here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election yes yes i don't know trump but hillary i helped hillary belongs to the cohorts of politicians who comprise the hedge money in the us both in the u.s. and in the entire world for runs that is sort of better oh you could definitely film sensitive 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was mr sidney by the way who published dirt on. trump's campaign manager in 2016 in the real lost anyway but the fellow tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win what if for example daddy wants to get his young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs at the ukrainian energy company now strap yourself in hunter biden earned 50 $1000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few $100.00 and you know what in the

diplomat in ukraine at the time. he writes, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu responds, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. sondland then asked to take it offline. quote, i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. congressman mike quigley is on the intelligence committee. his staff were among those that interviewed the source of those texts, kurt volcker. congressman quigley, i'll get to the texts in a minute. your take on rachael bade's reporting that volker testified a meeting between ukraine's president and trump was contingent on the ukrainian president agreeing to make a statement regarding the bidens. >> i want to make clear i have read the text multiple ti

envoy to ukraine. the statement committing ukraine to investigate conspiracy theories about joe biden and about russia not having hacked the democrats in 2016. "the times" says, quote, it is unclear if it was delivered to the ukrainian president but no statement was released publicly under his name. they continue, the drafting of the statement was an effort to pacify mr. trump and rudy giuliani and normalize relations between the two countries as ukraine faced continuing conflict with russia. mr. sondland and mr. volker believed that mr. giuliani was, quote, poisoning mr. trump's mind about ukraine and that eliciting a public commitment from mr. zelensky to pursue the investigations would induce mr. trump to more fully support the ukrainian government. as we said, all of this comes on a day when president trump asked yet another country, this time china, to investigate joe biden, erasing all doubt about whether he could or would or will happily collude with foreign powers in plain sight to boost his re

to ukraine. then we take you to wednesday, the 23rd. phillip reeker and office of michael duffy, those two were set to be deposed. let's header for you. we have deputy assistant secretary of defense, laura cooper whose testimony was posted from friday along with national security council director of european union affairs, alexander vindman. and then on friday for you, october 25th, foreign service officer in kiev and the top russia adviser for the national security council, timothy morrisson, both of them. 12 subpoenas issued so far, eight have not been complied to. those include secretary of state mike pompeo and president trump's personally lawyer, rudy giuliani. joining us now, msnbc contributor charlie savage. counselor to the house judiciary committee, attorney michael conway. democratic strategist and form executive director of the new york state democratic party, basil smikle, and noelle nick pour. take your pick of all those coming to the hill to be deposed. who do you think will be the

ukraine said no pressure. joining me now, a woman who served in the clinton administration, special adviser to samuel berger and she was under secretary of state -- sorry, she was formerly the undersecretary of state in public affairs during the obama administration. and cynthia alksne, a legal analyst for msnbc. the president says read the transcript. not really a transcript, but a memo of the phone call and it will prove that the ukrainian president said no pressure. just to be clear because donald trump can sometimes be confusing about these things, nowhere in the transcript is that the case. the ukrainian president has subsequently said including again today to one of our reporters that there was no pressure but that -- but if you just read the transcript you would not come away with that conclusion. >> and it doesn't matter. he has no choice but to say because his country is dependent on us, but the abuse of power doesn't have to do with what zelenskiy thought, but it was the abusing of the american power

all of a sudden, ukraine. we go from russia to ukraine. how did that happen? the democrats, nancy pelosi and six committee chairman, i call them her pullet bureau are running rough shod trying to, issuing letters they call subpoenas if they were not replied to in a certain given time, they claim that to be obstruction of justice, it is not a court. they mean obstruction of the house. they are trying to set up the president and set up the administration, the demands are onerous. the process, you see, is ahistorical. and president's counsel wrote a letter to the members of the house, they said, you deny the president the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witness to receive transcript of testimony to have access to evidence. to have counsel is present, in other words basic due process, even though this is not a criminal matter, cereal murdersl murder -- serial murderers get more due process, terrorists get more due process than president of united states coequal subpoena power, i did some research. and i found something, look at this. what in the world is

policy in ukraine. on the one hand the departure of volcker could have played a positive role because indeed from the russian perspective the role of all code was apparently negative right walker prevent the implementation of the means and persuaded ukraine to continue to subsidize the implementation on the other camp in the current situation of scandal i truly don't believe that the departure of walker will matter for the american pull we see towards ukraine because there is no policy in conditions of the current scandal impeachment investigation the american policy towards ukraine will be paralyzed it will be ultimately dependent on the believe the goal domestic political interplay all the hue towards the impeachment in these conditions there is nothing that washington can or would want to do viz of ukraine i think the white house will try its best you know to distant itself from the ukrainian go in general does he know the the absence of the interlocutor will change the situation to read the rest bec

