He has blocked congresses ability to conduct oversight without consequence. This morning we talk to all three of the president res republican challenges in a joint interview with bill weld, joe walsh, and mark sanford. And theyre coming on specifically to talk about an oped they had about donald trump, of course, rigging the republican nomination by having states cancel their primary contests. Also joining us on the show this morning, former secretary of state john kerry and democratic president ial candidate senator cory booker. Plus, new polling that shows a major shakeup in the democrats race for president. Iowa, meet Elizabeth Warren. Think they already have. Good morning and welcome to morning joe, its monday, september 20 ii september 23rd. We have john lemire, Richard Haass, msnbc and former chairman of the National Republican committee Michael Steele. Former chief of staff for Hillary Clintons president ial campaign, adrienne elrod. Shes an msnbc contributor. And historian auth thofr soul of america and rogers professor of the presidency jon meacham. Hes an nbc news and msnbc contributor. We begin with President Trump admitting he discussed former Vice President joe biden on a phone call with the president of ukraine. The admission only came after the wall street journal and other news outlets reported that trump repeatedly pressed the ukrainian leader to investigate the business dealings of the former Vice President s son hunter. The journal puts that number at eight times. So tthe wall street journal says that eight times, eight times the president of the United States got on the phone and, as the wall street journal said, specifically pressured the leader of ukraine to deal with his personal lawyer to dig up dirt on joe biden and his family. The president deflected questions of whether he inappropriately enlisted a Foreign Government to help dig up dirt on a political rival. And, instead, tried to shift the scrutiny to biden. Conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. Was largely the fact that we dont want our people like Vice President biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the ukraine. Im not looking to hurt him with respect to his son. Joes got a lot of problems. Joes got enough problems without that. But what he said was a terrible thing. And, you know, lillereally made a it was an offer. It was beyond on offer if the was something where he said im not going to give billions of dollars to ukraine unless they remove this prosecutor. What the president is referring to was bidens role in cracking down on corruption in ukraine, including calling for the removal of ukraines general prosecutor who at the time was also investigating a Natural Gas Company whose board included hunter biden. So one the bigger problems, mika, is that western leaders all across, you can talk about the imf, they actually didnt think the prosecutor was investigating corruption hard enough and that, in fact, he was a hindrance to the anticorruption efforts there. Including the investigation of this company that bidens son was associated with. Right. He was just one of many diplomats to call for the prosecutor to be fired. Here is biden recounting the time he threatened to withhold a billion dollars in american loan guarantees if ukraine did not take action. I went over, i guess the 12th, 13th time to eyef aand i supposed to announce there was another billion dollars loan guarantee. And i got word that they would take action against the state prosecutor and they didnt. So they said they were walking out the press conference i said, no, im not going to were not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority, youre not the president. They said the president said. I said call him. I said im telling you youre not getting a billion dollars. I said youre not getting the billion, im going to be leaving here, i think it was six hours, said im leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, youre not getting the money. Earlier this year ukraines then prosecutor told blumberg news that it found no evidence of wrongdoing by biden or his son. They are still in fact saying that and basically saying everybody there saying that donald trump and Rudy Giuliani and everybody else is lying about this. And that, again, in fact, the prosecutor that was fired did not press hard enough on any of the companies that should have been investigated. Again, including the one associated with bidens son. The wall street journal goes on to explain in detail how the former Vice President led anticorruption efforts in ukraine. Journal reports that soon after russia invaded the country in 2014 and next crima, biden took a key role. Around the same time, bidens son hunter took a board position with a ukrainian natural gas extraction company. The white house said at the time there was nothing wrong with Hunter Bidens work and that it didnt create a conflict of interest since he was a private person. President trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, have suggested that biden pushed for the firing of ukraines general prosecutor to halt an investigation into the company. Thats a lie because the journal reports that the prosecutor had actually, quote, dragged his feet on those investigations, western diplomats said, and effectively squashed one in lond i on by failing doe operate with authorities. They say ukraines government was slow to fire the prosecutor despite warnings from sbairm International Monetary board. Can you know what i found bought joe biden . Do you know what i told my colleague . Theyre going to cover this up. Too bad bidens involved in this. I got a nice straight case of ukrainian collusion. The minute i say