reporters. miss grisham might want to ask her boss about that one and tonight and ever more they can find themselves on the ridiculist. trolley to hell continues. let's go over to chris cuomo "primetime." toot toot! >> thank you very much. i am chris cuomo. wem qom to "primetime." we have breaking news on our watch once again. it involves the next step for democrats as this whistleblower mess widens. have democrats finally crossed the rubicon? is speaker pelosi starting to soften her stance on impeachment? and we have james clapper here tonight for the first interview on the scandal. what does this mean in his experience? how would he handle the whistleblower complaint? does he support or condemn the acting dni's move to withhold it from congress? we also have a very valuable guest. giuliani's allegations about what was done by that member of

parliament in ukraine, we've got him. you'll hear from him directly about each of the things that rudy tried to sell. and senator cory booker may only have days left to stay in the 2020 race, and he is here with you to help keep him at it. what is the situation really? what do you say? let's get after it. we just got word tomorrow there's going to be a big meeting of house democrats. this is according to three sources. the caucus is going to gather at 4 p.m. eastern. the topic is likely the next steps on investigations. what does that mean? well, a statement from a democratic leadership aide says, quote, a second caucus has been added to ensure adequate time for member discussion on the whistleblower matter and a number of other pressing matters. unquote. president trump's admission that

he discussed joe biden in a call with ukraine's president is only adding to democrats' case for potential impeachment. and his loyal lawyer today once again didn't seem to help the case. >> did the president threaten to cut off aid to the ukraine? >> no. that was a false story. >> 100%? >> i can't tell you if it's 100%. >> there is a game afoot but sometimes this man is just not on his game. it's a false story but you can't say that it's 100% untrue? either he was playing with the aide or he wasn't. let's bring in cuomo's court, asha rangappa, let's cut through to the practicalities. other than this is congress's job, what i don't understand is where does this go?

what is their case, abuse of power? >> yes. abuse of power, self-dealing, inviting foreign influence. basically the try effefekt trif offyinof evils. if they don't get unified behind this, there's no there, there, create some kind of constitutional separation of powers argue men, this is a primia facia case of exactly the kind of thing that would warrant high crimes and misdemeanors, which is beyond the criminal code and in violation of the oath of office. >> jimmy, here's why you should be having that smile on your face. if this were a trial, this is like having five of the 12 people sitting on the jury being

your cousins. it doesn't matter what they're going to bring. you know members of your party aren't going to vote against this president no matter what it is that's there. he could throw a bag of puppies off a bridge, you're not going to get republican senators to remove him in the house. do you dispute any of that? >> there's no indication that he abused his power here. there's no indication that there was any quid pro quo, like there was with biden. there's no indication that the democrats -- >> hold on, hold on. one step at a time. >> and now all of a sudden -- >> jimmy. when i speak, you stop. listen, jimmy, what is the indication there was a quid pro quo with biden? >> well, we've heard publicly him say that he was going to hold up foreign aid -- >> for the united states government in coalition with the u.n. and other western authorities. jimmy! jimmy, it's the same exact thing as we know about this president.

and i'm not saying it was wrong. he is accusing biden of the same thing he did, jimmy. jimmy -- asha, you referee this for a second. >> let me just put this out there -- >> just for the record. just for the record. i got to correct the record. we have no proof that there was a quid pro quo with biden. we have no proof of what jimmy just said, which is that, hey, we don't know anything was wrong with the aid. we know the aid was upheld and it was released only after schiff asked for the whistleblower complaint. >> that's correct. and, chris -- >> he was working with the government. >> can i make my argument? >> asha, what is different between what trump did with the president of ukraine and what biden did with ukraine? >> there are many things that are different, and i think you've covered them, chris, but i'm going to make a lawyerly argument to you right now, which is let's stipulate the facts. let's assume that what jimmy is saying is true and i don't think

they are true. here's the problem. is that if the president is arguing and his supporters are arguing that he has the presidential authority to do what he did, which is to pressure a foreign government to do something, even if it might confer a personal benefit to him, the problem is that theory applies to anyone who is sitting in that seat. and in the previous administration, that power also belonged to president obama, which means he could delegate that to biden. in other words, if what the president did is okay, there is literally nothing to investigate with former vice president biden. if you are saying what vice president biden did is wrong, then you believe there are limits to presidential power and that that can be abused in which case you are opening the door to ground for impeachment. so pick your poison, jim. you cannot have it both ways. >> okay. and i'll say the same thing to you. now you're making an assumption that there was actual pressure placed on the ukrainian