biden was in ukraine. some of the timeline people question. let's talk about this. when it comes to how people are treated let's listen to adam schiff on working with foreign dirt when it comes to donald trump. >> what is the nature? >> we will be back in touch with our staff to make arrangements to obtain these materials. heather: they are okay with getting foreign dirt. >> what adam schiff is saying is thank you for providing what you say you are providing. i will have my team look into this and he didn't run with it. when people engage members of congress with dirt or whistleblowing, and i was congressional staff. it's not a simple job and members of congress by doing what he did, not saying i ignore it and i will have my people look at it and he didn't do anything with it. heather: we appreciate you joining us. thank you. the time is 20 minutes after the top of the hour. elizabeth warren wants to break up facebook if she becomes president, mark zuckerberg is ready for a fight. >> i would bet we would h

and people related to the ukraine -- related to ukraine inside of the government. and he was asking the white house at different points to work with him on those issues. he sat with vice president pence in warsaw in september as he met with president zelensky. so he has been involved. that's the challenge when you talk to white house advisers tonight. they say rudy giuliani is out there on a limb with these associates doing his own investigation without any kind of approval from the government. that's at least formal approval. and then you have secretary perry with his energy issues and his friends in the energy business. and they're not really sure what's going to happen next. and that's why congress is seeking those documents. >> again, absent an announcement by the cabinet secretary, there were reports of his pending departure right around the time the ukraine story broke. now robert, it occurs to us that robert mueller didn't have this luxury. the luxury of air support on a given charge where people from inside came forward and said yeah, i was there. it was aw

it was all out of ukraine. so that's what the president in that debunked theory that we had tom bossert say there was no truth to that. others around him constantly telling the president, there's no truth to this. the one person that was promoting it obviously our emissary to ukraine unbeknownst to us, rudy giuliani. >> those may be two different things though. investigating ukraine's role in the russian investigation may be conspirator i can't tell and tinfoil hat, but having them investigate your political opponent is a different level. there is evidence in these text messages that that part was a requirement to meet donald trump -- >> to get military aid. >> to get military aid or a meeting. to get anything. to get something. and rudy giuliani according to volker's testimony, we understand, yesterday wasn't satisfied until the ukrainians wrote down or spoke out loud were investigating baresma which is biden. >> it makes a difference legally as well. everyone's been saying it. i will say it here. you do not n

and the impact it has had on the president's ukraine policy. tst: catherin -- katherine joining us. she has a story published today you can find at rollcall.com. we will talk about the release on these procedures. your thoughts on it. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independents, 202-748-8002. it was hakeem jeffries yesterday talking about these next steps, the role democrats will take. [video clip] where we in a phase are moving from information gathering primarily through depositions into the public truthtation of facts and to the american people and consistent with that process moving forward, it has been determined it is appropriate to willne how the transition take place from the investigation that is ongoing now into the public presentation of witnesses, documents, information, and the truth to the american people. host: that took like -- place yesterday. from st. louis, missouri, democrats line first this morning, your thoughts on the process when it comes to impeachment. what do you think? caller: hello. i am fir

here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election yes a little more yes i helped him not trump but hillary hillary belongs to the cohort of politicians who comprise the hegemony in the us both in the us and in the entire world for us it is sort of better. oh you could definitely film sensitive 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was mr sit nick by the way who published dirt on trump's campaign manager in 2016 in a real lost anyway but the fellow tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win what if for example daddy ma. to get his young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs at the ukrainian energy company now strap yourself in hunter biden earned $50000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few $100.00 and you know what in the weird

supported ukraine. he denied them a white house visit until he could promise he could get what he wanted. why is that dangerous? what can you tell the american people about why it's important for us to support ukraine? >> first of all, look what he did. he, obviously, used taxpayer funded assistance, passed by the congress on a bipartisan basis, to both threaten an intimidate the new president of ukraine, to investigate his political opponents for the purpose of advancing his own re-election. now, that has so many elements in it and it's one of the reasons why i think it's broken through to the american people. it also is troubling that ukraine has been a subject of constant pressure from vladimir putin and the russian interests in ukraine. so you have the trump administration, the president, the vice president, others actually pressuring a new president who has a part of his country invaded and occupied by russian troops, and putting this poor new president in this vice. you think you are going to get

