president to invite foreign interference in our election? and with that, i yield to my colleague from california. >> thank you for yielding. i would like to ask unanimous consent to put into the record the letter from the president's counsel, pat cipollone, dated october 8th, 2019. >> without objection. >> i just, reflecting on the comments made by my colleague from california. certainly, we had a right to receive information. we have a right to make a judgment on the information that
we have been able to obtain because impeachment is solely in the province of the congress. but just on the narrow issue of -- of the assertion of privilege. i think it's important to note that the privilege -- no privilege was asserted in this letter by the counsel. he doesn't say it's executive privilege. he doesn't say anything that you could take to court. he just says he doesn't like what we're doing. and they're not going to give us anything. not a piece of paper. not a witness. just no. and that is an absurd situation. it is not acceptable. and it is really obstruction of congress. and i thank the gentle lady for yielding and yield back to her. >> i think my time is expired. yield back now. >> gentle lady's time is expired. >> chairman. >> for what purpose?
>> i'm looking to strike the last word. listening to my two colleagues from california, this seems to be the greatest amount of circular reasoning that we've heard in the last couple of days. there's been a lot of it. but this is one that i think grabs the blue ribbon. because what i hear is that an impeachment inquiry, if the white house does not give the house of representatives in this committee everything we ask for, then that's obstruction of congress and an impeachable offense. and that's not what the law said and it's not what the law should be. there are certain privileges and immunities that the president has. irrespective of whether we're doing oversight or whether we're using our article two power. the sole power of impeachment. and he ought to be able to present those, you know, in a court of law.
this is not a court of law. you know, i don't blame white house counsel cipollone for not saying that there were any privileges involved because we know what the answer's gonna be. and, that is, we're going to blow any claim of privilege away. we're going to blow any type of executive immunity away. we are going to simply say we want it and you got to give it to us no matter whether it's private information or doing some legitimate oversight. now, we know that the rejection of the argument that we shouldn't have to go to court for that is bogus. because the house of representatives has gone to court to try to get enforcement of subpoenas that are as a result of this impeachment inquiry. the enforcement against don mcgahn. you know, has gotten as far as
the d.c. circuit. there are others that are pending a little bit further backwards in the judicial system. but what i would like to ask my friends on the majority side is, okay, say we're done with this impeachment inquiry next week. the house passes both articles of impeachment. and it goes to the senate for trial. does that mean that the whole nexus of why you are attempting to enforce those subpoenas is gone. are you going to go to court and say it's gone? are you going to move to dismiss those actions to support enforcement of the subpoenas? if you are following the argument that i've just heard, you got to do it. but i doubt it. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. i recognize myself for five
minutes. the actions of the white house of the president, in this case, are different in kind from all previous actions of executives of presidents. it is not a question of asserting privilege, as it is not a question of adjudicating rights. even in court. rather, the counsel wrote, given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, the executive branch cannot be expected to participate in it. it is not up to the president to decide whether an impeachment inquiry by the congress is legitimate or not. that's our function. that sentence shows right thethere use of president of congressional power. number one. number two, if the white house had simply asserted privileges for a number of witnesses,that could be adjudicated. and maybe, it may very well be
that had we chosen to -- to -- to oppose that as a -- as a reason for an impeachment, that would be invalid. but that's not what we're talking about. we're talking about the president saying he does not recognize our impeachment. and he will not participate in it. he will not grant anything. that is an obstruction of congress. it's user pagz of congress's role to decide whether to have an impeachment inquiry. and it's a decision to completely try to frustrate that inquiry by denying all participation. by denying all documents and all witnesses without asserting any privileges. there's nothing to do with privileges. privileges may be adjudicated in court. an assertion by the executive that the -- that the impeachment power cannot be exercised by congress is an obstruction of congress. and if allowed to get away with
it, eliminates the power of impeachment as a check on the power of the presidency. and is a large step toward dictatorship because the threat of impeachment is the only threat, the only enforcement mechanism that congress has on a president who would usurp powers and destroy the separation of powers. especially, given the department of justice's policy that a president, sitting president, cannot be indicted and the administration's assertion that he cannot even be investigated criminally. that leaves only impeachment as a remedy and as a check on presidential power. and if you don't want a dictatorship, you have to allow congress to exercise the power of impeachment. and the congress has a sole power -- the house has the sole power of impeachment, which means we have the right to get the documents we demand. maybe subject to certain privileges but that's not at issue here because no privileges have been asserted. instead, what has been asserted
is that the executive has the right to determine that they will -- that the impeachment inquiry's invalid. they usurp the role of the house. this is assertion of tyrannical power. that's why we must impeach the president on this article. to let -- to -- to -- to go along with this amendment and get rid of article two and say it is, in effect, it is permissible for the president to deny the impeachment power of the house is a long step away from constitutional government. a long step away from any control over the power of a president. and a long step toward tyranny. and i oppose the amendment. i yield back. >> mr. chairman. >> who seeks recognition? >> just wanted to ask if you would yield for one quick question on that. >> i will -- i yielded back. i'll yield. >> i just wanted to ask. you said it's the only or to paraphrase, it's the only remedy. why is court not an appropriate remedy in this case? >> court would be -- might be --
>> your microphone's off. >> sorry. court might be an appropriate remedy if a privilege were asserted. i'm not willing to say that you couldn't mount a -- an impeachment based on overbroad assertions of privilege. but no privileges have been asserted. there's nothing for a court to review. all that the president said is there will be no -- he has directed everyone in the executive branch. do not provide a piece of paper. do not testify. there's nothing for the court to review. he has simply asserted that the constitution, that he doesn't recognize the constitutional power of congress to impeach. he won't recognize it. he thinks it's invalid. and that's not his function to do. it's our function to determine whether an impeachment inquiry is valid or not. >> isn't the next step then to hold a witness in contempt for either not producing documents? or not appearing? >> if -- if a privilege were asserted, yes. but it's gone beyond that.
