both today and over the weekend the president of the united states admitted to talking to a foreign leader about investigating the president's leading domestic political rival and today he suggested he was using $250 million in military aid as leverage. that's where we begin tonight. it's important not to let what president trump said, what he himself has already admitted, get lost in all the noise

surrounding this story. that noise, the goal post moving, the denying of wrongdoing, even while seemingly admitting to it all, they're all from a playbook this president has used before. and you'll see plenty of examples of it tonight. but strip that away. don't go down those rabbit holes, and you're left with the question of whether a sitting u.s. president may have used the power of his elected office to obtain something of personal or political value from a foreign government. perhaps by means of extortion. and again, wherever a court or congress may come down on that the president, himself, has now admitted to some elements of it, saying, yes, he did talk with ukraine's president about criminally investigating joe biden and his son, hunter. >> the conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people, like vice president biden and his son,

creating to the corruption already in the ukraine. >> the president's surrogates are trying to claim that whatever the president may have said, his concern was corruption in ukraine was he was just talking about there. although there is no evidence of anything having to do with joe biden or his son, the president is speaking as if there is. the president is hoping you will get distracted by that. that if he repeats it enough it'll start to seem like a fact. it's not. what he's trying to do is distract you from getting caught saying something that is improper and possibly illegal for a sitting president to do. pressure a foreign leader into criminally investigating an american political rival, someone the president is worried about losing to in the next election. when the story first broke the president himself flat out denied anything inappropriate. last thursday he tweeted, quote, is anybody dumb enough to believe that i would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while in such a potentially heavily populated call? well, sunday he admitted that he had, and this morning he connected it with the quarter billion dollars in u.s. military aid to ukraine.

>> it's very important to talk about corruption. if you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt? one of the reasons the new president got elected is he was going to stop corruption. so it is very important that on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption. >> it is very important that on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption. we should point out this has not been a big topic the president has publicly discussed. corruption in countries around the world. you might believe it is simply a coincidence he says he is concerned about corruption in ukraine. but even if you believe that, according to the reporting in "the wall street journal," he certainly seems focused on the bidens in ukraine. according to the journal he brought up the bidens around eight times in that conversation back at the end of july. several weeks later the president blocked that military aid package to ukraine that had already passed congress. parts of ukraine, as you know, are under russian occupation. the money would have gone to defending against further russian aggression. so it's not trivial stuff,

certainly not for ukraine. the president finally relented to bipartisan pressure and approved the aid. the president has publicly claimed he wants us all to see the transcript of the call. >> i hope you get to see the call because your question -- you will see i did not ask for -- i did not make a statement that you have to do this, or i'm not going to give you "a." i wouldn't do that. i wouldn't do that. >> no. wouldn't have to do that either. it seems clear what he's saying there, but in the last several days, he's really been playing cat and mouse on whether he will release a transcript. does this sound familiar? he said he'd love to. he also said he might not. today he said both in a single sentence. perhaps he will, perhaps he won't. it is similar to what he has said about releasing his tax returns or being interviewed by robert mueller in person. he'd love to, he would say, but lawyers say he can't. whatever the case may be, we do not know precisely what was said on that call. but it's certainly possible he may no explicit threat about

withholding aid. again, did he really need to spell it out, especially with his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, who for weeks has been meeting with ukrainian officials, pressuring ukrainians to investigate the bidens, which is of course not normal, not for any president in any party, ever, which the president's treasury secretary must have known yesterday even as cnn's jake tapper asked him this. >> let me just close by asking, if, for instance, president obama had pressured a foreign leader, putin or the president of the ukraine and said, i want you to look into donald trump jr. or i want you to look into eric trump, international businessmen, both of them. would you not find that inappropriate? >> again, i'm not going to speculate on that. >> well, it will certainly come up in the conversation tonight on that and the whistle-blower complaint that is apparently connected to it. but first some breaking news just in. a new action tomorrow in the house concerning the investigation. cnn's kaitlan collins is traveling with the president, joins us now from the united

