Dealing with the former Vice President. There there are biden allies saying they may turn the tables and talk about his own family and whether hes profiting on the presidency. Mike memoli, appreciate that. Chris jansing in new york, it looks like you, my friend, are going to be able to have that taped playback of the president s remarks on the white house south lawn. I imagine those will be coming in the next few minutes, although it depends on how long the president speaks. As fast as humanly possible our folks will get that tape turned around. Hallie jackson, thank you so much. Good morning. Im Chris Jansing in for craig melvin apt msnbc headquarters in new york. A flood of new headlines have emerged since we saw you this time yesterday, each more damaging for him, while offering democrats more bread crumbs to follow in the Impeachment Inquiry. All this can seem overwhelming. Well walk you through this
including the socalled Smoking Texts between u. S. And ukrainian ambassadors. Ill speak with someone who knows both the men involved. Joe biden pushes back against the president s uns unsubstantiated claims against his family. Another whistle blown, this time from a career irs official on reported attempts to interfere on the audits of President Trump or Vice President pence. The president speaking the reporters before he leaves the white house, already talking about joe biden, already talking about nancy pelosi. Its the latest in an overwhelming amount of information weve got in the past 24 hours. Here are some of the Key Developments as we wait to get that tape of the president. Americans woke up to the Blockbuster NewsHouse Democrats releasing Text Messages between state Department Officials and Ukrainian President s top aide, giving new impetus to the impeachment investigation. Those texts show officials felt President Trump would not meet with president zelensky unless ukraine promised to investigate joe biden. This is key. Ukrainian official bill taylor wrote, quote, as i said on the phone, i think its crazy to withhold Security Assistance for help with a political campaign. The texts were handed over to lawmakers by former u. S. Envoy to the ukraine, kurt volker. He is a figure central to the Impeachment Inquiry. He testified on the hill for nine hours yesterday, implicating President Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani in a shadow shakedown in ukraine. As President Trump left the white house yesterday, he committed publicly the act thats at the heart of the impeachment investigation, calling on not one, but two Foreign Governments to investigate an election rival. This time dragging china into the mix. That brings us to Whats Happening right now. On capitol hill the intel communitys chief watch dog is
briefing lawmakers as we speak on what he knows about the whistleblower complaint, one he calls credible. This is also deadline day. House democrats prepared to issue a subpoena to the Trump Administration demanding records on the president s call with ukraine. And at the white house this moment, officials are set to send a letter to nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, arguing the president will ignore any demands until theres an official impeachment vote. So an awful lot going on. We have terrific people to unpack it all for you through the hour. I want to bring in msnbc correspondent Garrett Haake in capitol hill, White House Correspondent hans nichols and nbc News Reporter josh lederman. I know the notes from various members of the pool come in fast and furious, hans. What are the headlines from the president so far . Reporter i think the newest headline is hes trying to distance himself from the Text Messages that josh reported
about overnight that shows there was an effort by two u. S. Ambassadors, two u. S. Diplomats to try to pressure the ukrainians to publicly state that they were doing an investigation of the bidens and of corruption and the withholding of a potential president ial visit or a visit to the white house, an audience with the president. Thats the newest. We also have the atmospherics around all this, the president claiming he has the support of mitch mcconnell. He says republicans are unified. Hes noting that 95 of republicans are still supporting him, and thats an indication potentially of where his head may be. Its clear that House Democrats are going down to impeachment. What the president appears to be focused on right now is his firewall in the senate, his red wall in the senate, having to make sure hes not impeached and convicted by the senate. They would need twothirds. Of course, hes giving a verbal exposition of what he said on twitter earlier, and that is he
didnt want to investigate the bidens, he just wanted to investigate corruption. That seems to be the emergency settled strategy of the president , that he wasnt doing this for political reasons. His only north star on this was corruption. Well see to what extent thats corroborated by all these investigations and to what extent there might be evidence that could contradict what the president is claiming right now on the south lawn. A lot of these different notes come out. There are a number of different people in the pool, all trying to keep track of what the president says in realtime. One of the notes paraphrases the president saying, i dont care about bidens campaign, i care about corruption. I dont care about politics, ive made clear. Well wait to hear from the president himself. In the meantime, garrett, over to you. The Impeachment Inquiry moves forward. Tell me Whats Happening where you are now . Michael atkinson Behind Closed Doors. Why is he important to the Impeachment Case and what are
