he"t lead" with jake tapper starts right now. a key deadline for president trump just minutes away. "the lead" starts right now. will he or won't he? president trump facing a decision on whether the white house will take part in any further impeachment proceedings in the house before house members vote as the white house looked to a senate trial as an escape route. and breaking news. the suspect in today's deadly attack at a naval station in florida now described as a saudi military trainee and the latest on his motive and why he was on the base. plus, heart-wrenching video showing the final moments of a boy's life as he died in a u.s. border patrol cell. why didn't the trump administration initially give the public the full story? welcome to "the lead."

i'm jd. we start with the politics lead. the white house has minutes to decide if officials will participate in any remaining impeachment proceedings before the final vote. president trump facing a 5:00 p.m. east coast deadline set by house democrats and the first indication it will not only be democrats voting to impeach president trump, with former republican now independent congressman justin amash from michigan telling cnn that he is ready to vote for at least three potential articles of impeachment, obstruction of congress, obstruction of justice and abuse of power. right now house democrats are drafting the articles of impeachment and preparing to debate behind the scenes which ones they will include. among the debates, will the mueller report be part of the charges against the president? as cnn's phil mattingly reports, democrats plan to work through the weekend with committee lawyers preparing to lay out their cases in a hearing scheduled for monday. >> reporter: as democrats move full speed ahead on articles of

impeachment, the white house signaling it will play no role in the house impeachment process. less than an hour away from a democratic-imposed deadline on whether president trump's lawyers will participate in the house impeachment process at all, zero signs the answer will be yes. leaving a divided house to move forward in a process that will kick into high gear next week. >> facts are clear. the constitution is clear. the president violated the constitution. >> reporter: with the house judiciary committee set to hold the second impeachment hearing on monday where majority for the intelligence and judiciary committee will present the impeachment reports the first action in what is a defining week for the trump presidency and voting on articles of impeachment by the end of the week, setting up a final floor vote the week of december 16th. the debate over what the articles of impeachment will look like, however, still very much underway.

speaker nancy pelosi, sources say, hearing out all in the caucus on whether to through robert mueller but finding it as an article of obstruction of justice the speaker said the process remains very much closely held. >> we're operating collectively. with all due respect, i'm not going to answer one -- we're not writing the articles of impeachment here tonight. >> reporter: today justin amash of michigan telling cnn he's ready to vote for articles of impeachment but democratic leaders acknowledge some of their members may defect. >> what we do expect to lose some. and that is why i said it is a conscious vote. and it is with their constituents. we have a very diverse caucus. >> reporter: and, jake, it is a front line members of the very diverse caucus, the freshman class from districts president trump won in 2016 that are warning leaders right now they

are not necessarily comfortable with how wide of a scope the impeachment articles my claw. one member telling us today he wasn't even sure he would vote for impeachment at all given the speed and the pace this is all gone. one thing they are saying repeatedly is the leadership needs to understand that there are political repercussions even if they don't believe this is a political effort and there needs to be support and leadership needs to listen so we'll see how it plays out in the week ahead as they move quickly toward the final vote, jake. >> phil mattingly, thank you. let's chew over this. jack jack jackie kucinich, happy birthday by the way. >> thank you. >> there are jobs that could be on the line and they are worried. >> absolutely. and you've heard them both and seen them behind the scenes and out in public raising concern about this. particularly when you bring in the mueller report and all of the baggage therein. there were concerning things in the mueller report for a lot of members of congress and the public. that said, because of the

sustained campaign against it, because of robert mueller's own testimony, it has a lot more complicated messaging than the straightforward ukraine corruption situation that we've seen most recently being investigated. >> so i asked nancy pelosi yesterday at our town hall about her previous quotes where she said if they proceed with impeachment, it needs to be bipartisan saand as of right no it doesn't look bipartisan except for those voting against impeachment. here is what she had to say. >> does this mean you're failing to meet the standard you set in january. >> no. i'm saying republicans have failed to heat the standard of honor their oath of office to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. >> what do you think? >> i think it was wishful thinking for democratic leaders to expect impeachment proceedings against the president to be bipartisan and it is quite clear that republicans in the house have rallied behind the president very much adopted his line of

defense that this is not impeachable and the conduct and decrying the process and just trying to delegitimize but i think when it comes to the scope of the articles of impeachment, the debate that democrats are having is you stick with something very clear-cut with respect to ukraine and the president sought help from a foreign government to investigate his political rival and tried to obstruct the investigation into that conduct or do you establish a pattern where according to the mueller report the trump campaign welcomed assistance from the russians and the president also sought to obstruct that investigation into russian interference and contacts between the trump campaign and moscow. so you could raise the stakes for why this behavior is, in fact, impeachable and not presented as a one off that america moves on without getting at the imlickations for 2020. >> the idea it is urgent and

