The acting dni director appear before the House Intelligence Committee. That will be fascinating. Hey, willie geist, what an extraordinary 24 hours. You can go to the night before and before we actually got to see what the white house called the trump. People were predicting that it was going to be much ado about nothing. The next morning of course it kploiexplodes and republicans are shocked that the white house released that transcript. And news continued breaking throughout the day and, of course, last night you had the whistleblower report read and apparently so disturbing that republicans on and off the record were saying that it was far worse than what the white house released in the morning. Ben sasse who has been strangely silent over the past year, ben sasse coming out and talking about it being very troubling. Ben sasse was a tell to me saying what he read in that report, which by the way we may all see at some point today, the whistleblow whistleblower complaint as it has been declassified, he said it was very troubling. He hasnt made a peep, has a primary challenge, doesnt want to cross donald trump, but hes worried about it. Were going to get more of it today. The summary of that phone call, if the white house thought that was going to be exculpatory, they were going to put that out and clear the air and everybody was going to move on, theyre living in a bubble where reality is not a part of that bubble. Because he says right then and there, not only does he go to this wild contract theory about crowd strike, but he talks about the other thing, and that is joe and Hunter Bidens work in ukraine. You nailed it right there. Thats whats so fascinating about it. You can actually see, ed, some trumpists diezzy throughout the day. Twisting themselves into pretzels. And by 4 00 in the afternoon they said, wait a second, the quid pro quo, were not going to fight on that ground because its so obviously, as david freund said i could prove this to any jury any time and if i couldnt i should be disbarred that theres a quid pro quo. They retreated from that position and by Late Afternoon they were saying that the quo was successfully separated from the quid. But of course it wasnt. What was so fascinating, and we always have people talking about how donald trump speaks like a mobster and cohen saying Everybody Knows how this guys talks, right . So the president says i would like you, after he asks for the javelin, he says i would like you do this favor because our country has i would like you do us a favor, though. Then what i find so fascinating about it, he throws out crowd strike and then he throws out hillarys emails. Its like three quick smoke screens. And zelensky picks it up immediately and he goes oh, yes, yes, looks right past the smoke screen because he knows how thugs talk. And what does he say . He says were having giuliani come over here and were going to take care of what he terms as that investigation. He doesnt talk about kraud crowd strike and hillary. Although those are bad. Doesnt talk about mueller. He gets the mob talk and says to trump, oh, yes, yes, giuliani, hes going to come over, were going to cooperate with him and look into that investigation. And thats when trump really lets loose and starts talking about what he needs in exchange for the military support. Yeah, i mean, you dont need to read into in between the lines much to get a quid pro quo. But crowd strike i think to me rang the loudest alarm, which is a very sort of far out Conspiracy Theory that the dnc hacked itself rather than by the russians. Right. And then the internal guy that hacked it was killed by the clintons. Its up there with pizza gate in terms of outright Conspiracy Theory. The president of the United States responds to a request from a dem democratic ally for weapons to push back Vladimir Putin who has invaded his country by talking about seth rich. Its easy reading that transcript to whiince on behalff zelensky. He said i stayed in trump tower, i love you, i agree with you on everything. But if you look at the position hes in, trying to annex the east of its country and being invaded by putin and then by trump on this call saying can you get involved on my side in a campaign that i might lose and you might therefore being severely punished for, this is an extremely difficult condition for any elected leader of a country to be in. Its extraordinary. But for a young guy just nau inaugurated, you can understand it. What he is doing it is trying to save his country. Hes got Vladimir Putin who is taking over crimea. Hes got troops pushing in and have invaped h have invaded his country. You have Congress Passing out the weapons and donald trump has frozen it. The financial finals and wall street journal have been saying that zelensky desperately needed the weapons and desperately needed a meeting with donald trump. That was before all of this whistleblower information came out, that are was being reported in the papers and trump wouldnt do it. And you even had an aide to zelensky last night saying we werent going to get the phone call and we werent going to get the meeting and we werent going to get anything unless we talked about the biden investigation. This was all released to the white house. Back up. Sources tell nbc news that the whistleblower complaint at the center of the ukraine scandal has been declassified with minimal redactions and is expected to be released this morning. Now, to the 30minute july 25th phone call that sparked the controversy. The memo released by the white house shows President Trump discussing joe biden and asking his ukrainian counterpart for a favor. It begins