And theres nobody more honorable than rob portman of ohio because he called up, please let the money, i said rob, i hate being the country thats always giving money. When ukraine helps europe and the European Countries far more than they help us. Theyre like a wall between russia and europe. Theyre like a wall. Theyre a big, wide, beautiful wall, and he said, you know what . But its important, and in fact, he came soout and he said that. That was my only reason because i dont like being the sucker country. We were the sucker country for years and years. Were not the sucker country anymore but i gave the money because rob portman and others called me and asked. But i dont like to be the sucker, and European Countries are helped far more than we are, and those countries should pay more to help ukraine. Ask a question, please. Thank you, sir. What about mr. Biden . What did you want about biden . What did you want him to look into on biden . Look, biden and his son are stone cold crooked, and you know it, his son walks out with millions of dollars. The kid knows nothing. You know it, and so do we. Go ahead, ask a question. But the question, sir, was what did you want president zelensky to do about Vice President biden and his son hunter. Are you talking to me . Yes, it was just a followup of what i just asked you, sir. Listen, are you ready, we have the president of finland, ask him a question. I have one for him. I just wanted to follow up on the one i asked you did you hear me . Ask him a question. Ive given you a long answer, ask this gentleman a question, dont be rude. No, sir, i dont want to be rude. I just wanted you to have a chance to answer the question i asked you. Ive apsed everything, its a whole hoax. You know whos playing into the hoax, people like you and the Fake News Media that we have in this country, and i say in many cases the corrupt media because youre corrupt. Much of the media in this country is not just fake. Its corrupt, and you have some very fine people, too, great journalists great reporters, but to a large extent its corrupt, and its fake. Ask the president of finland a question, please. Okay. Ill move on now. Mr. President , in your opening remarks you said to President Trump that you had been to some museums today and that you respected the u. S. Democracy and encouraged him to continue it. Are you concerned that thats not happening, and my second question to you, sir, is the wto rule today in favor of the United States saying that the United States can now impose tariffs on european goods because of illegal subsidies against air bus. That was a big win for the United States, right . You never had wins with other president s, did you . But were having a lot of wins at the wto this was a case that started, i think, 10 or 15 years ago. Excuse me, the wins are now because they think i dont like the wto, and they want to make sure im happy because all of those countries were ripping off the United States for many years. They know that im wise to it. Weve had a lot of wins. This was a 7 billion win, not bad. I think the question is for me. The question is sir, if youre concerned that the president will impose those tariffs and the effect that that may have on the economy. Yes, first of all, may i refer to your democracy, i just wanted to tell that im impressed what American People have gained during these decades, 100 or so years building up very impressive democracy, so keep it going on. To wto, i have a lot of respect to multilateralism and to International Institutions so wto has given now a decision which is, well, quite tough with europe. But i just say that the wto has said its opinion, and thats that. I just want to finish by saying its an honor to be with the president of finland. Hes done a fantastic job, very popular, beloved over in finland. The wto has been much better to us since ive been president because they understand they cant get away with what theyve been getting away with for so many years, which is ripping off the United States, and please remember the president s last remarks that we are a great democracy. We have great. The United States is a great democracy, and im airing what im airing because we are, in fact, a democracy, and if the press were straight and honest and forthright and tough, we would be a far greater nation. We would be far greater when we dont have the cnns of the world who are corrupt people. Thank you very much, everybody. President donald trump lying to the American People and the world at a pace perhaps we havent seen before, just in the course of the five minutes since ive been sitting in this chair, the president uttered several lies including the fact that the United States has provided more to ukraine than European Countries, the ukraine is the most corrupt nation in the world. There have been no president ial victories on trade prior to his arrival, and he was corrected by jeff mason reminding him that a current wto ruling that was issued today is actually the subject of many years of effort by the United States, none of which virtually none of which involved donald trump. I dont know how Kristen Welker is in the east room of the white house where this just ended. Even by the standard of contentious exchanges with reporters, this one was high up on the list. This was high up on the list. The president clearly defiant and even angry at the end