they include the mueller report because he'll keep enlisting foreign interference. here is the other side from max rose from staten island, new york, talking about his previous comment how he doesn't think mueller should be anywhere near the articles of impeachment. take a listen. >> i was against going through with impeachment. previous to the ukrainian matter. so with the understanding they're not entertaining any hypotheticals i was serious when i came out and said that unlike most of the people in this institution, i won't say something and forget about it. >> well, look, nancy pelosi knows her caulk he -- her caucu well and as they draft the articles of impeachment they will look at the evidence and determine how to lay this out to do what you said, makes a clear-cut case and again i think there is a way to do that brings in elements of the mueller investigation that does establish a pattern and that is relevant because now that we've

established this pattern the president lies and that actually matters. so that is what they'll look to do this weekend and as they look at the evidence and how they want to proceed on monday, they'll have a sense going into next week what the push points will be with certain members who will feel there is too much mueller, that means i can't vote for it or there could be por. so i think that is part of what the process is going to be. >> what do you think? should they include the mueller report and talk about the pattern or just focused on the ukraine scandal. >> mostly focused. i think you can mention the previous stuff to show the pattern but at the end of the day we're not going to impeach on the mueller report. i thought they should have proceeded to hearings so you can't say the mueller report helps it is weaker than ukraine and if you're a prosecutor, i'm not a lawyer, it doesn't help your stronger charge to add a weaker charge. so i would say they should stick on ukraine and mention the pattern and ukraine is impeachable and they have that in spades in my opinion and they have the obstruction in spades,

the obstruction of congress and refusal to deliver documents and this is not a two and a half year investigation about stuff that happened in 2016, this happened in the oval office in the white house with the president directing people to do and not do things to the degree the administration has not cooperated that is obstruction of the ability to impeach. i think they should keep it narrow and i don't think they'll lose many democrats and it is foolish if you are a democrat in the trump district and if you vote -- if the voters are for trump they won't say i'm going to send a democrat back to the house. at the end of the day the districts will go depending on the national verdict on trump and they're better off sucking it up and voting the way they think is right. >> brad parscale is out there tweeting polling information which you can rely on it or not. this is from a partisan firm indicating this house member,

you're in trouble and this house member. >> it is a scare tactic. it said 45%. i thought 45% is good. in oklahoma. if i'm a democrat -- that is good. >> trump plus 14 district and there is only plus seven against impeachment so there are more -- some think he should be impeached in that district. >> i think it is different at the local level than the national polls. one person i'm working with raised is $00,000 against her republican opponent on this so it is playing different on the ground. sorry birthday girl. we have more. stick around. we'll get to more. the new figures could have a bigger impact on president trump's reelection and impeachment and then call it a new phase in the joe biden campaign, the former vp on the attack and hoping an old friend's luck rubs off.

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in the politics lead, with the white house just minutes away from a deadline to say whether or not anyone from the white house will take part in the remaining impeachment proceedings before the big vote, the trump administration says, i see your impeachment push and i raise you 266,000 jobs. that is right. a surging jobs report brought the unemployment rate back down to the lowest number since the 1960s and republican focus on that. and as cnn's kaitlan collins reports, it is giving president trump a boost today. >> reporter: as house democrats wait to hear whether he'll participate in the impeachment proceedings, president trump gave no hib-- no hint in front

the cameras today. >> we're extremely bullish. we've been upbeat all along. we know the president has done nothing wrong. >> reporter: despite that optimism, the white house is facing scrutiny in wake of a report from house democrats that revealed there were extensive communications between rudy giuliani and still unidentified officials. asked why giuliani travelled to ukraine given the scrutiny, the white house offered no explanation. >> that is a question between rudy and the president. >> reporter: but confirmed giuliani still works for trump. >> to my knowledge, yes. >> reporter: the president touting the blockbuster jobs report today. >> the market is up 325 points today on great job numbers. the numbers have been phenomenal. >> reporter: and claiming the economy would be even better with less problems on the southern border if not for the democrats', quote, horror show. the u.s. added more than 250,000 jobs in november. and the unemployment rate fell

