tv CNN Right Now With Brianna Keilar CNN September 25, 2019 10:00am-11:00am PDT
10:00 am
stimulant laxatives forcefully stimulate i switched to miralax for my constipation. the nerves in your colon. miralax works with the water in your body to unblock your system naturally. and it doesn't cause bloating, cramping, gas, or sudden urgency. miralax. look for the pink cap. we begin with this bombshell transcript, what some democrats are calling a smoking gun of a july 25th phone call between president trump and the newly elected president of ukraine. this is the call that was part of an official complaint by a whistleblower in the intelligence community. the intel community's independent ninspector determind this was an urgent complaint. what the call transcript clearly shows is president trump specifically asking the
10:01 am
president of ukraine to investigate joe biden whose son hunter sat on the board of a ukranian energy campaign while his dad was vice president. here's one of the key lines. i would like you to do us a favor. the call starts with general congratulations on the ukrainian president's success in the parliamentary elections. then almost immediately president trump mentions how much the u.s. does for ukraine, especially compared to europe. he tells zelensky, quote, i would say we do a lot for ukraine. i wouldn't say it's reciprocal necessarily, but the united states has been very, very good to ukraine. zelensky responds, i'm very grateful for that because the united states is doing a lot for ukraine. i would also like to thank you for your great support in the
10:02 am
area of defense. these are the president's very next words. quote, i would like you to 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. there are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. crowd strike is the american internet security company that initially investigated the russian hack of the dnc in 2016 that led to the release of embarrassing e-mails for democrats. the president says, quote, 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. as you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with ukraine. here's a key line. whatever you can do, it's very
10:03 am
important that you do it if that's possible. zelensky responds by noting that his people have already been in talks with the president's personal lawyer. quote, it is very important we are open for any future cooperation. i will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with mr. giuliani just recently. we will meet once he comes to ukraine. i guarantee as president of ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. that i can assure you. president trump then specifically mentions former vice president joe biden and his son hunter and again says that he'll have both giuliani and attorney general bill barr reach out. the president says, quote, good, because i heard you had a prosecutor who is very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. a lot of people are talking about that. i will ask him, meaning giuliani, to call you along with the attorney general. rudy very much knows what's
10:04 am
happening and he is a very capable guy. if you could speak to him, that would be great. the other thing, there's a lot of talk about biden's son that biden stopped the prosecution. and a lot of people want to find out about that. so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. all right. so let's explain what this is about. the prosecutor trump is talking about is ukraine's former prosecutor general who during the obama second turn failed to rein in corruption, which is something that has historically plagued ukraine. the obama administration wanted him out and he resigned. he failed to investigate the head of the energy company whose board the vice president's son sat on. his ouster could have meant more scrutiny for the campaign, lot
10:05 am
less. the president ends with this line, quote, i will have mr. giuliani give you a call and i am also going to have attorney general barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. the president is pushing an ally whose hundreds of millions of dollars in u.s. military aid the president singled out to freeze just one week before. we have kaitlan collins here with us. the department of justice spokesperson actually said the president has not asked the a.g. to contact ukraine on this or any other matter. he's really staying away from this, but the white house released this. >> so far they're dismissing it. that's essentially what they told reporters before this came out. they said it wasn't going to be as explosive as democrats had built it up. then you this comes out and you see the lines where they're
10:06 am
talking about military aid and the next few lines the president is talking about favors he wants from the ukrainian president. was it the best decision for the white house to put these out amid these calls? it's interesting that bill barr is throughout this letter so much because he was one of the officials pushing for the white house to put out the transcript much to the chagrin of secretary of state mike pompeo. now the president hasn't really been able to see the coverage since this letter came out. he was confident it was going to clear him. but he was just speaking with reporters during these meetings with world leaders and he said he believes nancy pelosi and democrats are in the middle of what he calls a manufactured crisis. >> and i don't think nancy pelosi will have time. she's wasting her time on -- let's use a word they used to use a lot, a manufactured crisis. remember they came up with a word nobody ever heard of?