government by this president. there's no eindication there wa any pressure. >> he literally admitted it on national television. what are you talking about? >> that's not pressure. how is that pressure? asha, you know better than that. >> he did it secretly and he did it with the private -- >> don't talk over each other. one at a time. jimmy, just as a point of reference to advance asha's argument on one point, this would be what you counter -- >> of course you're going to advance asha. >> i give you fair time all the time. you sneak in sneaky things all the time. you're saying, you really should look at joe biden and his son because i hate corruption. >> phil mudd said this the or

day, the purpose of having people on those calls is not to spy on the president of the united states with foreign leaders so they can go talk to congress about it. that's not the purpose of the folks being on the call. >> what is the answer to my question? >> i'm getting to that answer, chris. >> good because that was completely off point. >> we probably don't know, chris, because we didn't -- because you don't have leaks and things like this occurring in prior administrations. >> yes, asha. >> chris, listen, a huge distinction here is when an official of the united states takes a public position on behalf of the united states government as its own policy and it states out loud, which is what happened in the biden situation. when you do it secretly, when you're being sneaky, when you're sending a private emissary like your personal lawyer, that is not an official position of the u.s. government. these are two distinctions that are here and if you think that the public one is wrong, then you know that the private one is

wrong, too. and if you think the private one is okay, then having an official position can't be any worse than that. so again, he's hoisted by his own petard. >> can we -- asha, can we agree there were a number of people on that call most likely? >> yes. >> okay. >> there's one call. the complaint encompasses more than the call. you know that, right? >> the president of the united states knows that all those people are on the telephone call. we talking about the conduct of the president of the united states. >> then let's see it. show me the money, man. where's the beef? let's see it. >> the most transparent administration ever. turn over the transcript of the call. turn over the whistleblower complaint. if you have nothing to hide, don't hide. and, jimmy, to your point, he also knew he was standing next to the head -- you also knew where he was standing today, next to a guy who was trying to break down on press ratings and decided to denigrate the american media.

he knew where he was in helsinki on the international stage with a camera in his face next to putin when he said he believed putin and not his own intelligence agencies. so your idea he's way too smart to do something like this, we've seen him do worse in front of the world. >> i also think the news media and democrats here -- are you going to talk over me asha or let me fin, ish my point? >> go ahead. >> the news media and democrats here, once again, the sky is falling. the president of the united states is all of a sudden committing high crimes and misdemeanors and they don't have any facts to back it up at this point. >> they don't have facts but they don't have the proof they need. they don't have the proof they need. because you won't turn it over. you won't comply with the investigations, you won't give them any of this. >> so what's the -- everybody just says it's a forgone conclusion that this thing needs to be turned over. that's not a forgone conclusion. >> not for you. >> this was a conversation with

the president of the united states. it's much different, much different than a member of the intelligence community. and the law recognizes that. the office of legal council, which has been around for a number of years -- >> the inspector general disagrees and so does the chairman of the house intelligence committee. >> the chairman of house intelligence also -- >> you're breaking your own rule. let her talk. go ahead. >> here's what we know. the president has lied to the american public, and if he knows that everyone else's hands are tied, yes, there might have been people listening to that conversation, but if they are not free to speak and if they were whistleblowers and their comments are blocked by the justice department and can never see the light of day, he can literally say whatever he wants about that conversation. and what you're asking, jim, is for us to take him at his word and unfortunately he has lost the benefit of the doubt on that front. so, you know, it doesn't matter that there are people listening on the call. let's hear what they have to say or let's hear what someone who saw the transcript has to say, otherwise i don't think it

really matters. >> all right, listen. >> let's talk politically about losing the benefit of ut douthe. i think adam schiff on his actions on the russiagate lost the confidence -- >> jimmy, fair argument and fair criticism. i have to leave it there. let's be very clear. being given the benefit of the doubt and guilty until proven innocent, which is military justice, that's how it works in public life. in a courtroom you get the benefit of the doubt. in a courtroom you're innocent until proven guilty. we're not in a courtroom, we'll never be in a courtroom because you can't indict a sitting president. so it not felony or fine. if you have nothing to hide, turn the stuff over and you wind up having high ground. let's be honest, asha's making legal arguments, she's a law professor and worked at the fbi. she's not a politician. the democrats don't have any slam dunk case for an impeachment and they'll never get the second part of the removal. so this is all politics, jimmy, and i'm treating it that way.

thank you for making the arguments, asha, you as well as always. when we return to the aspect of one part of this debate, which is, hey, they didn't have to turn this over, it not that clear with whistleblowers. in the person's not talking about the intel community, the law changes. is that true? james clapper knows. he was in that job as dni. what does he think of how that was handed aled and what the la demands next. t-mobile's newest signal reaches farther than ever before. with more engineers. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns, we're with you. because life can take you almost anywhere, t-mobile is with you.