to half a century low. a big boost for a president who has recently fueled trade tensions. trump's top economic adviser claims the impeachment drama isn't affecting his ability to negotiate a trade deal with china. >> there may be an impeachment vote and there will be no conviction and my view. and i think the chinese know that and a lot of people who know that. >> reporter: but the president sent the dow tumbling after a major campaign promise could be pushed to more than a year from now. >> in some ways, i like the idea of waiting until after the election for the china deal but they want to make a deal now and we'll see whether or not the deal will be right. it has to be right. >> reporter: now, jake, there is another set of tariffs expected to go on $156 billion in goods on december 15th and right now some people say there could be another delay in the tariffs as they are trying to work out the negotiations of the deal but

judging by the president's pessimistic comments and the way the negotiations have gone in the past, it is anyone's guess right now. >> kaitlan collins, thank you. jackie, let me start with you. should the white house participate in the house hearings? what do they have to lose? >> i feel like that is the debate, right. because they could, by participating in the house hearings in particular. >> it could be seen they are validating it. >> do you believe that? do you think it has any more legitimacy than if they just take their ball and go home? >> it is hard to say, right. because this is white house. they could spin it however they wanted to if they walked in the room and said we feed to defend ourselves. right now they're reliant on the members of congratulations on the panel some are very vocal, jim jordan one of them to do the work for them. would it benefit them to get their part out there? sure. you would think so. >> it won't.

it wouldn't. >> but depending on who they sent. because messaging isn't there -- >> but look their strategy which i don't like as an american and i think it is terrible for the country is to take the ball and go home. this is illegitimate. and ukraine was meddling and trump cares so much about corruption and we're sticking to that story. they don't want to debate any facts or actually have a debate about what trump said on the phone call. >> but they change the story all of the time. >> it doesn't matter. from their point of view, they don't want to have a normal argument about who did what, when and where and what did trump say to sondland and what did -- did happen with the ambassador. they want the alternate reality. and look, it worked, the republicans, many of them i know and personally talked to who i thought might defect, almost all of them have come home. nikki haley out there in new york is defending trump more than six or eight weeks ago so in their narrow point of view of holding the base and

intimidating republicans is working better than engaging. >> it is disgusting. when i was in the clinton administration, there was no question, you will cooperate, period, end of sentence. whether you have to get a lawyer and i had to take out a loan -- and there was no question. and there was the nature and how and what have you. but the idea that you would just as the president of the united states of america say, we're just not going to participate. that in and of itself is obstructive and should be called out for it. >> i agree. >> it is working politically for them. >> with their base. but i do think for a lot of moderates -- >> sabrina. >> they are thinking inside of the white house they should wait it out until the senate trial where they will be before a friendlier audience. >> let me interrupt and stay with you. but the director told them want to put on the full defense at senate trial including calling

witnesses such as the whistle-blower who is anonymous and hunter biden and joe biden and chairman schiff, speaker pelosi, john cornyn warned this could lead to a three-ring circus. that is what they're talking about doing. >> and that is causing discomfort among senate republicans based on conversations i've had with saids on capitol hill. they don't want it turned into a side show where they are now investigating the bidens and also trying to out the whistle-blower. some of the president's most ardent supporters are behind that strategy. but a lot of senate republicans want to be seen as taking this this process seriously. the debate over there is more about the length of the trial. they don't want to just come and dismiss it within a couple of days but don't want it to drag on and become and remain the national story before the american public. they're debating maybe having a two-week trial and not really letting the white house drive who gets to come forward and who gets to testify. but it is going to be

challenging because there is a lot of pressure from the white house on the republicans not just to hold the line but also to come out with a full-throated defense of the president. the question, of course, is whether that will backfire. >> stick around. we have mock -- we are more to talk about. we're going to look at rudy giuliani's ukraine trip he just ended. is he breaking the law? that's next. mike bloomberg's never been afraid of tough fights,

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in today's world lead, another episode of where in the world is rudy giuliani? president trump's personal attorney confirmed to cnn that today he's no longer in ukraine as he was earlier in the week. even house republicans who support president trump have expressed concern over giuliani's presence there as he tweeted about how he's trying to dig up dirt on joe biden in ukraine, the exact issue that led to his client president trump at the brink of impeachment. i want to bring in preet bharara from the southern district of new york and let go from that position by president trump. giuliani, too, once served as u.s. attorney in that office. >> he did. >> preet, today jackie speier who sits on the house intelligence committee said that giuliani's actions overseas could be illegal. take a listen.