nations. first of all, what do you know about the meeting among democrats' plans tomorrow for a meeting? >> reporter: anderson, this is really interesting. we're learning that house democrats are going to meet tomorrow afternoon. this is in addition to the meeting they typically have in the morning to discuss run of the mill issues, trade, whatnot. they're going to meet especially tomorrow afternoon to talk about the next steps they're taking in their investigations. of course one of the topics that's likely to come up during that meeting is going to be the white house's refusal so far to turn over this whistle-blower's complaint to congress, something that the law mandates that the inspector general does deem it urgent, which we should note he has. it also comes amid these questions after house speaker nancy pelosi said that if the white house didn't turn it over, it was going to lead to an escalation with congress, and that's noteworthy because so far she's been pretty hesitant to make any kind of calls for impeachment, any pushes for it. so far there are questions about whether or not she is softening that stance. that's what people are going to be watching for coming out of that meeting tomorrow, which we

should note is also for members only. no staff so far based on what we're told is going to be invited to that meeting. >> how are people in the white house viewing this because, again, the president himself admitted to bringing up the bidens in his conversation with the ukrainian president, which is what "the wall street journal" reported. >> reporter: yeah, and as the president admitted that leaving the white house yesterday, his aides were on tv insisting he did not pressure the ukrainians in that conversation. he didn't make any mention of that aid package when the president today was making clear he thinks if he did bring up the aid package in relation to this investigation he wants to happen into joe biden and his family, he thinks it would be appropriate. right now aides are dismissing it. they're saying this is just how the president speaks, but they are watching closely to see what the reaction is going to be not just among republicans, but also are new democrats going to call for his impeachment? they've been dismissing it publicly, but, anderson, they're going to be paying close attention to that meeting tomorrow afternoon to see what it is the house speaker says after meeting with her caucus. >> right.

so if congress doesn't get a transcript of this call or recording of the call, i mean is there any chance the white house would actually release it? i know the president has said at some point, you know, i would like to. but i mean that's what he said about tax returns and the mueller interview. >> reporter: yeah, it is, and he's wavered back and forth. really the president has been the only president who said that, yes, he'd like to see this transcript released. so far people in the white house have said they think it would create a dangerous precedent. they think it would lead to lawmakers asking for transcripts of his calls with vladimir putin and other world leaders. it's up to their discretion is if they're going to release it, but the question is whether they're going to release that whistle-blower's complaint, not to the public but even to the intelligence committee as the law mandates. that's something they're even waffling on, saying that would set a dangerous precedent. of course with that, it doesn't come down to the precedent. it's the law for them to release it. >> thanks very much. adding to the pressure, upcoming testimony, the actor director of

national intelligence is due in front of the house intelligence committee on thursday. that's going to be behind closed doors. as kaitlan reported, a growing appetite among house democrats for impeachment. just air time, i spoke with tennessee democratic congressman steve cohen. congressman, how much does the situation with president trump and ukraine change the calculus in the house? you've been pushing for impeachment since 2017. has this latest controversy taken things to a new level among your fellow democrats? >> i think it has. of course, it depends on the facts as they're developed and if they are very close to what we have read in the reports from "the washington post" of him basically leveraging military aid to ukraine, that they need to defend themselves from russian invasion, on their investigating allegations about joe biden's son hunter, then if they're close i think it'll bring us to a new place where we'll have another article of impeachment and maybe an article

we all can get on and agree is something that the republicans should join us on, and if they don't, hopefully so be it. >> it doesn't matter to you if there's not any -- there's no way it would pass in the senate because of a lack of republican support. you think the house should still go ahead and do this? >> i most certainly do because i think we have a duty. we take an oath of office to uphold the constitution. we are given the power to sanction or countervail a president through impeachment who we feel the facts show has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and some of that is just the inability to operate as chief executive of the nation. and when somebody uses the powers of the government, the powers of the nation for their own political benefit, and does it in a way that appears to be a bribe to a foreign official, we have a duty under our oath to take action. and even more than that, i think as a history student, i think

it's important that history record president trump in the same category as andrew johnson, a president who was impeached, not convicted, but impeached for good cause, and history should know he's in that same class. >> there is no argument of course among some democrats that this will ignite or rev up the president's base, and obviously there are concerns about the 2020 election. should that be taken into account? >> i can't -- i don't see it. number one, we have a duty. number two, the president's going to lie no matter what we do about things we've done and about things we haven't done and about things he imagines and things that are underneath rocks that don't even exist. so you can't base any of your actions on what the president might do because the president will do anything that he possibly can to be re-elected. he learned at the foot of roy cohn, who was one of the most despicable human beings ever to disgrace the earth.