when he was asked a very direct question by my colleague jeff mason what specifically did he want the president of ukraine, president zelensky to do in regards to the bidens. The former Vice President and his son hunter biden, the president wouldnt give him a direct answer. Instead choosing to lash out at the broader impeachment inquiry. This is the tactic that we have seen by this president , and you really saw it play out throughout the entirety of this press conference taking every chance to attack adam schiff who he has dubbed quote, shifty schiff, and taking every chance to take aim at House Speaker nancy pelosi. He was asked at the top if he would comply with the document request, for example, ali, and he never answered that question directly. We never heard a yes from President Trump. What we do know is that press secretary Stephanie Grisham in the moments after we learned about that potential subpoena for documents, instead of saying they would cooperate chose to cast whats happening on capitol hill as a kangaroo court. So we saw more of that anger and defiance from President Trump as he tries to argue that the phone call was, quote, unquote, perfect, and yet of course everyone has seen the contents of the call and can decide for themselves. But i think what we saw here, ali, underscores the fact that this is something that is getting under President Trumps skin, to say the least. He has taken over the communications here at the white house to deal with this, and some of his outside allies have a lot of concerns that theres not a broader strategy, and i think you saw that on display here just moments ago. So theres this, theres the arguments with the adam schiff and the media the president has, but theres another aspect to this, and that is the white house has stonewalled previous subpoenas from capitol hill. Were now on our third round of subpoenas, three different sets of subpoenas in the last week having to do with the ukraine phone call. Do we have some sense of strategy from the white house . Because these subpoenas will arrive. They will in some cases be followed by Court Filings if theyre not if theyre not responded to. Whats the white house planning on doing on that front rather than the communications front . Reporter well, if past is precedent, i think you can expect to see the white house try to block documents and testimony. That is what we have seen from them in the past, and theyre not giving any signs that theyre going to change course. Ive been asking the white house all morning long if theyre going to cooperate with these new requests for documents, and i have not gotten one person here to say yes, instead defiance, a lot of officials here echoing what you just heard from President Trump, and again, ali, i think President Trump gave you a sense of what we can expect to see when he was asked if they were going to cooperate with these requests, the president saying, look, well work with them, but never saying yes, were going to hand over those documents. So this is an intensifying standoff, and think about what we heard from the secretary of state. Mike pompeo who has accused House Democrats of buly bullyin current and former staffers to try to get them to testify, he is certainly signaling he has no plans to cooperate. Kristen welker, thank you. Kristen in the east room of the white house where the president for the second time today has appeared before reporters. The do nothing democrats should be focused on building up our country, not wasting everyones time and energy on bs. Thats the words im using. The president wasnt that nice in the tweet he sent out today in the house impeachment inquiry into his july phone call with ukraines leader. He used a different word instead of my acronym bs. The tweet was one of many in which he continued to defend the call and blast House Democrats. The president kept up the attacks during his news concerns with the president of finland that just ended. To impeach a president over a fraud that was committed by other people that want to win an election in 2020, which they wont, is incredible. This is the greatest hoax. Now, its gone on for a long time. We had the mueller collusion delusion, okay . That went on for years. The president s comments came hours after the chairs of the house oversight, intelligence, and Foreign Affairs committees said they plan to subpoena the white house for documents related to the ukraine call. The chairman wrote in a memo quote the white houses fragrant disregard of multiple voluntary requests for documents combined with stark and urgent warnings from the Inspector General about the gravity of these allegations have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena. It also follows confirmation from secretary of state mike pompeo that he did in fact listen in on the president s phone call with ukraines president after denying that he had done so. He also used a News Conference in rome to address why he is pushing back against congressional requests to interview current and former state Department Officials. What we objected to was the demands that were put that are deeply violate fundamental principles of separation of powers. We will of course do our constitutional duty to cooperate with this coequal branch, but were going to do so in a way that is consistent with the fundamental values of the american system, and we