ambassador to ukraine. if nothing else, her testimony today appears from the outside to have been thorough. she emerged from that closed door deposition after nine plus hours. she didn't get out until 7:40 eastern time. joining us now is tom melinowski. he was assistant secretary of state in both the state department and national security council. thank you for making time tonight. i know it's been a long day. >> thank you so much. >> i was struck by the congressman said there about how it was eight hours that went like a new york second that he seemed -- he seemed moved by the testimony. how would you describe the testimony today? >> i agree. you know, we spent nine hours with a diplomat, a patriot of tremendous courage and integrity who answered questions honestly, thoroughly and who set an example today that not only should you obey a legally binding subpoena, but you can. you can be a career civil servant or foreign service officer and despite the president's efforts to deny you the opportunity to compe

we stood strong with ukraine. we are standing strong with president zelensky. as the american people would expect, president trump wanted to make sure that ukraine was advancing the reform agenda, reforming and ending corruption. that our allies in europe were doing more. >> [indiscernible] -- the bidens was at least a part of the reason the aid was held up? >> i have never discussed the issue of the bidens with president zelensky. what i can tell you is that all of our discussions internally, when the president and my office with ukraine were focused on the broader issues of european support. >> you are interested in seeing the bidens investigated? [inaudible] >> that is your question. let me be very clear. the issue of aid and our efforts with regard to ukraine were from my experience in no way connected to the very legitimate concern the american people have about corruption that took place, about things that happened in the 2016 election or about the issue that former vice president biden had his son on the board of a major energy company in ukraine at a ti

state department approves the sale of millions of dollars worth of antitank missiles to ukraine but the country proving to be a rich source of money scandal and political intrigue for the us. plus 2 american presidential hopeful bernie sanders declares war on the super rich who gets massive public support including from surprisingly facebook's billionaire. the streets of new york if the one percent will ever be seen as the oppressed minority. pranced. i don't think they should be hated they don't believe in demonizing the successful . minority when. we can for good morning and welcome to the program this saturday live will be sent to moscow it's kevin are with you for this. starting with this then ecuador in the grip of a wave of violent protests offer a state of emergency was declared thursday demonstrations began over the government's decision to end fuel subsidies with petrol prices expected to more than double the number it. this is some of the end result she said transport workers have been leaving a national strike on the country's president's using emergency powers to put troops

ukraine investigation. did the president pressure ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent? this as the state department seems to be in something of turmoil here, internal conflict over this. joining me now cnn national security reporter kylie atwood. good to have you on this morning. volker facing those questions now. do we know what story he's going to tell here? >> reporter: we don't exactly know what story he's going to tell, but according to those who are close to him, i've had a bunch of those conversations. and over the past few weeks they kind of described what he thought he was doing when he connected giuliani with that zelensky aide, he wanted to table the issue. give the political issues to giuliani so that he could continue to do his work. so i assume that that is something that he is going to be explaining to the committee today. but we also know, however, that giuliani was showing off text messages between he and kurt volker on fox news last week and the state department never really cam

policy towards ukraine since ukraine's independence has been fairly consistent in pushing ukraine on anti-corruption reform. that's been one of the cornerstones for decades. that's been fairly consistent both under barack obama and under president trump. under the obama administration this was very much carried by his ambassadors who long play add strong role in kiev and working with politicians to try to convey the message of you need to clean up corruption. host: what was then vice president joe biden's role? guest: joe biden was obama's point person in ukraine and he really carried that message for the president. he also oversaw the u.s. response perhaps not the u.s. response but the u.s. messaging when it came to the conflict in eastern ukraine, the annexation of crimea because it was 2014 where you had russia lops off a chunk of ukraine, annexes crimea, and then the war begins. that was the first hot war in the region in an extremely long time, and biden really carried obama's messaging on that in the region. host: was it only the united states that was worried about corruption

here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election. not trump but i helped. to the co-hosts of politicians who comprise the huge money in the us both in the u.s. and in the entire world for runs that is sort of better oh you could definitely film sin city 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was missed the city by the way who published dirt on trump's campaign manager in 2016 in the real last anyway but the fellow who tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win what if for example daddy months to get his young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs at a ukrainian energy company now strap yourself in hunter biden earned $50000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few 100 dollars and you know what in the weird and wacky world of us po