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i am so proud of you. thanks. principal. we can help you plan for that. start today at principal.com. so this president says there's nothing to see when it comes to ukraine. he also won't let you see anything when it comes to ukraine so you can't prove or disprove what he's talking about. take a listen.

>> perhaps you'll see it, perhaps you won't see that. it depends on what we want to do. >> there's one basic common sense notion at play -- if you have nothing to hide, you don't hide. now weep g get to the next leve intrigue. the president's acting director of national intelligence is sitting on the whistleblower claim as if this was somehow a legal dispute. his own inspector general says this is an urgent concern, which is supposed to trigger congressional review. so let's get somebody now who was a director of national intelligence and had to understand how to apply this very law. james clapper, it is a blessing to have you tonight. >> thanks, chris. >> help us. the idea that it's not that simple, jim, you know, if it doesn't deal with the intelligence agencies and what's happening there, congress really

has no say in reviewing a whistleblower complaint. >> well, first of all, i don't agree with that. the way i interpreted the law in the six years i was dni, if a whistleblower submitted a complaint, i interpreted that if it was within observation range, i'll call it that, of that person, of that intelligence community employee and i never considered whether is the wrong doing limited to just what is defined legally as the intelligence community, i never split those hairs. moreover, i never thought i actually had the option to refuse to forward a valid, credible whistleblower complaint. and i also don't recall one being submitted that was

characterized as my a.g. as urgent. i'm sympathetic to the current dni who got caught up in this. this employee attempted to use the prescribed by the congress procedure for protecting sensitive information and also protect himself or herself and i really worry about the employee because that person now is kind of hanging out there in limbo. so for me, i never had a case that was characterized as urgent by my inspector general and i never interrupted or in any way delayed in the interest of

transparency the processing of a whistleblower complaint that came up during my tenure. >> next level of the analysis. doesn't matter, jim. the president can say whatever he wants. and even if he said to ukraine's president, listen, you know, you guys have a problem with corruption and i hate corruption, you should look into lots of different kinds of corruption. look at what happened with biden and his son, you got to look at that. >> the first thing that bothers me about this is the congress already had appropriated the funding and approved a provision of $250 million in military assistance, which the ukrainians and this has been going on since the russian incursion in 2014. so this is fundamental to the defense of ukraine. they've become very dependent on

it. to me that's separate from -- >> what if the president didn't mention the money? >> i'm sorry? >> what if he didn't mention the money? >> even if he didn't, if there wasn't a direct connection here, it certainly is implied. and, you know, whether there was a direct discourse here where, you know, if you don't do something about investigating former vice president biden, you're not going to get the aid, i don't think it was -- i doubt it was that overt. >> he says it wasn't overt, that he never mentioned the money and if you get the call you'll see that we were talking about it but only because it corruption. have you ever heard of the u.s. government asking another government to investigate its own citizens? >> no. i don't know of a case. certainly in the intelligence busy can't recall a case of

that. >> if you had a legitimate question about a member of congress, let alone a vice president and what he was doing in another country, you guys would take it up yourselves, right? you would either make it a counterintelligence question or it would be a reference to the d.o.j. >> exactly. that should be done internally. you know, with our own investigatory apparatus, not ask another country, which, by the way, if you're concerned about their corruption to go and investigate. on its face it's kind of ridiculous. >> at the end of the day let's say they wind up turning over the call and it's gray about what happened with the money vis-a-vis this call and he just seems to be saying ukraine you got to clean it up, why are the democrats putting so much pressure on this as a determination for the american people? >> you know, that's a great question. and what would really be edifying here is to actually know the facts. first of all, we don't know the

actual content of the whistleblower complaint. there's all the media hype about what it's about, but we don't actually know that. and i think that's very important to know the content of that because this was actually -- this was done, submitted by a mature, seasoned employee, not some junior person. moreover, the inspector general of the intelligence community found it credible and urgent. this is an appointee of this administration, senate confirmed and all that. so that to me attaches importance to the actual content of the complaint. you know, i hate to suggest this, but it's crossed my mind that even if we got a transcript, well, can we be sure that's actually what was said? so getting a transcript may not be such a great thing either. >> james clapper, it is invaluable to the audience to know how the job is done by