they expecting to learn today . Reporter atkinson was the first person to investigate the whistleblowers complain. He got the complaint, conducted the investigation, handed it over to the acting dni and is the one who deemed it urgent and credible. You can argue hes probably less important to the overall impeachment effort now than he was, say, a month ago, because now democrats have all of these primary source documents. They have the transcript. They have the whistleblowers original complaint and they have these incriminating comments that keep coming from the president of the United States. That said, atkinson can in theory at least shed light on how he conducted his investigation. Whether he talked to anyone who corroborated the whistleblowers complaints along the way and can move democrats conducting this investigation from a to b just in how he got to the point. Thats if he is allowed to speak freely. He may still be restricted in
what he can tell lawmakers about the specification of his investigation. Well find out more as the lawmakers start to leave and information starts to leak out of that secure room a few floors below where im standing right now. There were no leaks. There were definite releases of information in the form of Text Messages, josh, that we saw this morning. Tell me what were learning about those Text Messages between the ukrainian aide and the state Department Officials. For those who want to make this seem like this whole issue with the ukrainians was just Rudy Giuliani essentially freelancing separate from the Trump Administration, that is not going to be possible now because of these Text Messages which really sucked the air out of that argument. In some of these Text Messages, we see u. S. Ambassadors at a very high level talking about how they can get the ukrainians to agree to publicly commit to launch this investigation into the president s political opponents and even haggling with
a top aide to the ukrainian leader over the sequencing. Whats going to come first . Is the u. S. Going to announce theyll come have their visit or announce this investigation first . One text on august 10th we see andreier mack, top aide to the president of ukraine saying once we have a date well call a press briefing. Including, among other things burisma and election meddling in investigations. Burisma is the Ukrainian Gas Company that hunter biden bought into. Kurt volker, the u. S. Ambassador for negotiations until his abrupt navigations replies sound great. In another text message we also see, chris, Realtime Concerns being raised by another senior diplomat, bill taylor who at the time was the top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine. He is telling another u. S. Diplomat there, are we now
saying that Security Assistance and a white house meeting are are conditioned on investigations . And that other diplomat, political appointee, Gordon Sondland replies call me. I want to go back to hans nichols. Im getting a note that the president is boarding marine 1 right now. As ive been going through these notes, he has repeatedly said this is not about politics for me. Yet it looks from this last batch of notes like hes attacking joe biden. Hes attacking joe biden in remarkably personal terms. This is one of the challenges for the president. Hes claiming on the one hand this isnt about politics, hes just interested in rooting out corruption. In the next breath he goes on to question bidens intelligence in stark terms. I hear the helicopter. Its lifting off. Well get this tape to you shortly. One other quick note, the president seemed to be punting on whether or not his Justice Department would actually investigate the bidens for their
roles in china as well as ukraine. If the Justice Department goes ahead and launches a formal inquiry or investigation into the bidens based on activities that happened during the Obama Administration, that would mark a significantly new chapter in this entire saga. It would be an indication that attorney general bill barr is doing the president s bidding, taking the president s hint that he wants so sort of investigation. The rotors are whirling. That means im going to slow myself down and we can get that tape to you quickly. Okay. In the meantime. And well go to that tape as soon as we get it. My thanks to hans who will stay with us. Garrett and josh, thanks to both of you. Let me bring in emily farkas Deputy Assistant secretary for russia and ukraine, msnbc contributor and former congressman from florida carlos curbelo. Were hearing from the president , evelyn, he is not backing down on what william