-ukraine relations. volodymyr zelensky had just been elected president and ukraine remained at war with russia. as the summer approached, a new ukrainian government would be seated, parliamentary elections were imminent and the ukrainian political trajectory would be set for the next several years. i cared about ukraine's future and the important u.s. interests there. so when secretary pompeo asked me to go back to kiev, i wanted to say yes but it was not an easy decision. the former ambassador, masha yovanovitch, had been treated poorly caught in a web of machinations both in kiev and in washington. i feared those problems were still present. when i talked to her about accepting the offer, however, she urged me to go both for policy reasons and for the morale of the embassy. before answering the secretary, though, i consulted both my wife and a respected former senior republican official who's been a mentor to me. i'll tell you my wife in no uncertain terms strongly opposed the idea. the mentor counsele

we are left it in the ukraine. they say you lecture us on corruption and your idiot press can't figure out we were paying off joe biden and what you think the chinese say? they were paying $1.5 billion to this kid who were buying the vice president. >> appreciate your coming on. >> you should do something about it. >> ahead, a couple extraordinary news conferences. immediate reaction to donald trump inviting china and ukraine to investigate biden. >> many journalists were stunned ever weeklong frenzy where donald trump's call with ukraine at leader, he went in front of the cameras and urged ukraine and china to investigate joe biden and his son for alleged corruption. >> you heard the president himself do it -- >> we have a role in abuse of power unfolding on our television screens. at least nixon did a behind closed doors and taped it. >> just because joe biden happens to be running against the president doesn't make him above the law. the us government and the chinese government and the ukrainian government can't

security assistance to ukraine. so a lot of document requests coming from capitol hill as they seek to move rapidly in their impeachment inquiry, wolf. >> we'll see what happens. the clock is ticking. right now lauren fox, thank you. >>> let's go to the white house. our chief white house correspondent is there. jim, what is the reaction to the whirp wind developments. >> reporter: it seems the stonewalling continues. president trump threatening to fire off a letter from the white house saying that white house lawyers will not cooperate until house democrats hold a vote on their impeachment inquiry. we are just finding out now that letter may not be coming from the white house until monday at the earliest. and that there is a bit of an internal debate going on inside of the president's impeachment team as to whether or not to fire off that letter. as for the request for information from vice president mike pence, his office has just responded with a statement saying that this request for documents and other informati

was withholding military aid from ukraine? stopping trade discussion was ukraine? or that the u.s. was about to cut $800 million in nato related military construction projects in europe during that call? mr. sullivan: i do not believe that that was mentioned in the call. senator kaine: you have seen a transcript? mr. sullivan: i have not. but i have not been told that that was -- senator kaine: you are unaware. sloy my recollection is that there was a massive wildfire -- senator kaine: the summary of the call was wildfires. mr. sullivan: that's what i am aware of. senator risch: senator rubio. senator rubio: thank you for being here today and service to our country which i think is across four cabinet departments, three administrations, last two years as the deputy, and all six weeks as the acting secretary of state. now you are going to russia. as i told you yesterday i don't know what you're going to do to top that. that's a great record of service to our country. because you are the nominee to such an important post, i think we just want to cut to the chase. we all understand th

of ukraine's natural gas company. he's already said that he went there to speak about that. he represented some of his own constituents as possible consultants to the ukraine government. we know that giuliani when he was back there and the months before trump first made that phone call when he was digging for dirt on biden simultaneously parnas and fruman themselves were trying to get a taste of the ukraine natural gas company, the biggest company in the country. >> but can we just stop? how crazy is it that while he was calling and asking for dirt to be manufactured on the bidens, he was involved in corrupting -- >> because the bidens were corrupt and the bidens were feeding at the trough of the state resources, and they themselves -- which they weren't doing, by the way, it was never proven. they were trying to lay a claim on the bidens that they themselves were engaging in, which was a corrupt act. they were using the power of the presidency, the power of their constituents, the power possibly of perry's office to

and making sure that the president of ukraine was doing that as well. and joe biden somehow and hunter biden were the, you know, the exemplars of that according to the president. but from this ambassador, it was very clear she had an entire program in place of anti-corruption. i mean that seemed to be a major focus of legitimate u.s. foreign policy, and the president removed the person who was doing that. >> exactly. and the president has been using this word "corruption," but the only corruption that he's ever shown any interest in is joe biden's family. you know, of course it remains to be seen -- but the president says, i wanted corruption investigated. he didn't want corruption investigated. he wanted biden investigated, and that was the source, it appears, of a conflict with the ambassador. and that's why she got fired. >> yeah. jeff toobin, david gergen, maggie haberman, thank you very much. you need your whole hand to count how many court cases the president and his administration lost today. the latest rulings and what they mean for president tr