somebody who did that job. i appreciate it very much. best to you, sir. >> thanks, chris. >> just so you get that point right, it not about what i think is the right thing for this -- to mean politically. i don't know where the democrats are going with this. we'll talk to democrats about it. i just don't like when people are lying to you and that was my perspective with rudy giuliani. so we found the person who he was talking about, wrote an op-ed in the "washington post." now mr. la shen co is going to come on and he's going to tell you his answers to mr mr. giuliani's allegations about him, a form aer ukrainian government official and journalist next. luckily there's febreze plug. it cleans away odors and freshens for 1200 hours. [deep inhale] breathe happy with febreze plug.

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. again, impeach, not impeach, it's a political consideration, i'm going to\people about that tonight. for us it's about whether or not people in power are telling you the truth, and rudy giuliani was not telling you the truth on things that matter. so we wanted to check the holes in the president's theory several times on this show. it's not just about the biden family, it about other things that rudy giuliani's calling out and we went to the source. >> december 16th, 2018 there is a finding by a court in the ukraine that a man named teleshenco, something like that, that he produced a phony affidavit that was given to the american authorities and an fbi

agent named greenwood and they found him guilty of that. nobody reports that. >> if you're going to put somebody at the center of your theory, know their name, okay? the man's name is serh serhi lashenko, a former member of that country's parliament. we spoke exclusively with him tonight and we covered a lot of turf, including what mr. jewel a -- giuliani just left out. >> this was a decision of administrative court in ukraine, which was never in active status because we went it appeal court, which stopped and then cancelled the decision of the administrative court and for today there is no decision stating that i violated any law in sense of intervention in america elections or something like that.

>> he did appeal. he of won. then there was another level of review and he won. mr. giuliani did know this? either he was ignorant or he knew that what he was making the crux of the complicity here was a false allegation. you can decide which it is, but there is no judicial decision that says that leshchenko did anything wrong. then there's the central question that the right has been pushing about the 2016 election and who it was that really interfered. >> several people in the ukraine knew about a tremendous amount of collusion between ukrainian officials and hillary clinton and the democratic national committee. >> you were a member of parliament during this period. do you know about collusion between members of your government at that time and the

clinton campaign in order to hurt donald trump and help her? >> not at all. it's just a conspiracy of mr. giuliani, which he constructed and maybe he believed in. and in reality, this collusion does not exist, did not exist. >> when you start unraveling the threads of what the president and his supporters are pushing, you find they come back to a favorite left-wing boogeyman, george soros. leshchenko laughs that one off. >> maybe i would be happy to have such relations with mr. soros but it's not true. before parliament, i was an investigative journalist. when we establish our own line, we received some small grants from ukrainian foundation called renaissance, which was founded by mr. soros, but the last

payment we received from this foundation was year 2004, maybe 2005. that's it. >> that brings us to a key flaw in the logic that joe biden personally wanted the ukrainian prosecutor, victor shorkin out. >> remember the time when mr mr. shorkin was a general and he sabotaged this investigation? american ambassador made a public statement with request to ukrainian prosecutor general to investigate this case and it's very strong argument to deny the whole conspiracy theory of mr. giuliani. because he's saying that biden brought this investigation but why the ambassador argued to continue the investigation. it's nonsense. >> so just to be clear, just to be clear -- >> he just closed this case. >> just to be clear, you're

saying that mr. shokin, the prosecutor that the united states and others wanted to push out actually didn't want to look at this investigation, he wasn't running after mr. biden, hunt are biden, mr. biden's son. you're saying he was being pressured to investigate him, not that he was applying pressure to investigate him? >> mr. shokin was very weak as a prosecutor. he did not deliver investigation. the reason why ukrainian society, members of parliament, we campaign to resign him from this position. we started to collect signatures in ukrainian parliament. we collected more than 120 signatures to impeach and procedure of his resignation. it was issue for the whole society to have transparent and unbiased prosecutor general. >> so just to review, giuliani

says this man and others were trying to hurt trump in the 2016 campaign. leshchenko says, no, i was trying to root out corruption in my country. giuliani says, oh, yeah, then why were you convicted of making it up about manafort? giuliani's making that up. that case went away and you just heard it from the man who is there and you can google it and you'll find the procedural history on the case. and then giuliani says, yeah, but look, biden wanted to get rid of this prosecutor who was coming after his kid. that makes sense to all of us, right? that would make sense. except this guy, they wanted him out, his own party, 298 -- or 89 votes in the parliament to get him out. western democracies wanting had imou him out, the u.n. wanted hem imt because he wouldn't take up cases. no evidence he took up cases against hunter biden.

