walked that tight rope too well. thank you for bringing some explanations for what we're doing here. we will continue to debrief this whistleblower report. // we get right to the breaking news stunning washington. >> today for the first time ever, the congress and america has now processed and heard what exactly has just upended american politics in government as we know it. the whistleblower complain about president trump's plot and call with the president of ukraine. this is damning stuff. it lays out in detail allegations that the president abused his power for his own personal gain in re-election, pressing a foreign government in ukraine to go after his domestic rivals. joan and his family. i have received information from multiple u.s. government

officials. the president is using his power of office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 u.s. election. what you're seeing here for the first time in public is the complaint that has upended everything and the white house. and then trump's own officials deemed credible. then to the cover-up. quote i learned from multiple u.s. senior white house officials that intervened to lock down all records of the phone call. specially official word for word trans crip. all of this coming as the acting dni official testified and faced a whole range of questions before the house today. the president also adding to the fire tonight, making chilling comments. this was in private but now obtained by the "l.a. times" about the whistleblower and the officials who talked to the whistleblower. >> who is the person who gave whistleblower the information?

because that's close to a spy. in the old days. spies. we used to handle it a little differently than we do now. >> we have a lot of reporting and experts. we'll be joined by one of the highest ranking democrats in congress. i begin now with vince warren, executive director on these questions. conservative bill kristol who directs group and the former federal prosecutor and legal analyst. vince, i begin with you is this whistleblower complaint deemed credible, the type that adds to the constitutional case for impeachment in your view? >> i think it certainly does. almost all the elements there. the initial crime. the misconduct of having the henchman. connecting them to the

information where the money is stopped. this is the ask and the demand that you need to do something about this. that was all laid out. and i think what is also very important was that this information was put on lockdown. clearly somebody knew within the white house that the information there was not just a lovely phone call. there are real problems there. that lockdown i think will be really key in terms of the upcoming investigations. >> it's all very straightforward, bill. and what we have here explains why the white house released such damning evidence in the ukraine notes. everybody saw that and that, why would you tell on yourself like that? part of the answer is the constitutional congressional and legal pressure is so great. this is even worse than what america saw last night. your view? >> considering impeachment, it is a very discreet set of events

that you can really discover i think a lot of the facts about. you can get the documents you need to get. you can get the witnesses you need to get. you have to take the position if you're the house judiciary committee that you won't let yourself be stone walled. if the white house instructs witnesses not to testify, that itself would be an obstruction. i think in a month we could know a ton about what has happen. for me the tell is the republicans on the hill who have been, to me, we discussed this before. a huge disappointment and not exactly profiles in courage. i would not say they're profiles in courage today. they did not say nothing to it. ridiculous. they're saying we haven't had time to read the whistleblower complain yet. we can laugh a little at that but that implies if you read it, and there is stuff in it, you will take it seriously. chairman burr of the senate intelligence committee just said apparently that he had useful meetings 28 the director of national intelligence and tirks

g. the national intelligence inspector general. he put out a statement that doesn't make sense unless you think he thinks there's something serious there. >> no one can say this is just nonsense. >> let me to go bill on that before we go to you on the law again. you're talking about how congress looks at its duties. and we have gone in a shift. what has really changed? as we've been reporting on the facts, one thing that has changed is 80 more people in the house back impeachment. which creates a majority. another thing months in the making, the president went from no collusion to if there is collusion it's not a crime, to now, pro collusion. how does that change things in washington? how many people in the senate want to co-sign that? >> and the senators realize now, i just talked to a couple republican senators this weekend. they may have to vote on this. it is one if i know if there are charges.

you're not a profile in courage. you don't stand up and say hey, this is inappropriate. hey. i want a hearing on this. you just keep quiet. if the house votes on articles of impeachment, the senators have to either let it go. decide this action by the president, that you're describing, is lawful. no problem at all. or they have to vote yes. i think the republican senators have suddenly gotten much more serious. the house members less so because they can complain and the democrats can report out an particle. i would say the house intelligence committee, it's been partisan at times over the last couple years, especially devin nunes. if you look down at the list of republican members, i has four or five who are serious people and will try to do the right thing and i think that xhoe has more of a chance of agreeing in some degree in a bipartisan way. we can't just dismiss this. let's look at the documents. >> the other difference that you're alluding to come in the nature of this as americans refresh on why we have impeachment work the way we do.