america spent supporting democracy in ukraine or meddling in its politics you pick since ukraine's independence in 1901 the united states has supported ukrainians as they do democratic skills and institutions as they promote civic participation and good governance of which are preconditions for ukraine to achieve its european aspirations we've invested over 5000000000 dollars to assist ukraine in knees and articles that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic train well thank you mr nuland didn't ukraine turn out great but let again look at it like an american senator you don't care that ukrainians are poor cold stressed and hopeless what you care about is that your sponsors can make money and keep doing meeting to you what you care about is ukrainians helping you in elections what you care about is ukraine providing your kids with comfy little jobs that pay millions over the years and if you are an american senator well ukraine couldn't have turned out any better. the u.s. secretary of state has hailed his country's relationship with greece saying that times have never been stronger

but the way this is going in terms of the president making these demands on ukraine and ukraine appearing to accede to those demands, this story is not getting better, it is getting worse. what the government has ordered and its impact. and i say that not to bum you out, but because i know that the news is moving really fast right now. it has been ten straight days of almost insane news days, in terms of the magnitude and importance of these stories. at its heart this is still very simple. maybe that is why it is moving so fast. there is an unrebuttable central claim here, it remains very simply that the president asked a foreign country, and now it seems foreign countries, plural, for help. against the democrats. for his re-election. that's it. that is potentially a crime, no american can solicit something of value for use in a federal election from a foreign source whether or not the president himself can or can't be prosecuted for such a crime. anyone else can absolutely be prosecuted for such a crime. ask michael cohen. but the president's involvement in this scheme, his direction of

to ukraine. it's not at all clear why this state department needed an envoy to ukraine when we already had an ambassador to ukraine. but it seems one of kurt volcker's missions was to translate trump to the new ukrainian president. that means kurt volcker was in frequent contact with bill taylor, who became in effect the acting ambassador in ukraine after donald trump removed an ambassador who rudy giuliani did not find to be cooperative enough in his ukraine schemes that were designed to force ukraine to help the trump campaign by investigating joe biden. "the new york times" reports this smoking gun in kurt volcker's under oath testimony today. he disclosed a set of texts in september in which bill taylor, the top american diplomat in ukraine, alluded to mr. trump's decision earlier in the summer to freeze a military aid package to the country. he told mr. sondland and mr. volcker, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. that is a very smoky gun, i

and so the security of ukraine, the budding democracy in ukraine, is a really important issue to me, and to see a president just put our vital interests like that at risk for his own political ends is something that we just can't stand for as americans. >> congressman, is it as clear as what we've described that ambassador bill taylor believes that military aid for american ally, ukraine, who is, as you just described, our buffer, our democratic ally there, in russia's neighborhood, that he testified today that military aid for that country was tied to a public commitment to investigate burisma? >> you know, i apologize, nicolle, i heard just now while i was listening that you all evidently have this testimony. i apologize. i'm not going to talk about what he said at all. i really respect this process. what i can tell you is that the -- it's -- the case is overwhelming and it really ratifies the process we're going through. very soberly having witness after witness come in and build the fact case about what actually transpired and as other people have said, there were, you know, a tr

let's talk about the ukraine scandal, the impeachment probe and more. joining us the former top lawyer at the fbi jim baker now a cnn legal analyst. jim, thanks very much for coming in. do you think that mulvaney's attempt to do some clean-up changes potentially the president's vulnerability in all of this? >> i think the key word that you just said a second ago was "mess." this is a big mess that mulvaney pead last week and i think the efforts over the weekend to try to clean it up didn't work and people are responding to that and the president didn't seem to be supportive of him today at the cabinet meeting, we're left to guess what that means. but this is stressing because the chief of staff is such a critical role and for that person not to have the complete trust and confidence of the president and the rest of the country and congress is really significant for all of us. >> and for the president not to say anything is -- >> it is shocking really. >> when asked by reporters today over at the cabinet meeting about mick mulvaney, that says something.

will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic ukraine. starts in a city you know well it will slowly new democracy just. stood there with. some of them but obviously the funds had to keep coming and the conflict had to keep going. and more bloody and deadly. earnest. as parties from both sides were using more sophisticated and lethal weapons. as what do you. want. us. to deal. you know that's really kind of. the world seemed too busy welcoming this new democracy in kiev. to notice what was being done as it spread its wings over the country. many in southern ukraine had been viewing the revolution with concern. i and an anti mind on movement formed in the city of odessa in early january 2014 the protesters set up their camp in front of the trade union house a building which would soon become a monument to a massacre of its own it's difficult to overestimate the importance of odessa it is strategically located on the black sea and it's ukraine's largest seaport it's not surprising that ukraine's new authorities were watching the situation u