cory booker is breathing fire about impeachment and also simultaneously trying to pump air into his presidential campaign. a very troubling message came out of the campaign. we'll take up the reality for cory booker and the political reality for this country next. morning. what are you doing? isn't it obvious? nah. we're delivering live market coverage and offering expert analysis completely free. we're helping you make sense of the markets without cable or a subscription from anywhere you are. i get that. but what are you doing here?

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. more breaking news that just came in. this is from "the washington post." the newspaper is reporting just

tonight citing multiple democratic officials that house speaker nancy pelosi is quietly feeling out colleagues about whether it is time to impeach president trump, specifically asking about the significance of this ukraine situation. sources tell the post that she is asking about the president's words about the conversation with ukraine's president and whether or not it is a tipping point. the post says pelosi has been making calls this evening to gauge support. democratic senator, presidential candidate cory booker started calling for impeachment long before ukraine, and he's with us now on "primetime." good to see you, senator. >> chris, always good to be on. thank you for having me. >> first let me deal with your campaign and then we'll get into these politics. message comes from the campaign like this is it, either get on board with us right now or the campaign is going to end. is that a reality? are you thinking about dropping

out? >> well, look, we built a campaign. we told people this is not an ego exercise or vanity experiment. and we wanted to win. we were building a campaign until now that was a winning campaign. the polls have never predicted from our party who would become president of the united states. what predicts is strength on the ground. we have the strongest team on the ground us and elizabeth warren and we just knew that if we were going to stay competitive, as the campaign that has the most endorsements from state and local officials in iowa, new hampshire, that we had to continue to grow and we didn't have the resources do that. so we've been very honest. we have until the end of the quarter, until a week from now to raise about $1.7 million and we wanted to be candid. we should not be in this race if we can't grow to win. now, the good news is we're three days into it and we've had the three biggest fund-raising days of the campaign online. the momentum of people and i've been hearing from folks all across the country, even people who aren't all in for me just

asking me to stay in this race because of the value of our voice and our perspective. so we got to keep pushing. it's been incredible. we're almost at 700,000 of that $1.7 million we need to raise. we hope that people who want me in this race and want my voice out there will go to corybooker.com and keep us in it. >> i get the pitch. i get the need for money. is there anything about this that opens it to criticism for being a stunt, creating a sense of false urgency and getting people into your tent? >> no. we've been very open and transparent with people. this was a risk. we're saying plainly until the fourth quarter we've been raising the money we needed to be competitive but we did not have the fund-raising trajectory necessary in order to continue the campaign in the way that we thought we should do it. and i think it's -- at least my values ares are if you don't have a trajectory to win, you should not be in this race. >> no, i hear you.

>> and so we needed help. and right now a lot of people are responding and it is exciting to me, thousands and thousands of people are making small dollar contributions, our best days of the campaign. we have seven more to go and we really need the help. if we don't hit our goal, we're going to have to make some very tough decisions but, god, these have been three of the more affirming days not just in this campaign but in politics. the notes we're getting for people, even people who are neutral in this race saying i'm not endorsing people, they've been shooting out tweets and texts to try to help us out. we have to keep it up for seven more days. >> do you believe the situation with ukraine and the president and our president adds or is stand alone worthy of impeachment? >> look, as you said earlier, i've already called for impeachment proceedings to begin. one of the reasons i did was because this administration was

stopping information from getting to congress for congress to do its job, which is to provide a check and a balance on this president. so he's not acting when it comes to congressional investigations, subpoenas and documents, he's not acting like the leader of the free world, he's acting more like a dictator. here's another example where this justice department has stopped a -- really subverted or even undermined the whistleblower law that says if this is something as the inspector general found it, something credible and urgent, it should have gone to congress. this is not a partisan issue. this is a president of the united states withholding information. i've been to ukraine. i've been to the region where the russians are conducting military operations. i met with courageous ukrainian military folks whose comrades were dying in trying to fight against russian aggression. crimea was annexed. this is deeply real and profound