whether they get there or not. house members are up every two years. senators are not. as you refer to it, these are people who might not be up in this cycle but up four years later. the founders didn't get everything right but shout out to some of the founders. a longer term pend yency for your senate seat allows you to think four or five years ahead. if you don't think you like where donald trump is going. you think your own seat might be looking different in four years. >> let me come back to you. i have to moderate. you're here. i'll come back to you. you know, this is what he does. you can tell that -- you can tell what he is at heart. a political person. i will come back to you but i want to bring you in on the law. i'm going on road to you one passage on this new complain. the president pressed mr. zelensky to initiate an investigation into the activities of biden. if the president orders a

domestic attorney general prosecutor to do that, is that even legal? >> no. there's a clear delineation of the official channels. the u.s. goes to foreign governments for assistance in our domestic investigations of there are official channels to do that. there are treaties. ways that are established for doing that. they are not done with a wink and a nod or a phone call like this. if the president was to call the u.s. attorney in a given state and said, hey, i have this guy. he happens to be running for president against me. could you look into him and bring some charges? that would be equally as inappropriate. >> that was worth going to. that was much better than anything i would have said. my only point is this. when there was the mueller investigation, it allowed members of the house and the senate to avoid that. the special counsel will look into it. let's hear what he has to say. in a funny way, the disappearance of the mueller investigation has forced the house to be serious about this. >> so interesting. our viewers have heard about

this. our viewers know and we've followed this closely for a long time of wait for mueller. wait for mueller. he details all this stuff and sudden lay bunch of members said, we need whatever. you're saying they can't do it this time? >> the president did whatever did he with the inspector in ukraine. teeth house will hold him accountable or not. no one else will. it won't get to the courts in a timely fashion. either the house of representatives says this is unacceptable of we cannot be inviting foreign interference in our elections from the oval office in real-time with letting it go. we can let it go for the next year. he'll keep on doing it. the house has to choose yay or nay. the house cannot say, very interesting of i look forward to reading the report in six months. >> all of you stay. i want to bring in a little more facts for your analysis on this when we get into, what did we learn today? we mentioned senior white house officials had intervened. take a look. they locked down, according to the whistleblower, the records of the call.

and this all happened more than once. quote. this was not the first time under the trump administration a presidential transcript was placed into a code word level system for the purpose of protecting these politically sensitive, rather than national security sensitive information. the outlines of a cover-up. take a listen to speaker pelosi. >> the complaint reports a, quote, repeated abuse of an electronic records system designed to store classified sensitive national security information. which the white house used to hide information of a political nature. this is a cover-up. >> and the complaint goes on to say. the president's personal lawyer, rudolph giuliani is a central figure in the effort. attorney general barr appears to be involved as well. that a meeting would depend on whether he showed willingness to play ball on this plot on the

issues aired by rudolph giuliani himself. here is the acting dni chief today about something very important. should you believe the motivations of this whistleblower? take a listen. >> you don't believe the whistleblower is a political hack, do you, director? >> i believe as i said before, mr. chairman, i believe the whistleblower is operating in good faith. >> as promised, we bring in congressman hakeem jeffries and the fifth rang ranking member of the house. good evening to you on a busy night. thank you for being here. i'll be judicious with your time. what changed today in your view? >> well, the release of the whistleblower complaint just confirmed the troubling nature of the allegations that had been unfolding over the last few days. it is clear as day that donald trump betrayed his oath of office. betrayed the american people. and has engaged in serious acts of wrongdoing. the very act of pressuring a foreign government to target an

american citizen for political gain is in and of itself outrageous. now it appears that the white house has engaged in a cover-up, understanding the nature of the behavior and trying on hide it both from congress and the american people. >> let's dig into that, sir. the cover-up as igd alleged incd a bunch of people we'll put up here from the president to rudolph giuliani to other officials less known but still have important jobs. the ambassador. the former ambassador to ukraine. people at the state department. how many of these people do you think the congress should subpoena to hear from? >> well, that's a matter for chairman adam schiff. we have great confidence in what they'll do in terms of uncovering the truth for the american people. they'll apply the law. they'll be guided by the united states constitution.