taylor called a crazy plan to withhold Security Assistance for help with a political campaign. Trump says, look, this is legit. This isnt about politics. Were asking for help to uncover corruption. You know a lot of these players. You know the region so well. Lau do you see this . Chris, this is really so unfortunate, and i really have to feel for the ukrainians, because all of this got them in such a bind, where theyre being asked to interfere in our elections. A statement about rooting out corruption in and of itself would be fine. As we can see from the back and forth, these guys certainly had an inkling if not some of them definitely knew. It looks like sondland was the master, i guess orchestrater or coordinator. In a way i would almost substitute his name for pompeo, because i want to know where is pompeo. I think where slaunld slaunld is
where pompeo is. To mention that company and to mention 2016 just serves not only the purposes of President Trump and his personal political agenda, but also the purposes of the kremlin. Because congressman, thats not all. In these Text Messages we see two of trumps top envoys hard at Work Crafting A statement that they want the president of ukraine to sign off on saying ukraine would pursue those investigations into trumps political rivals with a big push from Rudy Giuliani apparently. Chris, this new narrative that this was not about a political campaign, that this was not about the bidens is very difficult to believe. First of all, the president has been obsessed with joe biden for months. Clear clearly biden is the democratic candidate that the president fears the most, and hes been taking shots at bidens credibility, attacking him based
on his age for months and months and months. Secondly, in order for this to be even a little credible, the president would have mentioned other potential Corruption Cases in this conversation with the president of ukraine, but its very clear that there was one issue that he was focused on, which was Hunter Bidens participation in this ukrainian company. So this new narrative is probably based on legal advice the president is receiving to protect himself as this process unfolds in congress. But i think for anyone watching carefully, this is very difficult to believe. So youve got volker and sondland. Hes not a dip cat, has no security clearance, doesnt even work for the white house. All of them trying to placate the president. It takes a Career Diplomat to
write, as i said on the phone, i think its crazy to withhold Security Assistance for help with a political campaign. Bill taylor also wrote, are we now saying that Security Assistance and white house meetings are conditioned on investigations. Evelyn, it seems to me the easy and quick answer to that should be no, but it was five hours later i think that finally the response came trump wants no quid pro quos. And that really feels like a lot like a cover your rear end kind of exercise. Cya, as we call it. Exactly. Sondland woke up and realized, oh, this might be on whatsapp i think its on whatsapp. And they thought apparently they were not going to come out. Hes still thinking i better not have that hanging out there because bill taylor is a Career Foreign Service officer. He was put into the embassy where he still sits as far as
im aware because trump forced out masha yavanovitch, ambassador yavanovitch because She Wasnt Doing what he wanted with regard to looking into all this fake garbage that giuliani was whispering in President Trumps ear. Bill taylor is not afraid of anything, a Career Foreign Service guy, working at the u. S. Institute for peace, a sleepy assignment in washington, d. C. Hes past retirement age. He knows whats right and whats wrong, and i think he understood some of the motivations of the people involved may not have been so bad, on the ukrainian side, maybe volker, butt it doesnt matter. They went down a road they shouldnt have gone down. Taylor said hold on a minute. Clearly the Ukrainian President was not going to go down he did not want to be seen as being in the pocket or being somehow trying to influence a u. S. Election. Ultimately bravo to president
zelensky and his team because it seems they were the ones who finally said no, forget it. Of course, what they jeopardized was this meeting at the white house with President Trump. We follow, of course, later when he met with President Trump at the u. N. , it didnt go well for him. I dont know if a meeting at the white house would have been much better. Of course they were worried about what would happen with the assistance, but they had a sense they had friends elsewhere and the assistance would come through. Well find out. We need Secretary Pompeo on the record, is what i think. Hes out traveling. All of this comes you wake up this morning i cant tell you how many people said to me, congressman, i woke up this morning and theres all these Text Messages. Yesterday you had the president standing on the lawn of the white house publicly saying to china and ukraine, you know, i think it would be a good idea if you investigated the bidens. And i wonder how you think this information that weve learned
over the past 24 hours, whether its the president s statements or what they got Behind Closed Doors with these Text Messages yesterday from volker, what they mean for the case that nancy pelosi and adam schiff are laying out for impeachment. Well, yesterday the president unveiled another part of his strategy which is to publicly state what he has been saying in these private calls and kind of make people believe that because he can say it publicly, that its okay. Obviously for congressional democrats, the challenge here is Spoker