10:07 am
then every media group in the country used the same word the same day. nobody ever heard of the word in relation to what they were talking about. they said it was a manufactured crisis, okay? they came up with a manufactured crisis. i don't know whether or not they're going to have time to do any deals. we were working on guns, gun safety. all they're talking about is nonsense. we released something today that was fantastic. you know, you look at that. it's all fake stuff that the media makes up with the democrats which are their partners. the democrats and the media are one and the same. they're partners. so i want to thank you. but i just don't know. mta, you could tell me bob lighthizer are they going to get to take a vote? the agreement is signed. it's approved by canada, it's approved by mexico. >> the president is making this argument that democrats aren't going to be able to get anything done if they're busy trying to impeach them.
10:08 am
the day nancy pelosi launched this formal impeachment inquiry, earlier that day they still had their typical caucus meeting where they discussed things like the usmca deal. they've obviously continued to talk about guns. but the president is framing this as they won't have time to discuss anything besides impeachment. >> utah senator mitt romney is the republican who's really expressing the most concern about this whistleblower claim. just a short time ago he reacted to this newly-released transcript of president trump's call with the ukranian president. >> there's just a question and i said that in my first reaction, which is if the president of the united states asks or presses the leader of a foreign country to carry out an investigation of a political nature, that's troubling. and i feel that. and so clearly if there were a quid pro quo that would take it to an entirely more extreme
10:09 am
level. >> cnn's senior congressional correspondent manu raju is following all of this from capitol hill. >> reporter: most republicans are falling in line and defending this president saying the president didn't do anything wrong because there was no explicit ask in exchange for anything, there was no quid pro quo in their view by the president threatening directly to withhold military aid in exchange for investigating the bidens. so they're saying this is much ado about nothing. now, i just spoke to david purdue who's a georgia republican, a close ally of the president. he told me that a small group of house and senate republicans actually went to the white house this morning to read the transcript before its official release. the white house counsel was in the room, the president called into that room. nobody expressed any concerns. in fact, purdue told me no when i asked him if anyone had any
10:10 am
concerns and raised them with the president about what they read in the transcript. other republicans from the president's close ally lindsey graham to the top house republican leader made clear they believe the president is in the right. >> from my point of view to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane. >> he talked about the bidens in that call. is that okay, mr. leader? >> how many times did he mention biden? no, he didn't. he mentioned it one time. >> do you have any concerns about what the president -- >> i think this is a great example of what the president said is true and some of the reporting on it has been absurd. >> what about biden? >> reporter: republicans are saying about biden, one republican mike conaway told me
10:11 am
that they were just talking about a culture of corruption, the ukraine president and the president of the united states so there's nothing wrong about bringing up the vice president. the democrats seeing this much differently. i asked adam schiff will this leave no doubt that the house will impeach this president? he says what the president has done here is perhaps among the most damaging revelation that he has seen of the president's conduct yet. >> thank you so much. i want to get more reaction from capitol hill. we have congressman ted lieu a member of the house judiciary committee which up until yesterday was the only committee that had begun an impeachment inquiry. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> so the judiciary committee has now got quite a bit of company. five other committees are now operating their investigations as part of this broadened impeachment inquiry. now you've got this call transcript. what is your reaction? >> thank you for your question. the notes of this phone
10:12 am