>> i think rudy giuliani is potentially breaking the law and has been for a period of months if not years. if for no other reason that he has not filed under the foreign agents registration act. >> do you think that is true? >> yeah, i'm not prepared to say that he is or is not breaking the law but what he is doing is increasing jeopardy for himself and also making it harder for the president to put forth his arguments. the tweets and all of the statement he's making on the way of ukraine and from ukraine as you pointed out he's making the point that everything that donald trump cared about and the references to corruption that donald trump said is the reason why broadly speaking he wanted there to be an investigation with respect to ukraine, it was all related to joe biden and hunter biden and making it clearer than ever before out of the mouth of the lawyer's president himself that corruption was synonymous with investigation of joe and hunter biden and that undercuts one of the most broad sweeping and

significant defenses of the president. so he's making trouble for himself certainly. but also making trump for the president. >> the president's spoke thinks giuliani is still the president's personal attorney. we know giuliani is under federal criminal investigation according to sources familiar with the matter and a federal subpoena. are you surprised given all of this and impeachment that the president has not yet cut ties with giuliani? >> i mean, if you ask me this a couple of years ago before i saw the revolving door of lawyers that trump tries to get and failed in getting and then let go, i might have been surprised. but it is sort of of par for the course. the president needs two kinds of lawyers in his own mind and to one extent maybe he only needs one kind. the kind that he does need is quiet behind the scenes lawyers doing their job like giving testimony to the mueller folks and their sharp and oagile

lawyers in their prime and what trump wants to have and want and trouble letting go are boisterous bellitherent talks, but he comes on your show and i followed him on your show and other shows and he throws up so much dust and talks about so many different facts that are not on point and pushes back in a very tough way and sounds very angry about everything that happened to donald trump. that is a show tv lawyer and maybe that is the reason why donald trump doesn't let him go. but every reasonable person if they still exist around the president and have common says that rudy giuliani should be cut. >> michael cohen used to do that for the president as well as i recall. >> yes, he did. >> he doesn't do much any more. we know giuliani met with shady krar -- characters in ukrainian promoting debunked conspiracy theories about ukraine and the bidens and about south rich.

what is he doing there? >> i don't know. it seems that he's doubling down on a theory that people have debunked. number one, it claimed that trump wants an investigation into whether ukraine was involved in the interference of the 2016 election and we understand based on the intelligence and other committees have said is a storyline that russia wants to promote to frame ukraine and maybe giuliani is trying in a last-ditch effort to put meat on the bones. and we have chairmans and ranking members saying there is no evidence over hearing after hearing and briefing after briefing that it is not relevant and so maybe that is what he's doing. >> the senate intelligence committee led by richard burr interviewed alexander chalupa

and interviewed shawn henry the head of crowdstrike and looked into this and they didn't find anything. preet bharara, thank you for your time. >> thank you. a deadly mass shooting at a florida military base putting an ally in the spotlight. we're going live to the scene with new deails next. stay with us. thank you to everyone we rely on to get us home to the ones we love. ♪

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>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we have breaking news in our politics lead. white house counsel pat sip loan broke out his sharpie and moments ago responded to the house democrats and the hearing deadline they imposed saying the white house will not send officials to participate in any impeachment proceedings before

the full house vote. kaitlan collins is live for us at the white house and bringing us the story. kaitlan, what reason is the white house giving. >> reporter: it is a brief letter. about two paragraphs and sent about 24 minutes before the deadline. i'm going to read you in full from pat sip loan the white house counsel to jerry nadler the chair of the house judiciary committee. and he begins as you know your impeachment inquiry is baseless and violated basis principles of due process and fundamental fairness nevertheless the speaker of the house ordered house democrats to proceed with articles of impeachment before your committee has heard a single shred of evidence. he continues, how democrats have wasted enough of america's time with this charade. you would end this inquiry now and not waste any more additional time with hearings. adopting articles of impeachment is reckless abuse of power and constitute the most unjust and highly partisan and unconstitutional attempt at impeachment in our nation's history.

he said whatever course you choose as the president has recently stated, this is what the president tweeted yesterday, jake, if you're going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we could have a fair trial in the senate and so our country could get back to business. that is the white house council telling house democrats they will not participate in the hearing they are hosting on monday or any other hearing they are going to have if they schedule any more and essentially saying they continue to believe this is an unfair process and what we've heard from behind the scenes as we were expecting the response, no surprise from the house as to whether or not they would participate. but one interesting thing we heard white house officials continue to point to today was the announcement from speaker pelosi yesterday saying she recommended they move forward with the articles of impeachment because their argument was before we even answered whether or not we would participate so if we had said yes, they are still going to move forward regardless of whether or not we're participating in this phase of the impeachment proceedings so their question was what difference does it make if they do send someone.