we could certainly do that. but -- but -- but it's not a sufficient remedy. the remedy -- the only remedy for a president who says the house does not have the power to determine to have an impeachment inquiry is to say that's an obstruction of congress. my time is expired. i yield back. >> mr. chairman. >> who seeks recognition? for what purpose does mr. chabot seek recognition? >> strike last word, mr. chairman. thank you, plrmr. chairman. i appreciate the gentleman offering his amendment to strike the second article, which i think unfortunately, is as ridiculous as the first article in this case. an obstruction charge requires a concerted effort to interfere with or impede a congressional election. what the president did, asserting executive privilege, is not in any way, shape, or form obstruction. executive privilege is a time-honored, constitutionally-protected right
of each and every administration. and it's been asserted time and time again by administration after administration. both republican and democratic. when congress disagrees with a particular assertion of executive privilege, the remedy is not impeachment. the remedy is to go to court. and let the third branch of government, as i mentioned a little while ago, decide who is correct. that's why we have checks and balances in this country. we got three branches of government. they're all supposed to keep an eye on each other. and in this case, the remedy is to go to the courts and let the courts decide if the president and this congress disagree. and -- except that the house democrats have decided that they don't want to wait for the courts to decide. not when they can instead just impeach the president. and maybe damage him politically. although, apparently, that's not happening. but i think that was their goal. you want to talk about abuse of power. what the house democrats are doing here is a clear case, in my view, of abusing their office for political gain.
the majority really should hold themselves in contempt for conducting this one-sided, biased impeachment investigation. and then attacking the white house for refusing to participate in such a patently-unfair process. and i think, if you look at the record of this president thus far and he's only been in office three years at this point, the accomplishments are quite considerable. impeaching a president that's accomplished these types of things is just patently absurd. look at the economy right now. and why is the economy doing so well? i think it's principally two things. the tax cuts and jobs act this president pushed and was passed when the previous congress was in control. the democrats kept screaming these are tax cuts for the rich. tax cuts for the rich. about 85% of the american people had their taxes reduced. yes, wealthy people got their taxes cut. but so did virtually everybody else in -- in this economy.
that's one of the principal reasons we're seeing the economy continue to grow. that's one of the reasons unemployment in this country is so low right now. it's at historic lows. about 50 years. and it's not just wealthy people doing well. a lot of people are doing well. and it's because of the tax cuts. about, as i mentioned, 85% of the people got their tax cut. unemployment in this country, among african-americans, hispanic-americans, asian-americans, is at all-time low. unemployment, all-time low among those groups because of this president's policies. in conjunction with congress back when republicans were in the majority. i happen to be the ranking member, the lead republican on the house small business committee. i was the chairman of that committee for the last two years. small businesses all across america are doing very well right now. their confidence is at all-time highs. why is it so important that small businesses do well? well, about 70% of the new jobs
created in the american economy are created by small business folks all across this country. they're the backbone of the american economy. and the other thing, the other reason i think other than taxes being reduced why you're seeing the economy grow so well. is because he has reduced the red tape. the bureaucracy. the regulations that come out of washington because when he was running as a candidate, he said his goal was to get rid of two existing regulations. right now, red tape. two existing regulations for every new regulation coming out of washington. that was a tough goal but we've even exceeded that. so those two things together i think are one of the principal reasons this economy is -- is growing so well. there's so many things that you could talk about, about the successes. but one that's actually going to happen soon is improving nafta. the usmca. and, again, hopefully, democrats are going to pass this. they're in control here in the house now.