damning for the president. it's important to note that this call occurs a week before donald trump inexplicably halted military aid to ukraine. on this call he requests the ukranian le ukrainian leader to investigate trump's political opponent. right after he talks about missiles from the united states to ukraine. this looks just like a shakedown of a foreign leader to benefit trump politically. it is a betrayal of our values and abuse of the president's power. >> what did you think of kevin mccarthy, the top republican in the house, saying in response to what's your reaction to the president mentioning biden? he said, how many times did the president mention biden, one time. >> a lot of what this phone call was about was asking the
10:13 am
ukrainian leader to open an investigate into biden. that is an abuse of the president's power. donald trump should not be putting his own reelection above the interests of the american people. he should not be trying to shake down the ukranian leader. >> do you think the sole reason the president made this call was to ask ukraine to investigate biden and his son? >> much of the phone call was about the investigation that he wanted the ukrainian lead tore open into biden as his sond his. it's a completely bogus charge. trump now asks his attorney general to also get involved. that's using the department of justice to also target trump's political opponent for nefarious reasons. this is a massive abuse of power and a betrayal of our values. >> the doj says trump did not ask barr to intervene on this
10:14 am
issue, that barr has not talked to ukraine about this issue or other issues. does that change anything to you? >> should we trust the doj that barr heads or should we trust the notes of this phone call? the notes of this phone call say donald trump is going to ask rudy giuliani and bill barr to get involved with the ukrainian leader to open this bogus investigation into trump's political opponent. >> speaker pelosi in this decision to widen this impeachment inquiry is really betting that americans can wrap their heads around this and that they will understand this as democrats do, tying millions in aid for a foreign government to a favor to investigate an american political rival. why do you think that americans are going to be more swayed by this than by the mueller report? >> this is a very simple situation to explain. based on the timing of this phone call, the fact that trump halted critical military aid to
10:15 am
ukraine, it's simply, you want the money, you investigate biden. it is as simple as that. the phone call establishes it. the timing of the phone call establishes it. it's a gross abuse of power by donald trump. >> this call is only part of the whistleblower complaint. are you expecting to see the whistleblower complaint? >> absolutely. you had the republican controlled senate yesterday go on record saying that they want the whistleblower complaint to go to congress. it's required by law. right now the odni acting director is violating the law. he's supposed to have provided this whistleblower complaint to congress weeks ago. there's no reason that we don't get the full complaint. >> have you heard anything on timing about -- have you heard any confirmation that that is going to be coming? >> i have not. but with every passing day they continue to be in violation of a law that requires congress to see this whistleblower complaint. >> it's still possible that this
10:16 am
now broadened impeachment inquiry goes forward. you have these six committees investigating. this gives them more leeway to get information but in the end there's not a house-wide vote on impeachment. do you see that happening? >> you have the president as president using his powers to ask a foreign government to meddle in our elections to investigate his political opponent and he does this in the context of halting military aid to that foreign power. this is something easy for americans to understand. it's a betrayal of our values, a gross abuse of power. and i think we're going to act with urgency on this issue and we'll see what the additional evidence holds when the whistleblower comes forward. >> but will there be a house-wide vote, do you expect? >> if the evidence in the whistleblower complaint establishes what we're already seeing established in this transcript, i do believe there
10:17 am
will be a house-wide vote sometime in the future. >> okay. we have our legal analysts standing by on what could be the most damning for the president in this transcript and bill barr's questionable role in all of this, plus the politics of impeachment. how republicans are already spinning this, but not all of them. [ orchestral music playing ] mom you've got to get yourself a new car. i wish i could save faster. you're making good choices. you'll get there. ♪ were you going to tell me about this? i know i can't afford to go. i still have this car so you can afford to go. i am so proud of you. thanks. principal. we can help you plan for that. start today at principal.com.
10:20 am
10:21 am
i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira can help get, and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, control is possible.
