Greta. You cannot replace the passion of youth. When they feel, they feel. Youll see later on, im older. With the teenagers they can exaggerate the feelings. When they feel they feel deeply. This kid feels betrayed. Shes not alone. Our kids look to us to do the right thing and its hard to see that happening on that issue right now. This girl, remember, she started out with a handmade sign. She didnt want to travel. She was somebody a year ago no one heard of. Shes the face of the movement. She has a lot to say about the notion that how dare you look and ask for the hope of children. I mean, powerful, powerful words. Thank you for your show tonight. As always incredible. This is cnn tonight. Im laura coates sitting in for don lemon. Our breaking news, President Trump reportedly ordered acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to hold back military aid for ukraine for at least a week before his call with the ukrainian president. That was first reported in the Washington Post. Much more in a moment. That is what were hearing from the president of the United States is right out of the trump playbook. Unsubstantiated smears, ignoring the facts and leaving himself just enough wiggle room. Listen to what the president said over the past few days about his conversation with the president of the ukraine, a conversation so concerning a whistleblower is trying to make a complaint about it to congress. A complaint the white house and the doj are trying to bury. Did you discuss joe biden, his son or his family . It doesnt matter what i discussed. Somebody ought to look into joe bidens statement because it was disgraceful. The conversation i had was largely congratulatory. Was largely the corruption taking place. Was larkly the fact that we dont want our people like Vice President biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the ukraine. If you dont talk about corruption, why give money to a country that you think is corrupt . One of the reasons the new president got elected is he was going to stop corruption. So its very important on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption. There was no pressure whatsoever. I put no pressure on them whatsoever. I could have. I think it would probably, possibility been okay if i did. Probably, possibly would have been okay if you did. Quite a progression over a few days. It doesnt matter what i discussed, but corruption. Why would you give money to a company you think is corrupt . I didnt put pressure on them, but i could have and it would have been probably, possibly okay. Lets not forget, ukraine needs our help to fight russia which has already seized crimea. And then theres the president attorney. Rudy giuliani. Sources say the president was disinterested in ukraine. That is until giuliani got him fired up with efforts to investigate biden. A source close to the white house says the president has been seething for months and that giuliani has been, quote, egging him on. In early may he planned a trip to kiev to urge the then president elect of ukraine pursue an investigation of biden. Giuliani telling the new york times, quote, were not meddling in an election, were meddling in an investigation. Then saying, quote, theres nothing illegal about it. Somebody could say its improper. Saying he planned to urge ukraine to continue the investigation, quote, because that information will be very very helpful to my client. One day later giuliani abruptly cancelling his trip to the ukraine. Saying this. Im not going to go because i think im walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president. Why would it be helpful to his client . Hmm. Because hes trying to get a Foreign Government, in this case ukraine, to investigate the democratic frontrunner and his son. All the while holding up 250 million in promised aid from congress in the meantime. By the way, its over the objections of members of both parties in congress. I thought we collectively agreed that asking a foreign nation for Opposition Research is a problem . But more on that later. And then, of course, there was giulianis very, very Heated Exchange with chris cuomo just last week. In the space of less than a minute, denying then admitting he asked ukraine to investigate joe biden. Some say a who ordered the code red moment. Did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden . No. Actually i didnt. I asked them to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016. By the ukrainians for the benefit of hillary clinton. For which there already is you never asked anything about hunter biden . You never asked anything about joe biden in his role with the prosecutor . The only thing is get to the bottom of how it was that the appointed dismissed the case against so you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden. Of course i did. You just said you didnt. Now, a lot of this could be cleared up if the white house would release the transcript of that call. But the president , well, he says this. Perhaps youll see it. Perhaps you wont it. It depends on what we want to do. One trump adviser telling cnn, quote, this is a serious problem for us. He admitted doing it. But a source telling Gloria Borger the president isnt bothered the. Hes not worried and he likes joe biden. He sure has a funny way of showing that. Now as i said a lot of this could be cleared up if the white house would release the transcript of that call. Maybe that will happen right after the president releases his tax returns. And lets remember, the Intelligence CommunityInspector General suggested to the House Intel Committee behind closed doors that the whistleblowers complaint raised concerns about multiple actions. Now, we dont know whether all of them involve the