and -- and they face the challenge because if they passed it, then the president's obviously going to get some credit because he's been pushing this. they don't really want the president necessarily to get any credit. but they also are trying to get rid of the label of being a do-nothing congress since they've been in control now. so they're going to apparently impeach the president. and at the same time, pass the usmca. it's unfortunate it takes impeaching a president to pass it but i'm really happy we're impeaching it -- excuse me, that we are passing usmca because that's really good for the country. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back before he gets into too much trouble. i recognize, for what purpose does -- >> i move to strike the last word. >> gentle lady is recognized. >> i'm really uncomfortable with the suggestion that's been made several times today. that the u.s. constitution is for sale. you know, there's no exception in the constitution that allows a president to cheat in an
election just because the economy's going well. my oath to protect and defend the constitution isn't for sale. look. if president trump's obstruction, abuse of power, and obstruction of congress are not impeachable, nothing is. article one charges trump with the abuse of power for attempting to undermine our elections. the primary check on a president becoming a king is elections. this president abused his powers to undermine our elections. that's article one. article two, which my colleague has suggested we should abandon, charges president trump with obstruction of congress for blocking the production of all documents and witnesses subpoenaed by congress in the impeachment investigation. congress's power to investigate and impeach the president is the backstop to elections. to protect our government from being overrun by a tyrannical
executive. the president has undermined our constitution by obstructing congress's impeachment power without a legal basis. for our constitution to operate properly, it depends upon people acting in a reasonable manner. we're not dealing with an executive at this point who is acting in a reasonable manner. you know, often, people ask lawyers. oh, can i sue? and it's an old lawyer joke that, of course, you can sue. the question is, can you win? president trump has made a career out of suing. knowing that he had no chance to win. he has clogged up our courts for decades. and he usually loses because he hasn't a legal leg to stand on. that's the situation we're in now. he has defied congressional subpoenas without a legal leg to stand on. he hasn't claimed executive
privilege, which is something that could go to the courts. he's made up something called absolute immunity. never before in the history of our country have we had a president who said you can't talk to anyone in my administration. you can't see any documents. when we had hope hicks come before -- his -- his communication secretary -- come before this committee several months ago, she was subject to a claim of absolute immunity. she wasn't allowed to testify to anything that had happened that she'd seen, that had been done from the moment she walked into the white house until she left. she wasn't allowed to tell us where her office was. i mean, this is the kind of absolute -- tempted to say iron curtain -- that this president has tried to place between his administration and the american people. there is no way in hell i will vote to remove obstruction of
congress from these articles. and i yield back. >> the gentle lady yields back. >> chairman. mr. chairman. >> the gentle lady yields back. what purpose -- for what purpose does mr. jordan seek recognition? >> strike the last word. i support the gentleman from pennsylvania. his amendment. he said in his remarks, he said the real obstruction came from chairman schiff. so true. and you know who the first victim was? this committee. this committee. unless you were on the intel committee, the oversight committee, foreign affairs committee, you can't set in for the 17 fact witnesses. you couldn't be a part of those depositions. now, some people tried. my good friend from florida tried to get in as a member of the committee that's now marking up the articles of impeachment but he wasn't allowed. so the first victim of the real obstruction to get to all the information was this committee. the committee charged with writing up the articles of impeachment. marking 'em up as
impeachment, marking them up as we speak, wasn't allowed to be in there for the 17 fact witness that is we all depose. but the democrat rules were even worse. no subpoena power for republicans. depositions as i said, done in secret in the bunker, in the basement of the capitol. in those depositions, remember these witnesses were subpoenaed. they're supposed to answer our questions. but only the democrats got all their questions answered. there were questions that republicans asked that the chairman of the intel committee prevented the witnesses from answering. democrats denied republicans witnesses for the open hearings. we weren't allowed to call the witnesses we want. we had to submit a list. we put a couple of people on the list from the 17 people adam schiff subpoenaed just so we could have some people we thought might make the real case, but we weren't allowed to call our witness. the one witness we really wanted to call, even though adam schiff said we would get a chance to hear from, we weren't allow to,
and that's the whistleblower. remember when this all happened in september, adam schiff told us we were going to get to hear from the whistleblower? the whistleblower with no first-hand knowledge who was biased against the president, who worked with joe biden. he said we're going to get to hear from him but then changed his mind. what changed the chairman's mind? well, remember the day after -- the day after the call, the whistleblower writes this memo, says the call was all described as crazy, frightening, but he waits 18 days to file the complaint. what happens in the 18 daytime frame. whistleblower goes off and sees adam schiff, gets some marching orders from adam schiff's staff, and everything changed. we don't get to hear from him. we don't get to hear from the person -- and because we don't get to hear from the whistleblower, remember the complaint that gets filed on august 12th? very first point the whistleblower makes in that complaint, he says this. over the past four months, more than half a dozen u.s. officials