this is an issue of the integrity of our elections. this is about participate at this. . you have to get to the bottom of it all. >> i hear you deferring to congressman schiff. he has clearly handled this in a manner that has worked in the sex of interbranch conflict in short order. he combined with i guess the colleagues and some would, a to you pressure in the senate as well. have pried out of the administration these important, and many would argue incriminating materials. as you know, there are reports the speaker is going to to direct things a little away from the judiciary committee in which you serve and toward the intelligence committee. do you think that's right? do you think if there are articles of impeachment, they will focus solely on this ukraine issue? >> that remains to be seen. we'll keep the focus on the scandal. the speaker has made clear and she's provided tremendous leadership over the last few days as she has throughout her entire career, we are operating

under an impeachment umbrella with six committees of jurisdiction. because of the nature, the urgent nature of the ukraine scandal, the lead in terms of investigative fact-finding will be the intel committee. but at the end of the process. >> and you're part of the speaker's leadership. have you talked to chairmanned in a lett, chairman nadler on t? >> we all understand that the intelligence committee is taking a step forward. but at the end of the process, the intel committee and the other committees of jurisdiction including the oversight committee and the financial services committee will make recommendations to the judiciary committee as to how to proceed. >> let's get into that. >> we're talking about the whole enchilada here. you're saying the way it would work, this is confirmed that intel is taking the lead. whatever they find here, they then send ultimately to chairman

nadler. if you decide to move forward on articles of impeachment, they go from intel to judiciary to the house floor? >> yes. that would be regular order and that's consistent with the fact the intel committee has jurisdiction over this issue that involves a conversation between president and a foreign leader as well as the attempted use of taxpayer dollars, in terms of the hundreds of millions of dollars that had been allocated by the congress to ukraine and withheld. this is a country that is under attack from russia at this very moment. the president clearly wanted to use that aid in a sensitive position that ukraine was in in order to extract an investigation targeting joe biden and the biden family for political gain. that all falls within the jurisdiction of the intel committee and that's why the intel committee will be taking the lead. because of this subject matter. >> understood and all very interesting including you telling us a little about the meetings and the trgss. i have a tougher question for

you, sir. a lot of people are impressed with what you and the speaker and chairman schiff are doing this week. and you just hated out the urgent national security case. and yet the house is going to then go on recess tomorrow. do you really think that is consistent with the claim that this is a national security emergency? is that a good idea? should you and the speaker rethink that? and stay at work on all this? >> i think two things will happen. one, it is important given the solemn and serious nature of what we have to do given the impeachment inquiry. everybody should have an opportunity to go back home and talk to their constituents on the ground, in american, in an intimate way to communicate the approach that we've taken. at the same time, the intel committee is going to proceed with hearings and investigative matters over that recess to continue to uncover the truth, to follow the facts, to present the evidence to the american people. >> you don't think you'll lose, shall we call it, momentum here?

>> the intel committee is going full steam ahead. and i think that will be most important. at the same time, we'll be communicating in our districts to the american people why this is so important. why this is a national security concern. why we have taken this important step forward. >> congressman jeffries, always appreciate you taking the questions, sir. >> thank you very much, ari. >> i want to turn briefly to the panel here. rapid one or two sentences. anything you thought based on what he said and where they're headed? >> yeah. i think the importance of being laser focused in this inquiry cannot be overstated. you could potentially call 100 witnesses to try to shed light on all the events here. and i don't think they have the benefit of that time. >> i don't think they can call, they can call on a dozen who would know a lot. dan coats and mike pompeo. >> but leave ukraine out of this. >>? yes. she might tell congress to go back to work. the second thing most importantly is the one of the key reasons why this is

different than the mueller is that we have a live document. and we haven't even seen the unredacted transcript. this is something the committees and the american people can look at and see. no matter what the spin is, no matter how it plays out, if the government comes forward and says yes, we'll turn over the information. everybody will see and judge it. if they say, they allow for privilege, it will raise an inference that there is something to hide here. either way, it's a much more powerful sub matter. >> experts, all of you. thank you for your unique perspectives on this. we have so much on the republican response to the whistleblower complaint and what it means. a deeper dive into the cover-up and what legal exposure might face these trump aides. also, revelations about how officials inside the government secretly ringing the alarm bells about this. you're watching "the beat." i get it all the time."the. "have you lost weight?" of course i have-