10:22 am
attorney general bill barr is emerging as a key player in the president ea's call with th ukrainian president. trump mentioned he was going to have barr call ukraine several times throughout this rough transcript. jo she is also the author of "how to read the constitution and why." thank you so much to both of you for joining me. i wonder how problematic is it that the president mentions bill barr essentially as someone who is going to help shepherd an inappropriate investigation of a trump political rival by a
10:23 am
foreign country and then you have the doj actually blocking the whistleblower complaint of which this is all a key part from going to congress. >> it's hugely problematic. first of all, who does the attorney general work for? yet again you see donald trump acting like bill barr works for donald trump personally. bill barr is the top lawyer for all the people of the united states. this is a completely inappropriate thing for him to be doing. second of all, why on earth is the attorney general involved in donald trump's effort to get political dirt on his opponents? it's a one-purpose call. the one purpose here is he wants dirt on joe biden and hillary clinton. bill barr should have no part of that. >> clearly the doj knows that because they put out a statement saying the president didn't actually come to barr about this issue, that barr didn't talk to ukraine about this issue or other issues. i just talked to a democratic congressman who said yeah,
10:24 am
right, i don't believe that essentially. >> you have to imagine there are many people inside this white house who get asked to do things that they're extremely uncomfortable with. >> he says he wasn't even asked. the doj says he wasn't asked. do you believe that? >> well, i thought his very careful testimony in response to kamala harris's questioning as to whether he'd ever been asked to undergo an investigation at the president's behest, i think that's particularly telling. i haven't read the document from doj. this white house is very, very careful at threading fine needles. we saw that with their response to the i.g. report justifying turning over the whistleblower complaint. i think that's a very weak argument. but this probably isn't the first or last time we'll see this legally. >> i want to go back and listen to something that bill barr said during the may hearing. this is his response about receiving dirt on a competitor. >> just so you understand, it's
10:25 am
the single greatest witch hunt northbound american history, probably in history, but in american history. it's a disgraceful thing. the letter was a great letter, meaning the letter revealing the call. that was done at the insistence of myself and other people that read it. it was a friendly letter. there was no pressure. the way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell. it turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said i never knew you could be so nice. >> that is not bill barr. that is president trump. let's listen to what bill barr said in may. >> let me get to a question, if i could. going forward,what if a foreign adversary, let's say north korea, offers a presidential candidate dirt on a competitor in 2020? do you agree with me the campaign should immediately contact the fbi? >> foreign government --
10:26 am
>> a representative of a foreign government says we have dirt on your opponent, should they say i love it let's meet or should they contact the fbi. >> if a foreign intelligence service does, yes. >> keep in mind this is may. july is when this conversation happens. it's going in a different direction. it's not the foreign government volunteering. this is an ask from the president. >> right. first of all, he's wrong, attorney general barr there when he says only if it's from a foreign intelligence agent. getting foreign election aid from any foreign national is a federal crime. so that was a really curious answer. could it be that this was already underway? possibly. i think he was trying to cover for don junior who had that trump tower meeting. >> yes. obviously that was a big part of the mueller report. >> right. >> kim, you read this transcript and the question is then is it a
10:27 am
crime? is there enough wiggle room or is it a crime? >> well, the question with respect to impeachment isn't whether it's a crime. it's a political judgment and we now see tremendous number of democrats basically making the decision that this is sufficient for impeachment. the transcript itself, i think we just see a small piece of it. when the president comes out and says everybody thought this would be such a big deal, it's the white house that unilaterally made this public, not the congress that asked for it. so we have to see additional information. there's potential campaign finance violations, that is asking for something of value that could influence a campaign. if it turns out there was more information a information that the president actually dangled the foreign aid basically as a threat, you investigate my opponent or you don't get this money, that would
10:28 am
be extortion potentially. more broadly, we have a situation where we have an unaccountable presidency in this moment. there's a lot this president has done to run through the red lights and the stop signs in our document and o government and our system of laws. if congress doesn't step in to put some halts up, we could move inadvertently into an unaccountable presidency, a presidency that who ever's in that office can do whatever they want and say so what, what are you going to do about it? they're saying i'm not going to comply with the law requiring that we turn this over to the whistleblower. i'm not going to comply with the law that requires that the president east t president's tax returns be turned over to congress. make me. and no one is making them and that creates a problem for the structure of government. it's vital that this oversight
10:29 am
continue. 2020 democrats are already reacting to some of this. cindy mccain says the republican party is no longer the party that she and her husband belonged to. biopharmaceutical researchers. driven each day to pursue life-changing cures... in a country built on fostering innovation. here, they find breakthroughs... like a way to fight cancer by arming a patient's own t-cells... and a new therapy that gives the blind a working gene so they can see again. because it's not just about the next breakthrough... it's all the ones after that.