>> kaitlan collins, thanks so much. let's talk about this. that is kind of disingenuous. they haven't cooperated with anything. i get that this gives them a good talking point, writing the articles before responding and before the hearing on monday but they weren't going to participate. >> no. and they don't want engage. we talked about this. they don't want to deal with the facts. it is appalling and republicans still barely -- the idea that the republican party has gone along with this and no republican will stand up and say look make your case, white house, and explain why fiona hill is wrong playing into russian's hands and explain why ambassador sondland didn't understand something or that didn't result in great damage to the country and those would be arguments based on a common set of of uncontested facts. what single fact in anyone's testimony does the white house now contest? what did fiona hill or vindman

or sondland said and what did bill taylor said was wrong. that is not the argument. it is just they've created an if alternate reality. and rudy giuliani is away and the white house strategy carried to thenth extreme. >> and this is what jackie was alosing to. the white house has spent two months decrying this process seeking to cast it as illegitimate despite that not being the case so there was no reason to believe they would come and sit before the house judiciary committee to play ball and especially to the outset to bill's point they haven't engaged on substance because it doesn't look good for the president so they've made this a process driven argument to try to present the inquiry as politically motivated and that is the message to the base and perhaps to independents if they think that impeachment is not

swaying independents in favor of democrats. but also there is another point here. the white house has not cooperated as you pointed out, they've withheld key documents and sought to block key witnesses from testifying before these house committees and so if they were to appear themselves and the obvious follow-up question is why won't you hand over the documents or let the other witnesses testify who have access to information that fills in some of the blanks from what we've heard in the hearings thus far. >> and we've seen the president wanted republicans to do at the on set which is make arguments on the merits, make arguments on the facts and that has gone out of the window because if you can't argue on the facts as you rightly pointed out, you attack the process. you see that in the letter. you mirror the language, abuse of power and i know you are but what am i and i think we'll continue to hear that until the senate does whatever the senate ends up doing.

>> and you worked at clinton white house during impeachment -- >> yeah. >> -- and he didn't cooperate with everything and didn't tell the truth about everything, but you guys -- you don't have to say it. i just did. but the white house generally felt compelled to turn ore documents and to over witnesses. >> absolutely. and to take the process seriously. as bill was saying, whether you like it or not, or agree with it or not, this letter is just another abomination in not taking it seriously, in just rejecting the premise that congress has any authority to hold the executive branch accountable and that has been the president's stance frankly from day one that i'm the president so anything i do can't possibly be illegal. we've heard him say that a few times. and in addition to undermining not just the process, but the people. they don't want to have to account for some of the things they've said about vindman and sondland who maybe deserves it, but fiona hill, so i'm just

baffled. i continue to be just baffled. >> sabrina, one thing i thought was interesting, we talk about what facts the white house has to deal with and you talked about that, jackie, and they don't have a lot of facts to discuss. sometimes what they do, for instance the last time the white house publicly did something is when acting chief of staff mick mulvaney came out and basically admitted -- not basically, but admitted a quid pro quo and said that the military aid was being held up in part because they wanted to force ukraine to do this investigation about ukraine itself. now what they tried to do is try to change the facts. they do this -- hide the card thing where what president trump wanted in terms of the investigation and ukraine was this debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine hacked into the dnc server and crowdstrike took the server to ukraine. it is insane. it is nuts. president trump's own advisers called it debunked. but what mick mulvaney claimed was it was the investigation into the origins of the russia probe that that u.s. attorney,

former u.s. attorney john durham is doing which is legitimate probe that is going on right now, we'll find out more about that next week or the week after but tried to pretend that is what the president was asking about and very clearly it wasn't and they have to change the facts. >> and that is counter to what the president himself said. everyone read the summary of the july phone call in which the president -- president himself said he wanted assistance in terms of debunking the russia investigation and digging up dirt on the bidens and he offered the assance -- the assistance of his justice department to do so and now we've had former and current administration officials career diplomats testify about what is a months-long ongoing pressure campaign against the ukrainians which involved with holding military aid and a white house meeting and they can't do anything to change the facts and that is why they don't want to go and try to dispute the facts because what you see them do is try to move the goalpost once again and say that mick mulvaney

said that there was a quid pro quo but everybody does it. >> rudy is mentioned in the phone call and the president brings him up and as rudy said this week, i'm the president's lawyer. he's over there on behalf of the president trying to create -- dig up dirt or invent dirt really with a bunch of mobsters and disreputable russian agents. >> stick around. we're going to change subjects. forget the softer side of joe biden. the campaign adopting an aggressive approach with fewer than months before the first vote is cast. stay with us. energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. matched by no one. this is a jimmy john's sandwich, made with all-natural meats, hand-sliced veggies, and fresh-baked bread. and this is the new little john, available for only $3. they're almost identical. almost. ♪