policy in ukraine believed that the military aid to ukraine was indeed tied to ukraine investigating the biden family. and now a rare rebuke by a republican, utah senator mitt romney, tweeting, by all appearances, the president's brazen and unprecedented appeal to china and ukraine to investigate joe biden is wrong and appalling. and it's important to remember that all of this started with this whistleblower complaint. and we're now learning more about what kurt volker, who is the first official to testify on the whistleblower's accusations, revealed to congress during his closed door testimony. sunlan serfotti is covering this on capitol hill. what can you tell us, sunlan? >> reporter: kurt volker spent nine hours in the room, and it shows the envoy of ukraine trying to defend himself, portraying him as someone who is constantly trying to tamp down the influence of president trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, and specifically his influence over president trump as it relates to his demands to launch these investigations. certainly volker under scoring he was trying to get presid

then a get ukraine. they have a so call whistleblower, he tipped off adam schiff in his staff, he hires lawyers who were out to get the president of u.s united states. ascensecond hand guy getting information, he has ties with biden you about heard stuff. if you were a cia person, who gathered information on united states, who has no business gathers information on president of united states then goes to democrat on capitol hill, and blows it up in whistleblower in theratio reagan administration,e called that a spy, a spy. and you tell me, we are we ever going to get to the bottom of this. >> i'm certainly trying to. you know, we -- in our oversight capacity, we highlight text when page or strzok was talking to page about a intelligence community guy in the transition with vice president pence. trying to get a stool pigeon involved in the administration. we have got such a treasure trove of unvarnished testimony. quite honestly from the stock -- strzok-page text. it is unvarnished. backed up with other p

ally, ukraine. and so coming out of this meeting, the sources i've been talking to say that this sort of solidifies this narrative that democrats, you know, have been investigating, that this investigation in what trump did with ukraine really infringed on u.s. foreign policy and caused a lot of problems. >> rachel, did volker tell the lawmakers how giuliani responded when he gave him that warning not to go with all those wild accusations? >> reporter: to be answered. i don't know at this point. i'm sure he was probably asked that question. we're still learning details as they come out. clearly, giuliani continued to pursue this matter, right? clearly, giuliani continued to pursue this. >> you are also reporting, rachel, that volker handed over documents to these members of congress. what do we know about that? >> i've seen some other reporting that he has turned over some text messages right now. we saw a text message exchange where he expressed concern about the u.s. holding this financial militar

diplomat in ukraine. he writes i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. excuse me. gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu responds, "bill, i believe -- excuse me -- you are incorrect about president trump's intentions. the president has been kris cal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. sondland then asked to take it off line. quote, i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. congressman mike quigley is on the intelligence committee. his staff were among those interviewed the source of those texts. kurt volker. congressman quigley, i'll get to the text in a moment. your take on rachael bade's reporting that volker testified a meeting between ukraine's president and president trump was contingent on the ukrainian president agreeing to make a statement regarding the bidens. >> i want to make clear

policy in ukraine. on the one him the departure of volcker could have played a positive role because indeed from the russian perspective the role of all code was apparently negative right walker prevent the implementation of the means good and persuaded ukraine to continue to subsidize the implementation on the other camp in the current situation of scandal i truly don't believe that the departure of walter will matter for the american pull we see towards ukraine because there is no policy in conditions of the current scandal impeachment investigation the american policy towards ukraine will be paralyzed it will be ultimate. dependent on the believe it go domestic political interplay all the hue towards the impeachment in these conditions there is nothing that washington can or would want to do viz of ukraine i think the white house will try its best you know to be in that cell from the ukraine the i'm go in general you know the the absence of the interlocutor will change the situation to read the rest

an exchange with ukraine. ambassador taylor telling congress that multiple senior administration officials informed him that the president personally blocked military aid to ukraine and refused to meet with that country's new president unless ukraine agreed to investigate joe biden and the 2016 u.s. election. >> that is big. we will lay it all out for you this morning. meantime, cnn has learned that members of the president's inner circle are urging him to accept the fact that they believe impeachment is coming and that it's now time they say to focus on attacking democrats and on the whole impeachment process itself. all of this is two more top u.s. officials are expected to testify this morning on capitol hill. so let's begin there. let's go to manu raju who joins us on the hill. let's talk about bill taylor's testimony. your reporting this morning is that there were audible sighs and gasps as taylor read that opening statement. >> yeah, and in one specific passage in particular, one in which the -- for the

government's support of ukraine. i realize that if ukraine pursued an investigation into the bidens and burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. this would all undermine u.s. national security. following the call i, again, reported my concerns to the lead counsel for the national security council." and it goes on. again, this just obtained this evening. the opening statement from lieutenant colonel alexander vinman, top ukraine official on the national security council who appears to validate the concerns of the whistle-blower that led to these impeachment proceedings against the president. and express his own alarm at what he saw on that call and of the president's behavior. more to come. stay with us. it's been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99.99% of odor causing bacteri