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our continuing coverage of the explosive news. the whistleblower at the highest level, detailing what they call a pattern of behavior. of abuse of office by both donald trump and a bunch of other top officials witnessing him, encourage foreign collusion in the next election in 2020.

today, grilling about all of this. the republicans were focused on another issue all together. take a look. >> the latest information warfare operation against the president, and their extraordinary ability to once again enlist the main stream media in their campaign. >> many innocent americans will turn on their tv and the media will only show that section of what the chairman had to say much like the steele dossier, the allegations in the whistleblower's complaints are based on third hand main stream media sources. >> congratulations for surviving legal word challenge charade today. >> some of that is true. there are secondhand sources in here and some of that is not true because we have the call notes. that confirm part of the complaint.

>> let's turn over every rock. >> would i have approached it that way? clearly not. >> clearly what we're seeing is deeply troubling. >> republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons and say there's no there, there. the administration ought not be attacking the whistleblower as some talking points suggested they plan to do. >> there's 92 wants within the republican leadership but also many top republicans flat out denying any wrongdoing in what is a blinking red collusion plot. >> i don't mind the president bringing up the idea, maybe the guy was fired because of a conflict of interest. >> how is it not inappropriate the president asked the president of another country to look into a political rival who is running for election -- >> i don't know what you looked

at. i think it is very appropriate for the president of the united states to suggest you have a corruption problem. >> you're talking about impeaching a sitting president that they have no crime for. >> at this stage no one knows whether this probe had lead to any charges or convictions. impeachment is a congressional decision. it does not require the trigger of a crime. these new documents show the trump officials have been involved in things that as our experts have been saying, could raise criminal exposure. we have a legal expert as well as a republican insider to get into it. when we're back in 30 seconds. (c playing throughout)

the calls are coming from inside the house. in the white house and the administration. a trump insider has now fooled the push. 223 members of the house democratic congress now backing impeachment. trump's inner circle could be ensnared. we go to our panelists as mentioned. i have john flannery and insider mike murphy. he has advised bush, romney and mccain. good to see you. i haven't seen you in a minute. i would not what you think the right conservative position is here. >> the president is unfit. he's clearly abused his office and broken his oath. and i think an impeachment investigation is totally

appropriate. now, i can say that because i'm a conservative and that's what i believe but i'm not on the ballot. so i don't wake up in the middle of the night worried about republican primary voters. which has been the gag in a lot of the republican politicians' mouths. privately if you talk to republicans about what they really believe, there is tremendous frustration with the president. both over what he has done and also, over the tough political situation they're being put in here. >> do you think that republicans on the hill who think basically his endorsement of a type of collusion for 2020 could hurt them? mike? >> oh, yeah. i think particularly in the senate side, most of these house guys are in safe districts where a guy of cement will win if it has a deal in it. over on the senate side, there is a lot of concern. there is some dead enders who will be with trump until the end of time. i would say several dozen

members are quite concerned about where this will go. that's the thing about impeachment. should it happen with legitimacy and facts hinged it. which is how it looks now. we're going on learn more. it looks pretty bad and pretty legit. then the senators can answer the trump questions with with an essay question. i don't like the tweets but i like the judges. they have to vote and go hole. it is a mark to market moment for they will and of course they're extremely uncomfortable with it. >> john, we started with the white house fighting tooth and nail to keep all of this out of public view. we're not at the end of the week yet and a bunch is in public view. the notes showed donald trump asking for collusion help in a call. the whistleblower complain is much broader. it has multiple points in time, action and people. do you see a conspiracy theory there? >> it's sort of like, i don't know. witch caught, hunt over?

>> got it. >> you heard rudolph giuliani say things like, it's full of hearsay. the hearsay that's critical are the words out of the president's mouth admitting to doing the act. previously, in the comey firing, he couldn't prevent himself from saying that i wanted to fire him to stop the investigation. we always have him as the worst witness against himself. combined with giuliani's statements, it is a powerful indictment of obstruction. we'll hide the telephone conversation. then its obstruction of the report to congress. yothds the director of national intelligence did so well. i thought today we saw him trying to shift. he on the one hand had conversations with the white house he should not have had. then barr has been imme indicated. >> we're going to leave this on the screen. some of the people that donald