informed me about this effort. we have no idea. the committee marking up articles of impeachment, we have no idea who those half a dozen u.s. officials are. we don't know if we talked to them. we don't know if they came and testified. we don't know -- my guess is colonel vindman was one of them. but who knows? we don't know because we never got to talk to the individual who started it all with the complaint that the chairman of the intel committee told us when it all started we're going to get to hear from him. but then when it's discovered his staff communicated with the whistleblower, nope, nope, nope, we're not going to get to. the real victim of obstruction is this committee. we've had four democrat witnesses in front of us. that's all we've heard from. those were the four witnesses, then a bunch of staff. none of the 17 witnesses. so, i support the gentleman from pennsylvania's amendment and he's exactly right. the obstruction came from the
intel committee. with that, i yield back. >> the gentleman from rhode island is recognized. >> ma'am -- >> i'm sorry. can i have the last word? >> okay. you are recognized. >> we are charged with taking the facts of this investigation, applying them to the constitution that we have sworn to protect and defend. let's return for a minute to the facts. this series of events was described by trump officials, ambassador volker to be particular as a drug dealer, described by fiona hill as domestic political errand. there was direct evidence collected from 17 witnesses, over 100 hours of testimony, 260 text messages, transcript of the president's own words, emails between high ranking officials in the trump administration. and what we know is that the president of the united states hired rudy giuliani to lead this effort. the president engaged in a mere
campaign against ambassador yovanovitch and then fired her because she was an anticorruption fighter. the president put a hold on military aid to ukraine. the president and others acting on his behalf demanded that president zelenski publicly announce investigation of the president's chief political rival. the president put the three amigos in charge of ukraine. the president refused to have a meeting or release aid until the public announcement of the investigation of his political opponent. the president told vice president pence not to attend the new president of ukraine's inauguration. and the president spoke to ambassador sondland about what ambassador sondland described as a quid pro quo. but what we know also, if you drill down a little bit more, i speak specifically about trump administration officials who were in the middle of this activity. on july 21st, 2019, there was a
text from ambassador taylor to ambassador sondland, and i quote, president zelenski is sensitive about ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as instrument in washington domestic politics. david holmes testified i was surprised the requirement was so specific and concrete. this was a demand that president zelenski personally commit to a specific investigation of president trump's political rival on a cable news channel. mr. holmes also testified in response to a question during counsel's examination, you're acknowledging, mr. holmes, that ukraine very much felt pressured to undertake these that the president, rudy giuliani, and others were demanding. answer from mr. holmes, yes, sir. ambassador taylor has a call on september 8th with ambassador sondland and ambassador taylor, this is a career diplomat, a vietnam war hero. ambassador taylor says during
our call, sondland tried to explain to me that president trump is a business man and what a businessman is about to sign a check to someone that owes him something, the businessman asked someone to pay up before he signs the check. i argue to both of them that explanation made no sense. and holding up security for domestic political gain was crazy. finally on september 9th, ambassador taylor in a text exchange with ambassador sondland again says, as i said on the phone, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign, end quote. so, the record is filled with evidence that, in fact, the president of the united states abused the enormous power of his office in an effort to cheat in the 2020 election, to drag foreign interference into the 2020 election and to corrupt an
american presidential election. and he used the power of his office with the help of taxpayer funds to leverage his effort to drag foreign powers into our elections. and when i hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say who's the victim, the victim is american democracy. the victim is the people we represent who expect us to honor oath to protect and defend the constitution. are my republican colleagues really saying that it is okay for a president to invite or drag or persuade or coerce foreign powers to distorte an american presidential election? we have men and women who have given their lives to protect our democracy. we owe it to them to be sure who gets to decide the american president is the american people, not some foreign power. that's a sacred right of citizens of this country. if we allow this president to get away with this, we will have
lost our democracy, convey that right to foreign powers, and no longer have democracy. i urge my colleagues to support these articles of impeachment to vindicate the right of the american people to determine their own future. i yield back. >> for what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition? >> move to strike last word. there's been a lot said as everybody's acknowledged. and i'm just struck by the hyperbolic language that is being used on the other side in this breathless charge that we hear over and over about article 2 that this is the first time in the history of the republic that any history has evoked this kind of privilege or kind of immunity over subpoenas from congress. of course it's simply not true. a cursory review of the history, even a review of the witness testimony that was presented in this very committee a week ago would show you that's a baseless charge.