trump's dealings with ukraine. he resigned the day after rudy giuliani shared texting appearing to show volker as a liaison between he and the administration of ukraine. what do you believe he will say to lawmakers this morning? >> well, he is a career service officer. i believe ambassador volker will say this is what happened, will he answer the questions truthfully and honestly and he will probably describe what he was trying to do in terms of working with ukraine, both to help to find a solution to the conflict in eastern ukraine. we would like to see that conflict ended and the russians and russian proxy forces out of eastern ukraine and will talk probably, depending on the questions, about the interaction of mr. giuliani with ukraine has affected his work. >> and if, let's say, the president of ukraine wanted ambassador volker to act as a liaison between ukrainian officials and rudy giuliani, who they believed to be a proxy for president trump, had aer arrangement, who would ambassador volker have gone to with

ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. so they give tons of money to this pac that's supporting sessions' re-election and pledge to raise tens of thousands of dollars for his re-election. they get a meeting with sessions and say you've got to help us get this ambassador out of there. and in fact republican congressman pete sessions makes good on his end of the bargain. nbc news has obtained the letter that congressman sessions sent to secretary of state mike pompeo shortly after that meeting with these guys who have now been arrested. in that letter congressman sessions in fact tells the secretary of state that he should, quote, consider terminating her ambassadorship as soon as possible. so again, i mean the scheme here for which president trump is being impeached is a simple thing. but in order to enact this scheme where he's going to get help from ukraine against the democrats, a lot of different people had to play their part. this is something he did on his own. he put the u.s. government to work to enact this scheme.

here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election. not trump but hillary i helped hillary belongs to the cohorts of politicians who. comprise the who germany in the us both in the us and in the entire world for us that is sort of better oh you could definitely film sin city 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was missed the city by the way who published dirt on trump's campaign manager in 2016 in a real last anyway but the fellow tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win what if for example daddy wants to get his young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs at the ukrainian energy company now strap yourself in hunter biden earned $50000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few $100.00 and you know what in the weird and wacky wor

former ambassador to ukraine who was recalled from her position to ukraine is scheduled to give a deposition to the committee next week. wall street journal reports ordered her removed -- it was just yesterday giuliani admitted to passing on some weird propaganda packet of conspiracy theories at the state department and joining me now is one of the members of congress at the deposition of the former envoy to ukraine today, and he's a member of both the house foreign affairs committee and house oversight committee. >> i heard some chilling things, but what i mostly heard, chris, was corroborative evidence of the whistle-blower complaint, and for that matter factual for the transcript of the july 25th phone call between president trump and president zelensky. >> after listening to volker, do you feel like you have a better sense of the effort which reporting now indicates was not just the president on a phone call and giuliani running around meeting with people but actually quite deeply involved volker and his colleagues at the state department. >> yes, i think this is really a grave moment it

his job at director of ukraine was to advance ukraine. this was part of his work, part of the responsibility, and the key question i'm left with is what happened to those concerns with the nsc legal directorate. they said the report to john bolton and to white house counsel, and i imagine something investigators will be looking further into. >> let me get your thoughts, you know, sarah, on a different issue. jared kushner gave an interview in israel on israeli tv, responding to joe biden's "60 minutes" interview. listen to what jared kushner said about biden. >> a lot of the work that the president has had me doing over the last three years has actually been cleaning up the messes that vice president biden left behind. look, he has his opinion. i think that president trump's entitled to pick his team and, you know, we've worked with him for a long time. i think we've done a good job of trying to help him be successful. >> biden had said on "60 minutes," if you remember, sarah it was improper for jared kushner or his wife ivanka to work in

in eastern ukraine. and when you read that, it's just dreadful to think that the aid that is required for that ukrainian people to defend themselves against the russians being held up for purely political individual personal political agenda here in the united states. it just really egregious. >> "washington post" reporting that putin and hungary prime minister orban helped sour trump on ukraine. take a look. this is a timeline. may 3 trump and russian president putin speak on the phone. trump wants his opinion on ukrainian president zelensky. may 13 he meets with hungarian prime minister. he solidified the pessimistic view of ukraine. may 23, "new york times" reports trump called the ukrainian terrible people in a meeting with his top adviser. june 28. trump again meets with putin this time at the g 20 in japan. july 25, trump's infamous call with president zelensky. where he pressures ukraine to investigate the bidens and july 31, trump speaks to putin again. the post makes clear that neither putin or