trump himself implicated. everybody remembers when he said ask michael cohen and he ended up in jail. what is the significance of the lawyers, giuliani and the lawyer for the united states? attorney general barr? >> in the case of lawyergate, there were lawyers on two sides. the straight investigators and the ones who were the defendants. and i think rudy has been bidding to be in the latter category for some time. it appears we'll be wanting to see what durham, the u.s., the former u.s. attorney has been doing going over to europe. as an arm of the attorney general barr who says, you know, i haven't had anything to do with this. well, that's not true. he announced this investigation into the investigation which apparently is the very sub matter of the conversation. >> and he did that. i appreciate you reminding us. he did it and we're coming off a couple weeks where the guy who took over for comey, andrew mccabe, has his lawyers telling us in the public and the press,

they believe that he was targeted for prosecution. they think the grand jury met. they've been asking the doj to confirm or deny whether their attempt. and today saying whistleblowers not only could be illegally fired, which is why there is a whistleblower protection act, but maybe in the old days it was better when much things happened to them. let me go to john and mike and back to you john. >> the president is cracking under a strain a little bit. i think the next chapter which is going to drive him even crazier, it is cheer from the whistleblower's complaint that we all got to read today that there was tremendous consternation among white house staffers and the national security area. where the whistleblower heard about all this. and they literally had to create a new secret file to put the notes of the phone call into. they know the president broke the law and violated his oath of

office. >> explain what you're getting at. we just got this narrative today. >> you're referring to the fact. we're not talking about resistance, critics. you're referring to the people who work for trump who signed on to his agenda in the room were so worried that what? >> that there was apparently conversations along the lines of what the hell did he just say on this call that they elevated the security clearance beyond what was necessary, clearly to frequent president from the act he committed to cap you are it in the notes from the call with the ukrainian president. and there was even an indication in the whistleblower's complaint that this had happened with other coverings. they had this procedure. that's the alleged cover-up. there are people in white house.

they are there as patriots first, trump agenda, second. many of them. and it is a highly professional world. they all know each other. clearly there's tremendous consternation about this. which means congress will try to get a can opener to try to talk to them and trump will go on an internal witch hundred to find out who talked. >> you get the last word, sir. >> i think we should treat had like a one bye junk case. hand to hand transaction. we have good stuff. we have the time line to worry about impeachment. we should get on it and close the whole thing down by halloween and be trying this guy in december. >> that reminds me. i forgot to ask, what will you be for halloween? >> i thought i would be a witch. >> michael? >> not sure yet. not sure yet. >> a safe political answer, sir. take stand.

>> really interesting to get your insight. we'll fit in a quick break. then the whistleblower revealing how far it has spread with the contagion of bill barr. one person said work for a criminal and you become one. criminal and you become one. banjo? (man) hey. go home. (woman) banjo! sorry, it won't happen again. come on, let's go home. after 10 years, we've covered a lot of miles. good thing i got a subaru. (man) looks like you got out again, huh, banjo. (avo) love is out there. find it in a subaru crosstrek.

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we want to go deeper and tell you how this whistleblower complaint is different. we usually have to wait years to go inside the white house for this kind of details. others joining into what could be an alleged cover-up. a key piece of the pulls could be these others. more than half a dozen officials agreed trump was colluding with the ukrainian president. and multiple officials recounted

fact patterns. there are others who are allegedly complicit. senior white house officials trying to lock down evidence of the call. putting the transcript on a separate server to store classified information. meaning using the levers of security power to cover up this potential alleged crime. former white house official anthony scaramucci said work for a criminal on this, you become one. and bill barr was not investigating when it first came into the doj. the whistleblower may give context to why alleging that barr appears to be involved as well. meanwhile today, acting dni chief mcguire talked about how that campaign got the to doj. >> i have consulted with the white house counsel and eventually, we also consulted with the department of justice, office of legal counsel. >> do you think it's appropriate that you go to a department run

by someone who is the subject of the complaint to get advice, or who was a sub of the complain, or implicated, as to whether you should provide that complain to congress? >> i have to work what i've got. >> i have to work with what i've got. what he's got is a president who hollowed out the leadership of the fbi over a different collusion probe which is why that short answer may be one of the most revealing parts of today's hearing. now, when we come back, i'm going to do something pretty special for you. we're going inside what it means to be on a trump 2020 re-election campaign with this collusion crisis circling around. my cross exam when we come back. -- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off.