10:30 am
they give us excellent customer otservice, every time.e. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family... we're the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. get your auto insurance quote today.
10:34 am
a just released transcript of a phone call shows president trump asking ukrainian president zelensky to investigate his former political rival former vice president joe biden. the president repeatedly stresses how much the u.s. does for ukraine. then he says, quote, i would like you to do us a favor. the president asks zelensky to dig up dirt on biden and his son hunter. quote, there's a lot of talk about biden's son, that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. it's important to know there has
10:35 am
been no finding of wrongdoing by biden or his son. biden's efforts to get rid of ukraine's prosecutor general was expected to bring more scrutiny of the company that hunter biden sat on the beaoard of. with us to discuss more, joe lockhart and s.e. cup. the president is saying this is a nothing call. what do you think about that? >> i think parsing is partisan. so to parse this transcript is conceding that there's anything to parse. this was quid pro quo in black and white. you don't even need the transcript, though. let's be really clear. on monday the president himself tied the aid package to ukraine to the biden investigation.
10:36 am
he said, quote, why would you give money to a continue that you think is corrupt? he also said that very same day, i didn't pressure him, but i could have. he doesn't think there's anything wrong with what he did. we know that because he released the transcript. i think he's going to defend it. but let's not pretend that the republicans and those who are defending trump have any leg to stand on parsing this transcript out. it is there in black and white. >> i wonder how voters are going to see this. nancy pelosi is making this calculation that voters are going to understand this. there are some complicated things about all of this. i'm sure in retrospect hunter biden would not have sat on that energy board even though there has been no finding of wrongdoing. do you think people are going to understand this? >> there's two levels to this.
10:37 am
one involves hunter biden and joe biden. what joe biden was doing in 2014 was on behalf of the u.s. and the international community. it was the i.mf what was really pushing to get rid of this prosecutor. they were trying to clean up corruption. they were trying to say we're not going to continue investing in your country if it's corrupt. and the prosecutor was allowing corruption to flourish so they wanted him removed. it's kind of through the looking glass talking points from the president when he talks about you had a very fine prosecutor. well, he had a prosecutor who allowed corruption to flourish and biden just happened to be the point person. this is politics. they'll make their case and the vice president is going to have to defend himself. i think on the broader question this is, i think, much easier for the public to connect to for this reason. this is looking forward. i think people are tired of talking about 2016, some people. there are obviously some
10:38 am
democrats who are not. >> the people they want to sway are tired of it. >> yes. this is about trying to influence the next election, trying to get foreign governments to interfere with this election, trying to do what richard nixon did by trying to help pick his opponent through political dirty tricks. i think the public will understand this. i think that's why you've seen the groundswell of democrats moving towards we have to impeach this guy. >> i think joe's right. it's a complicated story, but what the president did, again, is in black and white and i don't think it's that complicated. and i think if you're concerned about the integrity of our next election, then this has to be deeply worrisome. the fact that he's defending it, essentially saying why wouldn't i have made this request, i think would make a lot of people nervous that he'll continue to do its. we can argue about whether impeachment is politically advantageous to democrats and
10:39 am
that remains to be seen. there are some real political imp klications but to acknowled this was a tipping point and a reasonable time at which to circle the wagons and do this, i think it's the right thing. >> one of the issues that we're seeing with this transcript is voice recognition software was used. so there's this sense of it being a rough transcript. although voice recognition software can be somewhat exact. you were the press secretary in a white house. what should we read by some ellipses? >> the process is there is multiple people in the situation room who work for the nsc and the situation room who listen, to take very detailed notes, then they compare them and try to do a rough transcript. we should actually stop calling it a transcript. it is a summary of the
10:40 am