aid money from ukraine. that career state department official wrote and you've got to quote this, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. so you can't get more clear than that. this is according to multiple reports this evening. and the text came in early september and the reason i want to emphasize that date and that means that text was sent before the news broke that there was even a whistle-blower. trump's diplomat believed that the president of the united states was withholding security assistance for help on his re-election campaign. trump has denied time and time again that there was a quid pro quo. >> there was no quid pro quo at all. there was no quid pro quo. >> if you take a look at that call. it was perfect. i didn't do it. there was no quid pro quo. >> the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine obviously believed otherwise, and of course, the transcript of the president's own phone call asks him asking for a, quote, favor from the ukraine president when the pr

ukraine isn't even part of the eu. >> ukraine is not part of the eu. just today i happened to be speaking with gordon sondelin's predecessor who served for several years in brussels as our ambassador to the european union. he said he never visited ukraine. he thought about visiting it because there are some issues, but he said you know, it just didn't seem worth his time or the cost to the government to have him go to ukraine. it's quite sundelind would have focused so much on a country that's not even part of the european union. >> so, why is he doing it? >> well, he's been quoted as saying, quote, the president asked him to get involved. he traveled there with rick per perry, he traveled there with kurt volker who was the special envoy for ukraine. he was there, in fact, the day after the july 25th phone call that we've been talking about, and in an interview said that he spoke to donald trump minutes before trump had that phone call with zlaensky. so, he's been a critical part of the president's strategy towards ukraine, which has involved pressurin

policy in ukraine. on the one hand the departure of volcker could have played a positive role because indeed from the russian perspective the role of all code was apparently negative right walker prevent the implementation of the means good and persuaded ukraine to continue to subsidize the implementation on the other camp in the current situation of scandal i truly don't believe that the departure of walter will matter for the american pull we see towards ukraine because there is no policy in conditions of the current scandal impeachment investigation the american policy towards ukraine will be paralyzed it will be ultimately dependent on the believe the goal domestic political interplay all the hue towards the impeachment in these conditions there is nothing that washington can or would want to do viz of ukraine i think the white house will try its best you know to distance itself from the ukraine the i'm go in general. the the absence of the interlocutor will change the situation to read the rest are

reporter: your top diplomat in ukraine said you held up military funds because you wanted ukraine to investigate the 2016 election and hunter biden's debt. are you calling him a liar? president trump: here is the problem. he is a never trumper and his lawyer is a never trumper. reporter: why would you hire him? president trump: everybody makes mistakes. mike pompeo, everybody makes mistakes. he is a never trumper, his lawyer is a never trumper, they are a dying breed and they are still there. the other problem, you are with cnn and you are fake news. reporter: [inaudible] president trump: well, the democrats don't have any time to work on anything. they have to do usmca, they have to do guns, they have many things. we want to reduce drug prices even more. we can go so far but we can work on drug prices. the democrats, the do-nothing democrats have no time to do it. reporter: [inaudible] president trump: which one? we have a great republican plan and if we take over the house, which we should, especially because of what they are doing impeachments, i think we will take over the house

a new development now in the ukraine controversy. fox news has obtained never before seen text messages between u.s. diplomats alluding to that withheld military aid. and we are seeing reaction come in to the former ukraine envoys apparently p which are due jim jordan months ago, and there is more. two congressional correspond mike emanuel is life with details. is the interview still happening with the investor? >> yes, good afternoon to you. we have wouldn't and don't like obtained ink of the text messages that involve some of the key players on the cane. one of them being kurt volker, was at the time the u.s. special envoy to ukraine. william taylor, temporary ambassador for the u.s. and ukraine, and the united states ambassador to the european union. the exchange started on september 9th, when michael atkinson revealed the existence of whistle-blower related to ukraine. it shows taylor expressing concern to his colleagues. bill taylor: "as i sit on the phone, i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a polit

in eastern ukraine. and when you read that, it's just dreadful to think that the aid that is required for that ukrainian people to defend themselves against the russians being held up for purely political individual personal political agenda here in the united states. it just really egregious. >> "washington post" reporting that putin and hungry prime minister helped sour trump on ukraine. take a look. this is a time line. may 3 trump and russian president putin speak on the phone. trump wants his opinion on ukrainian president zelensky. may 13 he meets with hundred garn prime minister. he solidified the pessimistic view of ukraine. "new york times" reports trump called the ukrainian terrible people in a meeting with his top adviser. june 28. trump again meets with putin this time at the g 20 in japan. july 25, trump's infamous call with president zelensky. where he pressures ukraine to investigate the bideens and july 31, trump speaks to putin again. the post makes clear that meert putin or said anythin