with the president congratulating ukrainian president zelensky on his partys recent parliamentary win and zelensky discussing the reforms hes making. President trump then talks about how much the United States does for ukraine. Zelensky agreed and then said, quote, i would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the United States for defense purposes. Trump immediately follows saying, quote, i would like you do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowd strike. Crowd strike is the name of the cyber Agriculture Company that investigated the dnc serve hack in 2016. Trump continues were you have your serve, he they say ukraine has it, there are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think youre surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and i would like you to get to the bottom of it. The president then brings up Robert Muellers testimony before congress the day before, quote, as you saw yesterday that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller. An incompetent performance but they say a lot of it started with ukraine. Whatever you can do, its very important that you do it, if thats possible. Zelensky follows yes, its very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me, as a president , its very important and we are open for any future cooperation. Now, its very important there, robert, the president zelensky then starts talking about giuliani. We know hes been calling, hes going to come over, and he says without donald trump even talking you about biden, he looks past crowd source, he looks past all the other smoke screens, right . Because those were all that was just a smoke screen before the ask comes in. And then he goes, were going to help you with, quote, that investigation, the giuliani investigation. And thats when trump says, oh, yes, you need to talk not only to giuliani, but you need to talk to the United States attorney general and you need to Work Together in smearing my domestic political rival. Its been fascinating as a reporter to cover president zelensky up close. I was with him in warsaw just a few weeks ago when he met with Vice President pence. You see the delegation navigating all these dynamics and you can see the bewilderment on their face when you pull some of the officials aside about what theyre trying to deal with here. Is Rudy Giuliani a representative of the Trump Administration . You see a president operating in his own National Interests. He needs these weapons to deal with the russia issue in crimea. Hes trying to navigate an issue he doesnt understand but hes not going totally off course because he needs the funds. But hes not sure when he meets with President Trump as he did in new york or Vice President pence in warsaw, what do these people need to hear . So again and again he keeps trying to be careful but say hell nod toward broad themes of corruption. Well work with you on c corruption but he doesnt want to get pulled into that rip tide. Willie, its important for everybody to understand, it was public record, it was reported information that in july and august they were desperate to get the weapons. Right. That congress had approved. That donald trump strangely enough decided just to freeze. And also to get a call and a meeting with the president of the United States to show his people that actually the United States would be a trusted ally in their battle against putins i gressi aggression. Thats why there was no explicit quid pro quo in the summary of the phone call doesnt hold up. We know what was at stake for the ukrainian president. We also know that he had been ha ranged by the United States government and this administration about this question of joe biden and the question of ukraine. From the moment he won his election in april where he got a phone call from the president , that first phone call according to the new york times, congratulations now get to work on corruption. From that point he was put in touch with mr. Giuliani who has been pursuing this line about biden ever since. Thats right, willie. I think the transcript is not only a smoking gun, its a smoking javelin. When you look at the defensive weapons that the ukrainians needed in order to defend themselves, it harkens back to the movie where they provide Stinger Missiles to eject the soviets from afghanistan . That turned the tide ultimately of the war. Thats what was at stake. Thats what was so desperately needed by the ukrainian leadership. And here President Trump is saying in direct response to a defensive system hes saying i need you do me a favor. Im one of the people that think thats an explicit quid pro quo, although i dont think that House Democrats need to hang the impeachment inquiry on that. I think merely soliciting political help from a Foreign Government that is enough. So Chris Christie yesterday, before george step no lous asked him to speak, quid pro quo how bad do this be . How bad could this be . Chris christie said i think the democrats may be overplaying it. It would only be serious if the president said Something Like, i need you do me a favor. It didnt age well. Whoops. And chris a former prosecutor knows thats the sort of he knows. This is not a close call. You actually see at some point which people whos so deeply in it for donald trump that they actually theres nothing trump will ever do that will make them worry about this country. I want to ask you really quickly, benjamin, about last night, the whistleblower complaint comes out. Were you surprised not only by ben sasses reaction but by reaction from other republicans on the hill and their staff quietly worried saying, this is worse than even the memo that they released earlier in the day . Right. So before that happened, we released a piece on law fair that said remember that this memo transcript is only one piece of the puzzle. And the broader window that it opens up is undoubtedly much worse than the text of the memo itself. Because this is only one interaction in what is actually a long pattern that takes place over the summer between the president , giuliani, the ukrainians, the state department, right . Theres a lot of different pieces of this puzzle. The whistleblower complaint outlines apparently a much broader array of activity. So im not terribly surprised that if you find the transcript or the memo disturbing, when you see the whole pattern laid out, its going to be really disturbing. Yeah. And, again, as we were all reminded every 1. 