>> speaker pelosi still hasn't publicly endorsed impeachment proceedings. she says the situation with the whistle-blower and ukraine could precipitate what she called a whole new stage of investigation. do you need her onboard in order to move forward with impeachment, or is there willingness to do this with or without her blessing? >> we need her onboard to get the 218 votes to have the house officially impeach him, which would put the senate on the spot and cause several senators to have to show the american people are they with the constitution and the rule of law, or are they with donald trump? and for republican senators that are in difficult seats to defend -- and i would suspect that's arizona, that's maine, that's colorado, could even be texas -- it will be important to see whether they uphold their oath to the constitution or whether they go down as trumpers. >> congressman cohen, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> anderson, good to be with you. we're going to have much more ahead including the reaction from republicans and some rare criticism, plus a republican strategist's take on

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by valentino. welcome back. we have been looking at the white house reaction to all the coverage about the president's conversation with the ukrainian president. tomorrow apparently the democrats are going to meet to discuss next steps in the investigation of the president. far less attention has been put on the republican side. here is a healthy piece of a fairly mall sample of republicans talking about this. >> it is regrettable that house intelligence committee chairman schiff and senator schumer have chosen to politicize the issue. >> i would like to have the whistle-blower come and talk to me so we know what his story is.

i don't want to hear it secondhand. >> i believe president trump is going to blow you away with his willingness to disclose and be transparent about this phone call because i think he did nothing wrong and he has nothing to hide. >> the bottom line is i don't think he should have done it but that's a far cry from what some people around here are claiming to know as fact that frankly we don't know as fact. >> i think there are people in the intelligence community and other parts of our government who just have it out for the president. >> utah senator mitt romney is one of the few republicans to openly criticize the president, tweeting if the president asked for pressured ukraine's president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. critical for the facts to come out. our political analyst and cnn commentator and former bush campaign media adviser and dana bash. dana, what are you hearing from republican circles on the hill? certainly not saying much

publicly. what are they saying privately? >> nothing. i mean what you just heard publicly is what is going on privately, which is nothing. except for the condemnation of the quote, unquote, hysteria of democrats on what they think could be a very big problem, what is a very big problem on its face, the president of the united states admitting that he made completely inappropriate comments to another foreign leader about a political opponent. that in and of itself should be a green light for the trump-appointed inspector general to be able to give a report or just a complaint, rather, just a complaint to congress because that's the way it should go. but what you are hearing is crickets from republicans and i've even talked to some democrats, anderson, who have, you know, kind of private conversations with some of the

potential republicans who would poke their head out of the hole on something like this, and even for them, they are hearing nothing. >> marx -- mark, i'm wondering where you are on this and on republicans' reaction to it. if president obama had done this and pressed a foreign leader to investigate mitt romney's son ahead of the election i wouldn't be surprised, i imagine republicans would have taken immediate steps to impeach or at least spoken out a lot about it. what do you make of this? >> yeah, obama would be in a gu lag somewhere, anderson. what i make is most republicans now, with a very few exceptions like romney, have concluded that they're working for president houdini, and they just saw that we spent $32 million on a two-year investigation with the toughest prosecutor in america and couldn't scratch a flame. so i think they're looking at that and saying this guy is bulletproof and there's no reason for us to get out over our skis on this. so let's at the very least wait

and see. the thing that's more bothersome, i think, is the point that dana was raising, which is president trump is just going further and further and further about thwarting the laws of this country. and in this case, a trump-appointed inspector general is the guy who said -- he's supposed to be the filter to say is this worthy, and he's saying not only is it worthy, he's saying it's urgent. and the law says you have to give that to congress. and they're saying, nope, don't have to. can't make me, and trying to draw the line there. so that's -- you know, once again, the guardrails just keep being pushed further and further. we'll see what the laws and the courts can do now. >> carl, that is the question. what can the laws, what can the courts do? if nobody sees the transcript and nobody heres the call, if it ever goes out of the dni's office, does this just die on the vine? >> well, we don't know, and that's one of the reasons that impeachment is being mentioned in this. i think what we have here, if

the reports in "the new york times," the washington, and especially "the wall street journal" owned by rupert murdoch, the president's friend, who the journal has done great reporting, exposing apparently what has happened here with real intimidation of a foreign leader to get him to investigate a political opponent of the president of the united states. that would be a grave abuse of power. and what we are seeing in the president's response is also the pathology of donald trump talking about the electric chair, and we're watching again the contempt for the law, the contempt for process, the contempt for the office of the presidency as it's traditionally been conducted by those presidents who respect the constitution and the law. but there's one other parallel here that goes back to watergate, and that is we have, as in watergate, president nixon