wont tolerate folks on capitol hill bullying, intimidating state Department Employees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chair adam schiff talked about the impeachment inquiry during a News Conference this morning and had strong words for the president and secretary pompeo. Lets not make any mistake here, the president wants to make this all about the whistleblower and suggest people that come forward with evidence of his wrongdoing are somehow treasonous, and should be treated as traitors and spies. This is a blatant effort to intimidate witnesses. Its an incitement of violence. One thing the president brought up during his News Conference is a report from the New York Times that the House Intelligence Committee learned about the outlines of the whistleblowers concerns about the president days before the complaint was filed. The House Intelligence Committee is now responding to that report. Nbcs Geoff Bennett joins us now from capitol hill. Lets just hit on that last piece of news, geoff. Theres some sense that the house knew about this report. Tell me about what they knew. Reporter right, so the New York Times, ali, is reporting that adam schiff, the house intelligence chairman got advance notice that the whistleblower had a complaint to make. The New York Times reports that the whistleblower tried to elevate this complaint through the agency where he or she works. The times reports the name of that agency. I will not say the name of ha agency out of respect for the whistleblowers privacy. There was some concern about the way the complaint was being handled. At that point the whistleblower approached the House Intelligence Committee to get some guidance about how to convey the nature of the complaint. At no time, according to the committee, did mr. Schiff learn about the substance of the complaint, so here is a statement from patrick boland, the spokesperson for adam schiff as conveyed to alex moe. He said the whistleblower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the intelligence committee. At no point did the Committee Review or receive the complaint in advance. He continues, the committee did not receive the complaint until the night before the acting director of National Intelligences opening hearing before the committee. More than three weeks after the legal deadline by which the committee should have received the complaint. So in that press conference we just saw, where the question was conveyed to President Trump that adam schiff might have had advance notice of what the complaint the was about, the question was completely misrepresentd and it teed President Trump up to make the claim that adam schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee had some hand in writing it, which is completely false according to the reporting and according to the statement from the committee. Hopefully that clears some of that up. As this fight plays out, the state department has gone to the Inspector General is on capitol hill at this hour to brief lawmakers about what has been described as an urgent matter related to the state department and ukraine. What do we know about what is going on . Why is the state department Inspector General on capitol hill talking to lawmakers . Reporter a couple of things. I can tell you that the state Department Ig Steve Linick is here, we cant have cameras over there, other sidewise i would br there talking to you. We dont know what the substance of this urgent matter is. We know that it came directly after secretary of state mike pompeo pushed back on House Democrats demands to depose those five current and former state Department Officials as part of its ongoing impeachment inquiry. There is some outside reporting that this might have something to do with retaliation within the state department aimed at career officials who are trying to cooperate with House Democrats. That has not yet been confirmed by nbc, but other reputable news organizations are reporting that. What we do know is that this has something to do with a document that was provided to the i. G. s office by the Legal Adviser of the state department, so that suggests to me a couple of things. One, theres a paper trail that could be material in this ongoing investigation, and two, the timing matters here as well because the staffers for these relevant committees are being updated about this in advance of the depositions that they plan to take. So right now we know that the relevant committees will hear from two of the five current and former state Department Officials. Tomorrow well hear from theyll hear from kurt volker, the former envoy to the ukraine. He, according to the whistleblower complaint knows a lot about what Rudy Giuliani was up to as he was trying to run that influence Campaign AcrossEastern Europe and then next friday youll hear also the committee will hear from behind closed doors, they will depose the former ambassador to the ukraine who the Trump Administration effectively brought back and she of course would know a lot too. Shed have a front row seat so whatever Rudy Giuliani was trying to do there, stirring up suspicion can digging up dirt on joe biden. Thanks as always. Jeff ben et reporting from capitol hill. This is an ongoing story and geoff will be back to us as soon as we have more developments. Joining us now is ambassador nancy sotoberg, a former u. S. Representativ