biden that Washington Press corps is going to go nuts. Theyve been covering up for years. Now youre straying into areas no, im not. Im straying into what is wrong with us today. We need to point out we need to point out that the prosecutor who was appointed after spohokin was fired reanimated the case and found hunter biden was paid millions of dollars but he said that the board was able to pay a board member whatever they wanted and he didnt see anything wrong with that. Its so distorted. Im pointing out a fact. If you did any work, youd find that he was the prosecutor that biden put in. One other point. No, im not going to answer another question unless you let me finish. These are very important things that have been covered up for years to protect slimy joe. You know, so here we are, Richard Haass, you actually have rupert murdocks wall street journal putting out a fact check showing that everything Rudy Giuliani is saying is a lie. And fox news, Rupert Murdochs fox news saying that everything hes saying is a lie. Is richard there . Im here. I want to see him while im talking to him. He looks great. He does look great. You have fox news and the wall street journal saying that everything that Rudy Giuliani is claiming is a lie. John roberts even started smirking at fox news because it was so embarrassing how much Rudy Giuliani was making a fool of himself. So giulianis only response at the end was to call him slimy joe because he was he was making such an of himself. Its very telling that you have the wall street journal and fox news calling out these lies, and youre actually there when biden was at the counsel on Foreign Relations explaining how the entire western world was saying this prosecutor had to get fired because nobody was going to loan ukraine money if they didnt start cleaning up corruption. Explain that. Exactly. This prosecutor was part of a much larger problem under the previous regime, ukraine was notorious for being there was systematic krurption. They refused to create an independent Corruption Court and the prosecutors they had were too weak or were part of the problem, as this one individual was. So the arguments that the United States had in the past under the Obama Administration were totally legitimate. And we were not alone. It wasnt as though it was a unilateral problem with ukraine. It was the imf, all the europeans. It made it impossible to help ukraine and everybody wanted to help ukraine in order to push back against putin and russia. The u. S. Policy was totally consistent with the rest of the world at the time, joe. And so what, jonathan lemire, the president has felt under siege especially since friday and he has the wall street journal, Rupert Murdochs wall street journal breaking the news that eight times he pressured the president of the ukraine, eight times to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on ticking digging up dirt on his droomest rival. And then Rudy Giuliani is just making up fifth grade names to try to attack joe biden. Where has the white house been this weekend, especially white house insiders on handling a scandal that they know is going to cost the president real political pain . Well, first i think the framing you used earlier is right. This is a president whos suffered very few consequences and paid no penalty for his actions. I think the timing of that phone call with the ukrainian president is illuminating. It was this past july. It was one day after, one day after Robert Muellers appearance before congress and his somewhat faltering testimony about the russia investigation. The president survived that probe with far less damage than most people predicted. There was a sense that he was emboldened and could do whatever he wanted. And in this matter he pressed ukraine for help against joe biden. The very thing he was investigated before with russia, the idea of receiving heforeign help in an election it seemed like he was doing again. The president has down played it. He suggested he sparred with reporters. On friday, again over the weekend, yesterday in texas mused that he might put out the transcript at some point that would clear his name. He hold told people around him he does not think hes done anything wrong and therefore he thinks this smore of another of a deep state whistleblower, partisan whistleblower trying to undermine him. But people around him, though, there is a degree of worry, that this is something that could lead to a real problem. We are seeing rising calls for impeachment in the house. You know, adam schiff is suddenly moving that direction. Speaker pelosi not yet. Congresswoman alc took to twitter to blast the leadership over the weekend to say why are we not moving to impeach here . So there is some growing momentum there. Theres concern among the white house. Now, as the president comes here to new york for the United Nations, this conversation, the matter with ukraine, is going to provide a backdrop for the entire week. Of course theres no press secretary to speak of so its hard to get, you know, any type of formal statement about this. But, when it comes to trump, theres always mnuchin. Heres steve mnuchin. What i do find is inappropriate is the fact that Vice President biden at the times son did very significant business dealings in ukraine. I, for one, find that to be concerning. And, to me, thats the issue that perhaps should be further investigated. I dont understand. So its okay for donald trump jr. And eric trump do business all over the world, its okay for ivanka trump to have copyright laws all over the world why President Trump is president , but while joe biden was Vice President his son shouldnt have been able to do business