president. We dont know because, as i said, the white house and the doj are trying to bury the complaint. That leaves the president and his allies free to repeat unsubstantiated allegations and smears. Right out of that old trump playbook. Lets get to the breaking news. Joining me from the Washington Post and also josh dossy on the phone. Im glad to have you here. Ill start with you. Let me ask you this, what are you learning about President Trump and why he held this military aid back days before calling the ukrainian president . Well, thats the question, right . He holds the military aid back. About a week later he then has this phone call with the ukrainian president in which hes now openly saying there was discussion about whether or not to investigate biden. The question i think on the minds of many people watching this is were the two connected . Certainly the white house, various Senior Administration officials are saying, no, there was no quid pro quo here. Everything you may be thinking is not actually the case at all. The aid was a separate issue that was being discussed maybe in the seem time period but on a very separate track than anything that had to do with that phone call. Try to tell that to people on capitol hill, especially democrats, they are connecting a lot of dots right now and this is one more dot to throw into the mix that is going to potential inflame tensions between congress and the white house about the what was contained in that phone call. This all kind of is related potentially to the substance of the whistleblower complaint theyre still trying to get out of the administration. The fact that this all happened around the same time period raises new questions about that timing and how thats going to play out is probably not going to be with lawmakers just letting this go without asking a lot more questions. I mean, josh, the connect the dots game isnt all that hard. Of Course Congress wanted to know why the aid they appropriated was being delayed. Tell me, josh dossy, what did the Administration Officials actually tell them about the delay . Well, the administration said that they were conducting an interagency process, looking at corruption in the ukraine, they were looking at whether europe should be doing more, they were trying to decipher what they should do. What we reported tonight was about a week before the call where the president encouraged the investigation of hunter biden he instructed his aides, Mick Mulvaney and others who then went to the state department, went to dod, went to interagency officials and said were going to put a hold on this money. Now, what the Administration Says is they were doing the legitimate policy review process and trying to decide if the aid should continue, but as my colleague just said on air, the question is, how closely related were these two things . These discussions started in june, according to the administration. Then in july they decided to halt this aid. And all the while, the ukrainians were trying to get a meeting with the president. They were asking legislative officials later, chris murphy who went over to ukraine, why is this aid being held up . They were perplexed. What were hearing from the administration is they were trying to decide whether this aid was legitimate or not, but what others are wondering is why the time was so close, why one week did the president decide to cut that aid and then the next week ask for an investigation . I mean, how unusual is it for the office of management and budget to be in charge of releasing aid that congress appropriated and that the pentagon and the state department was supposed to manage . Is this odd to you . It was odd to people on the hill to see that that was what was happening and the fact that there were these directives being put out that would basically put the aid on these short term just a few days at a time holds so no one quite knew when it was coming out and you couldnt get people at the state, dod, the pentagon, normally in charge of handing out and doling out these funds to be able to give you an answer because they dont have anything to do with the process. Adding to the confusion is the fact that lawmakers and committees were told in late february and then in mid to late may that the money for ukraine actually would be going out the door but then the money never did go out the door and nothing happened. As the summer wore on, people on the hill started to get worried that it wasnt happening and it wasnt happening because omb didnt want it to be happening right then. So this added really to the sense that this was an unorthodox way of working with ukraine aid. I mean, look, the United States has been sending military aid for ukraine for about five years now. Its been increasing over that time. Its to help ukraine stave off russian aggression and back the Ukrainian Military against the russianbacked separatists theyre fighting in their eastern provinces. Its always been a pushback and forth between white house and the congress about how much goes out and when, but its never been this late and its never been thing opaque in terms of how its being done. That alarmed democrats and republicans on the hill. Thank you for your reporting. Excellent. So much for the power of the purse. Lots to discuss now with evan mcmullin, Juliette Kayyem and max boot, who is the author of the corrosion of conservatism why i left the right. Thank you all for being here tonight. I cant think of a better panel for this discussion. Let me start with you for a second, max. What is your reaction to the breaking news now from the Washington Post . Well, the timing is highly damning, laura. I mean, this is a pretty clear case of President Trump trying to extort a foreign