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welcome back. the trump 2020 campaign has certainly been in the news this week and now i'm joined with mark who served in the white house and director for trump 2020. thanks for joining me. you know that cory lewandowski said he has no obligation to be honest. do you share his position tonight? >> i'm a former journalist. i started in journalism and i'll give you the facts as i know them.

i can't speak for corey. i can tell you how i feel and i'll make sure that i can give you the best information that i have. >> right. he's a trump official as well. you're to go it a different way. i want our viewers to know, you agree with line you do yousky or you're trying to be honest. >> i'll give you the facts as i know them regardless of what corey said. i try to be honest. that's what i do. >> gotch. a it was a private setting speaking about this whistleblowers. take a listen. >> i want to know who is the person to gain, the whistleblower, who is the person who gave the whib the information? that's close to a spy. do you know what we used to do to spies? we used to handle it a little differently than we do now. >> is the president referencing executing a whistleblower as a

traitor there? >> i think he's probably referring to having the criminal justice system may itself out. as we know, even someone who is accused of spying or something has the right to going through justice system and we would let them feert that out. >> you know the justice system requires the whistleblower be turned over. they would be anonymous and protected. what do you think in a sentence or two that he's saying? >> i think he's saying he's tired of having the so-called deep state hiking information that confidential phone calls between the president of the united states and a foreign leader and we've seen it happen over and over again. and they have taken steps to address it. >> but this is not a leak. you do acknowledge. this was under the law the prescribed way. you provide a concern and trump's own officials are provided to congress. or you're saying they should not have provided it today? >> what i'm saying is that that whistleblower act that we're referring to doesn't involve the president of the united states.

and even this whistleblower i think it is more of a gossip column when you look at the entire report. it is all, i heard, i was told. i heard. i overheard. other people told me. there are no firsthand accounts of anything in that report including the fact we've now got the transcript to compare it to. >> so you disagree. mcguire under oath, the intel chief said the person was acting in good faithful you're calling it gossip. >> when you read that report, you see no firsthand information. it is all second, third hand information about what other people may have overheard and transmitted to other people. i don't find anything that's actually in there that is firsthand knowledge. while the law will protect this person, as a whistleblower, i'm not saying we should not still call out someone who is leaking confidential information in order to embarrass the president of the united states. >> they're not leaking. they sent it within the administration to the intelligence agencies. that's not a leak. that stays in the administration. as you know, who sent to it congress is the trump administration. so to the extent that you're

arguing it is a leak, that is a leak of trump officials at the highest levels. mcguire and others who turned it over. this brings us to the art of it. you're working on trump 2020. a lot of people in america who support donald trump and a lot of people who oppose donald trump. can you help us understand as people get ready for this race, after years of no collusion claims, your campaign now has the white house basically admitting donald trump clueded with ukraine to go after biden. i wonder, is the president now basically running from no collusion? is he now running on pro collusion? >> i think he's running against corruption. what we've seen that was happening in the ukraine was they meddled in the 2016 election. we've also seen actions by a sitting vice president of the united states. the former vice president of the united states with his son receiving $50,000 a month from a ukrainian company where he had no experience. >> we want to stick to the question at hand. if you think there is anything

worth investigating, why are you asking a corrupt, in the words of donald trump, a corrupt foreign government to do it? >> well, this is a new administration that was elected on a platform of getting rid of the corruption. so what i think you heard in that transcript, read in that transcript was the president of the united states talking about making sure they stick with their investigations into corruption. >> why not handle it in america? this is something a lot of people are wondering. if it is so important, why not han in it america? >> the corruption, the corruption and the medding in the 2016 election, which ukraine did, happen in ukraine. >> but america, the president has a justice department. why not order it here? i'll give you one reason. i'll let you give us your view. one reason is that donald trump has learned, if he asked people at the doj to do that, that itself would be illegal. >> i think what we have to do is get to the bottom. not only of the ukrainian influence in the 2016 election,

but also, if there was any impropriety by the former vice president, and his son getting paid by a ukrainian company with no experience, getting a $1.5 billion -- >> we're not going to spend our time doing that. i'm asking you and you haven't answered why if this is important, the president's not ordering it here in america. i gave one reason for it and gave you a chance to answer it. the other thing with trump 2020 have you dealt with any foreign governments and would you take help from a foreign government, sir? >> i've not dealt with any foreign governments while i've in been this role, and what i would tell you is we need to find out whether there was election meddling in 2016. it needs to stop as it relates to ukraine and others -- >> so if a foreign government came and offered you help or money would you refuse it? >> that is not something under the law can be allowed to happen. >> is that an answer? >> it's against the law for a united states campaign to work with a foreign government.