conversation. i don't expect that any of them would have known the implication of what the president might have been doing there. i think they just were listening. >> would you think this is close to verbatim or would you think -- when you say summary, i think paraphrased, is that fair? >> i think they try to get down the major points as closely as they could without a recording to go and do as stenographers did. i'm not saying there's anyone in the situation room that tried to leave things out. i'm just saying you can't capture the entire conversation with this summary. that's why the whistleblower complaint is so important, because apparently according to news reports this is only one part of an overall pattern. so we'll need to see. but even this, as s.e. was saying, the president has admitted to this. he went one step further. he said he'd do it again. so what choice do we have other
10:41 am
than to think that he'll abuse any power of the presidency to make sure he gets reelected. we haven't seen that since richard nixon. >> thank you so much to both of you. you can watch s.e. and her show this saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern. be sure to tune in. stand by because moments from now the big event. we're going to see president trump face to face with the man at the center of this phone call, the ukrainian president. plus, rudy giuliani says the state department asked him to intervene. but is that right? we'll discuss. re. with more engineers. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns, we're with you. because life can take you almost anywhere, t-mobile is with you. no signal goes farther or is more reliable in keeping you connected.
10:43 am
and you'll experience a whole new range of emotions like... of a travel site the relaxing feeling of knowing you're getting the best price. and the magic power of unlocking your room with your phone. i can read minds too. really? book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. and my side super soft? be firm? with the sleep number 360 smart bed you can both... adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. so, can it help us fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. will it help me keep up with him? yup. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now save up to $500 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. plus 0% interest for 48-months.
10:46 am
washington is reeling right now following the release of a declassified white house memo that details the july conversation between president trump and ukraine's president. in this phone call, trump reminds the ukrainian president zelensky that the u.s. is very, very good to ukraine. trump then asks for a favor. i would like you to do us a favor, that the uniqkrainian president get his government to investigate joe biden. what's your reaction to the
10:47 am
transcript? >> well, i have it right here in my hand. this reveals a total abuse of power by the president of the united states. this is not candidate trump. this is president trump. this is using the power and the prestige of the office of the presidency to persuade a foreign leader to intervene in our elections and investigate a political opponent. that is a total violation of trust. it's an abuse of power. the letter is actually worse than i thought for this reason. the president then says to the ukrainian prime minister, i want you to meet with my personal attorney rudy giuliani and we're going to engage the united states attorney general in this effort. so the president is just expanding the scope of the use of his office and the u.s. government to try to get a foreign lead toer to intervene an election. this should outrage every american regardless of political
10:48 am
party. >> the doj says that the president did not contact barr about this issue and that barr has not been in contact with ukraine about this issue or other issues. what do you think of that? do you believe that? and how does that change if at all what you're reading in this transcript to you? >> i'm just reading what the president said to the prime minister of ukraine who said, i'm going to have my attorney general be in touch with you on this and i want you to meet with my personal attorney rudy giuliani, who has nothing to do with furthering the interests of the united states government or the people of the united states but only is pursuing the president's political agenda and he's essentially saying i'm going to get you together with rudy giuliani and this political agenda and the attorney general of the united states. that's what he is telling the prime minister of the ukraine. that's bad enough. there's also throughout this as you indicated when you read
10:49 am
this, clear sort of quid pro quo implications. we've wondered for a long time why the trump administration hadn't delivered the assistance to the ukraine that we passed on a bipartisan basis. it's very clear that the president was using this as leverage. every time in this letter the prime minister of ukraine wants to talk about defense cooperation or help with his economy, president trump takes it back to investigating his political opponents and intervening in this election. that is just an abuse of power and trust. >> i want to turn to rudy giuliani because he had this interview last night on fox news. he unleashed on a new report that centers around him and his alleged shadow ukraine agenda. he says the state department asked him to intervene and look into this. that doesn't actually appear to be the case. what does all this mean for rudy giuliani? >> you know, i've seen rudy giuliani now within the scope of a week ranting on numerous