that our country, congress, bipartisan said we should get support to them and defend them against russian aggression and this president allegedly is withholding those resources in order to go against a political oppone opponent. >> but, senator, as we know now, the money has moved over there. my question for you as an extension of the party is are you guys setting yourselves up again like you did on the mueller thing? which is there may be acts there that would play a big role in someone's decision in an election but you're not going to get any republicans to vote to remove this president on the basis of what happened in ukraine, even if he did hold the money out, even if that's clear this the transcript, which i don't think it's going to be, you're not going to remove him from office. so if you go down a road that you cannot satisfy, where is the political advantage in that or is it about something else? >> so, chris, it is about something else. politics be damned. this is our country. this is our constitution. 20 years, 40 years from now people will look back at moments

like this, what did we do to hold a president accountable? i swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. forget politics for a moment. he is violating our constitutional mandate. he's saying he's not subject to the checks and balances of our government, which undermines the very ideals of our nation. this is a moral moment and we should do the right thing and hold this president accountable. >> senator booker, i appreciate you being with us tonight, clearing up what's going on in the campaign and clearing up where your party is on this. these are going to be very interesting days ahead. it's good to have you here on the show. >> thank you, chris. always good to be with you. >> good luck with the campaign going forward. we have a rare glimpse of the president's press secretary today. she gave a lot of excuses for why white house briefings have gone the way of the dodo, extinct. are they ever coming back to life? the interesting part is the explanation, and it has spawned an argument for you next. maria ramirez?

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. stephanie grisham, can you place the face? she's the white house press secretary, almost three months now. many of you may not know that. she's never stood behind the podium in the white house press briefing room to take questions from reporters. a press secretary who does not take questions from the press. and today over on state tv, she gave several excuses for the moratorium. number one, the briefings are useless, she says, because the press can just ask the president. >> he's the most accessible president in history as all of the media knows. >> this is approaching another example of orwellian double speak because of this president's -- what he wants you to believe, he just keeps saying it. he rarely does an interview with anyone but a pal and constantly

attacks the media. that makes him accessible? >> i'm the most transparent president probably in the history of this country. in the history of our country, there has never been a president that's been more transparent than me or the trump administration. >> keep saying it and saying it until the base starts parroting it the way the press secretary is. that is the goal of double speak -- accessible, transparent. okay. where is the transcript of the call with ukraine's president? where's the whistle-blower complaint? where are the white house visitor logs? why didn't you testify like you promised in the mueller probe? why not release your taxes? why do you fight every effort of congress to investigate? during the first year of the trump presidency, did you know that more foia requests, freedom

of information act requests, were denied or censored than at any time in the past decade. not only are there no white house press briefings, the pentagon barely holds them anymore. same with the state department. and, again, when the president does talk to the press, take a look at the numbers. more than 40 interviews with fox news. that's why we call it state tv, that and the way they treat him when he's there. that's more than all other networks combined. and only once has he talked with chris wallace over on fox. who's second highest? fox business. that's not accessibility. that's plausible deniability. grisham's second excuse for lack of press briefings -- >> they weren't being good to his people, and he doesn't like that. he's very loyal to his people, and he put a stop to it. >> hmm. you can tell she's new because this is way too close to the truth. you heard that, right? this president will punish the media if they cover people that

are close to him in ways he doesn't like. but she lost it on that last part about the loyalty. name me one person that this president has stuck by when things got bad for them. he is about fealty, i would argue to you, not loyalty. but be clear, president trump is welcome on this show anytime to make his case to you. same with ms. grisham, and we wish her well in the job. it is a standing invitation. it won't be the courtesy couch you were on this morning over there at state tv, but i promise you this. we will never treat you the way our president treats us in the media and a lot of other people in this country. there may be disagreement, but there will always be decency. that's the argument. ahead, we've got a big shot on joe biden's campaign with new reaction to the president's new admissions today on his efforts to get ukraine to investigate

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hey, i'm chris cuomo. welcome to a special bonus hour of "prime time." guess what? breaking news on our watch. the hill is very active tonight. the whistle-blower scandal may be changing the calculus for democrats and particularly speaker pelosi when it comes to impeachment. they're about to hold a big meeting tomorrow as the president now admits discussing his political opponent on that ukraine call. so what are we going to do for you? we're going to bring in one of joe biden's top aides for new reaction from the campaign. the president claims republicans would get the electric chair if they did what he claims ben