>> and so would you do that? >> i would not violate the law, no. >> so how does it work for you when you have your president that you're seeking re-election, he is seeking to do that. so you're telling me to today you're not looking for foreign help but the ukraine call notes has the president saying do me a favor, go after a domestic rival, joe biden. >> that is not what the transcript says and you know better than that, ari. he says do me a favor, look into the corruption, the details of the incident of the 2016 election meddling. >> let me read to you from the administration of the donald trump describing what this is, quote the president wanted allegations of corruption involving an american official -- that's biden -- to be investigated bayou crane. do me a favor, investigate biden. why are you denying that when we all can see out here in the

light of day unlike lewandowski you said you weren't going to lie in this interview. i'm reading to you from what the white house put out this week, currently. >> and i'll reiterate to you what the actual phone call said. it talked about looking into ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election, and it also talked about investigating the former vice president of the united states -- investigating joe biden as a rival. >> so you have a president running for re-election who has now admitted he's basically open to collusion, seeking it. but you're telling me tonight you're not going to do that because it's collusion. let me play before you go the president's multiple statements which you're familiar with inviting foreign help that's such an issue on your 2020 campaign. take a look. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.

if somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent, oh, i think i'd want to hear it. >> president trump says i would like you to do us a favor, though, asking for ukraine to investigate matters involving the origins of special counsel mueller's inquiry. later the president also asks zelensky to look into joe biden and his son, hunter. >> i'll give you the final word, sir. how do you run for re-election with a president who's gone from as asked to no collusion to what we saw with our own eyes, welcoming the help of multiple foreign governments and collusion now? >> as it relates to ukraine just because the former vice president is running for president, his actions as vice president deserve to be investigated. if there was any -- any impropriety in his son receiving money, it should be fully explored. >> so the president ran on investigating hillary last time, and you're admitting tonight

you're running on investigating biden this time? >> i think any actions by a former officeholder in their official capacity, if there is some allegation of impropriety it would need to be explored. >> always appreciate you taking the questions, sir. we have a lot more. we'll be right back. estions, sir we have a lot more we'll be right back. tv announcer: it's just as powerful as the lexus rx... as many safety features as the rx, the new... the lexus rx has met its match. if they're talking about you... you must be doing something right. experience the style, craftsmanship, and technology that have made the rx the leading luxury suv of all time. lease the 2019 rx 350 for $399 a month for 36 months.

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open an account today. of the value you'll find at fidelity. [zara larsson - "wow"] ♪ ♪ baby i'm not even in a gown ♪ and the only thing u have to say is wow ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪ ♪ and you never felt this type of emotion ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪ intelligence chairman adam schiff is saying he will bring in witnesses nex week even while the house is on recess. meanwhile hakem jeffries made a

little bit of news of his own right here on the beat tonight. do you think if there are articles of impeachment they'll focus solely on this ukrainian issue? >> that remains to be seen because of the urmgant nature of the ukraine scandal. the lead in terms of investigative fact finding will be the intel committee. >> and if you decide to move forward on articles of impeachment, they go from intel to judiciary to the house floor? >> yes, that would be regular order and that's consistent with the fact the intel committee has jurisdiction over this issue. >> a lot of talk who's in the lead and there you see intel, busy. one more programming note before i get out of here. we're excited what's going to happen this saturday in central park. with performances live by queen and adam lambert, ferrell, alicia keys, singer and songwriter, her and the legendary carol king.

i'll be co-hosting with our colleagues. starts at 4:00 p.m. eastern. and i'm going to talk to adam lambert. we may be able to show some of that right here on the beat tomorrow as well. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. whistling impeachment. let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews on capitol hill where the case for impeachment escalated today as the whistle-blower's report landed like a bombshell. the complaint released today portrays a white house that recognized the president's wrongdoing and covered it up. it centers on trump's attempt to extort a u.s. ally for dirt on joe biden, a shakedown delivered in his july phone conversation with ukrainian president zelensky. white house notes of