dealings . I dont want to go into more of these details well youre setting a precedent that the president is violating. I think theres a significant difference in which youre saying. What i was saying between biden and his sons relationship with the ukraine oligarch. And potential business dealings that the Trump Organization has had which predated his presidency. Snas deep. You have Rudy Giuliani making a fool of himself on fox news and then mnuchin doing the same on cnn. And you have donald trump doing what donald trump does all the time, he admits the scandal in broad daylight. And because he admits the scandal in broad daylight, instead of having it dug up, he thinks that makes everything okay. It does not. And this is unprecedented having the president of the United States, commander and chief, using his position. Right. To have a foreign power try to dig up dirt on an american domestic rival. It is a continued blurring of the lines from 2016 and it is unamerican. Michael steele, is this the line for republicans . Ah. [ laughter ] no. Not if john cornyns response to this was any indication. Whats it going to snb whats to be . Whats it going to take . Is another cornyn came out and said i find all of this to be troubling about joe biden and started the typical washington backstroke of we need to get more information. I serve on Senate Intelligence and im sure well find out whatever without having any, you know, initial visceral reaction to what the wall street journals reporting, what youve opened this show up about detailing, what the evidence displays. And then you have, you know, giuliani and mnuchin going on television being actually laughable in their response. But thats the point. It is not supposed to clarify, its not supposed to give you a Straight Line argument that this is not bad or theres no problem, it is to create the level of confusion. Joe, you have it exactly right. The president comes outs and tells yeah, yeah, did i it, so what . And so as you started the show talking about and reading reports about there are no consequences, thats the world in which donald trump thrives because there have been no consequences. So its now a matter on something so important as this whether or not the country is willing to make the president pay a consequence for behavior that leads to real questions about impeachment. And i think that this is something over the next 24 hours or more were going to have to figure out as the members on the hill get microphones put in front of their faces to see whether or not theyre willing to hold the president to a standard that weve held every president whos had the job before. Well, and, jon meacham, what great illumination we have into the soul, not of america, but the soul of the Republican Party. You have one republican after another trying to brush aside the fact that their president , the commander and chief, spoke to a foreign leader eight times and intimidated him eight times to use his personal lawyer to dig up dirt in a foreign country against a domestic rival, eight times. Mitt romney even came out. Its surreal. All of it is so surreal and all of it eventually will damage the Republican Party in next years election. But mitt romney said, well, if donald trump actually did speak to a foreign power to have them dig up dirt, that would be very troubling. The wall street journal reported even before that tweet that it happened eight times. And donald trump admitted that he did it. And yet they decide to live in this never never land. Thats a great way to put it is never never land. And, you know, history theres no once upon a time, theres not going to be a happily ever after. But there can be actual moments where we face facts. Eleanor roosevelt said thats the test of a great government, a Great Society is can you, in fact, face facts however uncomfortable they are. And what i think is the great story of our time, honestly, is the extent to which 40 , 45 of the country, many of them republicans, have suspended their critical capacities, have suspended their essential dare i say patriotic instincts to follow this particular leader because of the will to power. So were talking you about the party of eisenhower, reagan, bush are comfortable with a president who conspires, whoever colludes, whatever word you want to use. He told george step no muss u lo stephanopoulos he would do this. No republican complained when he told George Stephanopoulos that he would work, that he would collude with foreign powers to try to get dirt on his rival. Here, another good word for you, extort. Yeah. In this case, there are reports that he actually was extorting the democratically elected president of ukraine who had already seen his country invaded by Vladimir Putin and there are reports that he extoward thee extorted him saying he was not going to get military weapons unless, unless he dug up dirt, worked, cooperated with his personal lawyer to dig up dirt on his domestic political rival. One of the things thats happened here, ive been thinking about this all weekend, is there are a couple of really interestingent flis george interestingly entries in george h. W. Bushs diaries. In the 60s hes looking at these folks and he says their eyes arent focused. Theyre living according to a narrative in their heads that does not actually track with reality. And he saw a little bit later some in the 80s. Think hes gone from being a fringe, the berg society, which is what Richard Hofstetter was writing about when he defined the paranoid style in american politics, that was the occasion for that essay, but the paranoid style has gone mainstream. And i think one of the Great Questions of the era is going to be who wants to be