leader to interfere in a u. S. Election on his behalf, and the fact that he put a hold on this aid to ukraine a week before calls up zelenskiy and badging him eight times to investigate joe biden, the democratic frontrunner. I mean that is fishy as hell. That is highly suspicious. I cannot imagine an innocent explanation for this, and the spin coming from the white house that donald trump cares about corruption and ukraine is just laughable. Remember, donald trump is pals with some of the most corrupt dictators in the world. People like erdogan, putin and, and sisi. The notion that he cares about corruption is laughable. What he cares about is framing his political rival on trumped up, so to speak, charges of criminal corruption. Thats what he was doing, misusing the power of the presidency and this seems to be the straw that broke the camels back. Democrats are finally realizing this guy really needs to be impeached if the facts are as they seem to be because otherwise he will continue violating the law in order to stay in office. Max, wonder if everyone has that same camel threshold you do. It doesnt sound like everyones on board yet. Evan, listen to this reporting. The Administration Officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an interagency process, but to give them no additional information. A pattern that continued for nearly two months until the white house released the funds on the night of september 11th. Evan, does that sound like the officials were told to lie to lawmakers about why the aid was being held back . Well, it does sound very suspicious. On its face. But i think the dates here really matter, going back to the timeline here, so they released the funds on september 11th. Or the eve of september 11th. But what happened a couple of days before that . Well, the i. G. , the Intelligence Community i. G. Had reported to adam schiff, had gone around his bosses who had decided they werent going to share the whistleblower complaint with congress, he had gone around his bosses on september 9th to inform congress that there was the complaint. So you can imagine after the administration had told other officials, you know, Senior Administration officials had told others in the executive branch that they were to sort of offer very Little Details about why the hold was there, that was maintained for almost two months. Then all of a sudden on september 10th or 11th they go and release those funds. Well, i think its because there was a moment where they realized, oh, my goodness, now adam schiff and the House Democrats understand what the ploy is here, what the scheme is and we got to get rid of this and we got to move this money. So they held it as long as they could and when they got caught, they moved it. Thats my read. Juliette, im dying to hear your thoughts on this. Also, three senior officials, juliette, spoke out to the post for this story. Why would they do that . Are they worried how bad this could be for the president , the whistleblower . This cant be the president s only concern now, is it . No, i mean, i think the fear youre starting to see out of the white house is twofold. One, clearly some people were told to lie to congress, so people will start watching out for themselves because as we know donald trump has no loyalty. I also think that there is another issue here. Very few people know whats in the whistleblower report. Maybe perhaps donald trump and the people along the chain of command. And i think thats why donald trump has all of us focused on this stupid transcript idea, which i think is just absolutely ridiculous and no one should talk about it anymore. It is the whistleblowers account of a variety of instances that donald trump may not know whats in that. In other words, there is probably worse stuff in that than in the single foam phone co ukraine. So we need to focus on what is, in fact, in the whistleblower account because that is likely to have all the connective tissue that were wondering about or trying to connect the dots on. So i just think we need to focus on the whistleblowers account. I just want to add one more thing, part of what culpability is is how did the person or in this case a country, ukraine, what kind of position did they feel like they were in . In other words if youre ukraine, if youre the head of ukraine, you clearly believe that donald trump is holding up the money because he wants you to not investigate bidens son, he wants you to make stuff up on bidens son. We know from contemporaneous reporting that he had mentioned things to at least one senator, that he believed thats why it was being held up and theyre pressuring, going around washington, d. C. Trying to figure out what is going on. Why arent we getting this money . It was clear their perception of what donald trump was doing is as important as what we know donald trump was doing. They believed they had to get stuff on bidens son to get the money to flow, and it was only the whistleblower that sort of blew this blew it out into the public. And by the way laura, could i go ahead. Could i build on that for just someone second . I think its absolutely right we need not focus solely on the transcript. It is important. But the wider whistleblower complaint. I think we actually need to expand the scope of what were looking at and Congress Needs to do the same. Evan, i want to hear why. Everyones staying with me. I want to hear why you want to expand it and how so. I want to talk about the president s outrageous claim in republicans did theis what he thinks would happen. Theyd be getting the electric chair right now. I want your thoughts, juliette, evan and max, right after this. You dont live in one corner. 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