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the 2020 lead. former vice president joe biden capping off a big week in the race after calling one disapproving voter a, quote, damn liar and stayed out of the fray as two went after each other and now touting an endorsement from former senator and secretary of state john kerry who campaigned with biden today in iowa. a state that kerry won in 2004 and where we find jessica dean. >> how does it feel to have your friend with you. >> it feels great to have my friend with me. >> two old friends together again as john kerry joins former vice president joe biden on the campaign trail. >> i am endorsing joe biden. not because i've known him so long, but because i have known him so well. >> reporter: in addition to kerry bolstering biden's

experience argument, the biden campaign hopes to capture the former democratic nominees come from behind magic that led to the victory in the iowa caucus. >> winner of the iowa caucus, which helps. you all know him like i do. that sounds pretty good to me. >> reporter: kerry's presence is one piece of the biden campaign's more aggressive approach to iowa this week. in the last seven days he's had events in mostly rural area. >> i need your help. thank you. >> reporter: and taking swipes at rivals questioning voter enthusiasm for senator elizabeth warren and telling reporters mayor pete buttigieg stole his health care plan. biden also engaging in a heated back and forth with an iowa voter who said the former vice president was too old and accused him of sending his son to go work for a ukrainian gas company. >> you're a damn liar man. that's not true. >> reporter: meantime his

campaign launched a scathing video targeting president trump saying the world is laughing at him. >> several world leaders mocking president trump. >> they're laughing at him. >> reporter: and even as biden makes the case the democratic party isn't as far left as progressive new york congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, telling axios -- >> she's a bright wonderful person but where is the party. come on, man. >> reporter: as super-pac cut an ad painting him as a long time progressive highlighting his support of issues like same-sex marriage. >> the right to marry who you choose and live free of violence and fear. these are basic fundamental universal human rights. >> reporter: there is a group of voters here in iowa who say beating donald trump is the top priority but don't support joe biden and those are voters that the bide campaign sees as persuadable. the tour and message has been

directed right at them. >> jessica dean traveling with the no malarkey bus tour. breaking news. new details about the shooter behind today's deadly mass shooting at a florida military base. stay with us.

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in florida where he was doing aviation training. natasha chen is live in pensacola. what are we learning about the shooter? >> reporter: well, jake, a couple of law enforcement sources are telling cnn that the shooter has been identified as saudi national mohamed al sham ranee a member of the military training here in pensacola as part of partnership with the united states. captain tim cancela explained that he was part of an aviation pipeline but would not elaborate into how far along in the training process the person had gone. he is one of a couple of hundred foreign nationals training here in pensacola in a program that the captain said goes back decades back to world war ii and stated it is important for the u.s. and foreign allies and partners to cross pollinate and train together. president trump shaz spoken with the king of saudi arabia who

offered his condolences and ordered security services to cooperate with american investigators in this case. so right now it is still very early in the investigation. the local sheriff saying because of the nature of what is going on here involving a saudi national that we may get more limited information than we would expect. >> and the investigation is now being handled by the fbi. now local law enforcement any longer. what might that mean. >> reporter: that's right. the fbi is handling what is a global investigation and those agents stationed full time in riyadh are now with the saudi government to look into the background of this shooter. they're trying to determine the motivation here, whether it might be terror related but again it is still very early on to determine what that might be. >> natasha chen in pensacola. thank you. tune into state union this sunday. jerry nadler will join us as

well as republican congressman mark meadows, one of the president's biggest defenders. that is at 9:00 a.m. and noon eastern on sunday. follow me on facebook and twitter and instagram at "the lead." our coverage continues right now. have a great weekend. this is cnn breaking news. >> i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." we're following breaking news. the white house has just informed the house judiciary committee it will not participate in further house impeachment proceedings calling them, and i'm quoting from the letter right now, completely baseless and a reckless abuse of power. white house lawyer pat sip loney says impeach me now so we could have a fair trial in the senate as democrats on the judiciary committee plan to spend the weekend preparing for next week's hearing and that starts on