3 seconds on twitter yesterday what the white house released. Yeah. Was not a transcript. Thank you for that reminder every 1. 3 seconds. Thats the best the white house had to offer, and it was not good. Republicans in the morning were shocked that the white house would release that. Well, also it all been an incredible 24 hours. Lets move on. The president then pivots to the prosecutor general who was fired by the Ukrainian Government and then to joe biden, trump saying, quote, the other thing. Theres a lot of talk about bidens son, that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went along bragging that he stopped the prosecution. If you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. Zelensky then tells trump that he knows all about the situation and ensures hell soon have his own handpicked prosecutor in place promising, quote, he or she will look into the situation specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty. So we will take care of that and well work on the investigation of the case. My god. The money line in that in that section of the memo, willie geist, was where donald trump told the president of a foreign country who he was withholding defensive weapons from that he needed to coordinate not only with his personal lawyer on digging up dirt on joe biden, but that he needed to coordinate really it took my breath away. Its incredible. Its shocking. You think after all of this time we would all be incapable of being shocked. And, yet, donald trump says talk to my attorney general. Talk to attorney general william barr. This released by the white house. Talk to my attorney general. What else is there . About digging up dirt on a domestic political rival while im holding up defensive weapons that are actually probably the only thing that would stop Vladimir Putin from going all the way to kiev if he chose to. By the way, thats bad. Would you like to know what is worse, willie . Please. I think you already know whats worse. But this is just for the kids at home. Its a romper room thing. Its like im looking through a mirror and theres all this suspense building. You know whats worse . That william barr gets this from the dni and what does he say . He doesnt say what every selfrespecting lawyer that ive every lawyer wore say, this looks like the president is trying to put me in a conspiracy to smear one of your rivals, i better recuse myself. He doesnt do that. Instead, he kills the complaint and says nothing to see here. Thats right. Willie, that are takes all of this, like Rudy Giuliani may remind us of a crazy uncle, when you get the attorney general involved and then the attorney general looks like hes part of the conspiracy and then he says theres nothing to see here, move along, move along, suddenly this entire crisis is taken to a new level. And it calls into question some of attorney general barrs testimony over the summer on the russia matter where he was asked time and again if the president had asked him to do anything inappropriate and he said no. We have some of the details on this. Barr and giuliani were mentioned 11 times in this phone call between President Trump and president zelensky. In one instance the ukrainian president told trump one of my assistants spoke with giuliani and were hoping very much that mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to ukraine and we will be able to meet once he comes to ukraine. The other mention is by trump telling his counterpart to expect a phone call. The first came after he asked zelensky to investigate crowd strike. The president told zelensky that barr would, quote, call you or your people to get to the bottom of it. The next mention came when trump told zelensky that giuliani and barr would call to discuss what trump called, quote, bad people involved with the firing of that ukrainian prosecutor in 2016. Then, concerning joe biden and his son hunter, whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Again there, Jonathan Lemire, talking about a political opponent bringing in the attorney general of the United States on that question with the foreign leader. Its an extraordinary thing to read and for the white house to decide this would be something that would help them to put out in public. Its one thing to ask your personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and there are questions raised there about the appropriateness of his dealing with a Foreign Government. He has said that the state department was helping coordinate his travel and contacts with the ukrainian officials. The state department has largely denied that. We have the attorney general of the United States being involved with an investigation overseas in a foreign country which goes to show its not just another norm, another rule, another guardrail this president has shattered. But do