10:50 am
networks and cable networks including your own, sounding totally, totally lost and making stuff up as he goes and increasingly desperate and and i don't know what he's talking about with respect to the state department. look, if the state department's involved in this kind of thing, that would suggest that secretary pompeo is also involved in this. i don't see any sort of frontline, you know, foreign service officers or state department folks saying, hey, rudy giuliani, come on over here. we want to send you to the ukraine to investigate this on behalf of the president. that just doesn't add up. so rudy giuliani has clearly, at the center of this, and we need
10:51 am
to remember. rudy giuliani is president trump's personal lawyer. he is the agent of president trump. so if the president tries to throw rudy giuliani -- rudy under the bus going forward as he sometimes does with others he's not going to be able to separate himself from the actions rudy giuliani has taken on the president's behalf, on donald trump's behalf as his personal lawyer. >> all right. senator van hollen, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. just a short time from now the president is holding a news conference and the big moment is this. he and ukraine's president are set to meet. stand by.
10:52 am
10:53 am
who transcribes that? what are missing in the key ellipses in the transcript and shedding light on this process a former situation room officer who managed calls like this under president obama. larry pfeiffer is with us. we have a lot of questions. you've looked at the transcript. i mention there are ellipses in key spots. we know voice recognition software is used and also recollection used by people in the situation room who are putting the transcript together. what can you tell us about what we should read into or not read into these ellipses? >> i personally would not read too much into the ellipses. i'm guessing those are just reflections of a pause in the conversation. perhaps in the initial notations made in a situation room transcript there may have been some inaudible words and they indicated with some notation there were inaudible words and somebody on the nsc staff translated to to ellipses. i'd be very surprised if they
10:54 am
dropped large sections from the phone call given how many people are witnesses to these calls. >> how many people are witnesses? >> normally you would have at least three or four people in the situation room itself. the situation room director, would be in the oval office. in this case the call was from the residence. so there could be the national security adviser. perhaps senior director of europe. other nsc staff could be phoned in to the call listening. it's a small group but it's a group. it's a significant number. >> could those people or have you ever heard of anything like that where they could be subpoenaed? have you ever seen anything like that? >> no pt but we're living in unusual times. i would imagine there would be some serious executive privilege issues at play if they were to happen. >> okay. i want to ask you this. the -- this is a rough transcript. we just had joe lockhart who wishes they didn't use
10:55 am
transcript but describes d as summary. is it a summary? ho would you describe exactly what this is. >> i would describe it as says at the top. memorandum of the phone conversation. an individual on the nsc stach to has taken a transcript provided to them by the situation room probably closest to a verbatim transcripts that exists and massaged the text more often than not to take away ums, ahs and stops and starts make the pros more elegant, but there's a human condition here at play both on the part of the situation room tribe etranscrib the nc is s pers krchlnsc trans. >> thanks for helping make sense of this, larry. appreciate it. >> you're welcome. soon the president is expected to address the call summary alongside ukraine's president and we are going to
10:56 am
10:57 am
when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions. decrease alcohol use. use caution driving or operating machinery. tell your doctor if you've had mental health problems. the most common side effect is nausea. talk to your doctor about chantix.
11:00 am
>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. and we continue on. you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. thanks for being with me on a very busy news day. president trump will soon sit down with ukrainian president zelensky. and the impeachment inquiry over the july 25th phone call between these two men but something happened on the way to the united nations adding month are fuel to the fire. this morning at the president's request the white house released a five-page rough transcript of that call and afterward says there's basically nothing to see here. >> the letter was a great letter. meaning the letter revealing the call that was
135 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on