attempted to interfere with the democratic primaries, the opposition party's primaries by political espionage and sabotage to get the nominee he wanted to run against, who was george mcgovern, not senator muskie of maine, through political dirty tricks, espionage, and sabotage. this, if the reporting is correct, is once again an abuse of power such as was in the nixon impeachment for undermining the basis of our democracy, free elections. >> but, anderson, as carl knows better than any of us, ultimately the downfall of richard nixon was his fellow republicans. and what i'm also hearing tonight -- >> that's exactly right. >> right. what i'm hearing tonight from republicans, who have the most to lose, republicans who are up for re-election in 2020 on the hill -- obviously that's all republicans in the house but also in purple states in the senate, and even they are saying to me that their constituents,

they believe, see this as too complicated, and there's a russia hangover here, that they are hearing from their constituents that there was a shoulder shrug after, as mark said, millions of dollars were spent, a year and a half of discussion about russia, and their constituents didn't think it was a big deal, and they see what is going on now is akin to that. and they think that they have political protection. >> mark, what's interesting about that, too, is that this phone call to the ukrainian president took place the day after the mueller hearing. again, we don't know what was in the president's mind, but watching the mueller hearing and then feeling like, okay, no collusion, i mean this you could say is an attempt at collusion. he then ups the ante to your point and calls this guy up and -- >> it was the day after. >> yeah. >> well, the timing is not only incredible, it's apparently not coincidental because you can just imagine how having just beat this tough federal

prosecutor and the $32 million of spending trying to get him and months and months of hearings, that he would say, if i can get away with that, i can get away with anything. but politically i think what's happening here, anderson, obviously i think this will be the tipping points for democrats to go to impeachment. at the same time, i think it's just going to divide the country even more. it's going to energize democrats. i think it's also going to energize republicans. we may have an election next year where we have 100% turnout on both sides. >> carl, it is part of a pattern from the president and his inner circle, deny it happened, admit something happened, then deflect blame. the president says he would love to release the thing, but gosh darn, these attorneys, they're holding up the taxes because of the audit 0 that may or may not exist, and i'd love to talk to mueller, but my attorneys just won't let me. >> we've seen one red herring after another in all matters trump in which he would supposedly, you would think, have been caught not just in lying but in obstructing

justice, in abusing the powers of his office. but he has been very effective in mobilizing his base, in keeping the republican party united. 60%, 70%, 80%, even 90% of those who call themselves republicans support this president of the united states. he said he could walk down fifth avenue and shoot somebody and get away with it. i think we're seeing that here. but we are also seeing the constitution of the united states stretched to its limits, and this is the great dilemma for the democrats. are they going to be a party that insists on constitutional responsibility and go ahead and move toward impeachment of this president, or are they going to follow a strictly political route, and it might devolve to making them look bad by not confronting the president in terms of his constitutional abuse of power. >> yeah, and then, mark, does the election then just become a

yes or no about impeachment and what the democrats did, and does that suck up all the oxygen of what the democrats talk about, which takes them off of tabletop issues? >> yes. in fact that's what i'm saying. politically you could see how this could turn into an advantage for trum. they could say, they couldn't get us with mueller. they can't get us through the ele election. they're trying to make a move around the voters to try and get us out of office, and that's why we're drawing the line. >> and that is exactly why nancy pelosi has been trying to stop this train from leaving the station for so long and why it's hard now because a lot of moderate democrats have been coming out in the last 24 hours saying it's time. >> right. yeah. great to have you on. >> and the facts have changed. >> carl bernstein, thank you so much. just ahead, we're going to step back. some perspective on the stark language that president trump is using to describe his critics. with my hepatitis c, i felt i couldn't be at my best for my family. in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured and left those doubts behind.

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the avalanche of unprecedented happenings from this president calls for perspective. this one of those times like when the president uses language like this about the growing scandal around him. >> jieoe biden and his son are corrupt, all right? but the fake news doesn't want to report it because they're democrats. if that ever happened, if a republican ever did what joe biden did, if a republican ever said what joe biden said, they'd be getting the electric chair by right now. look at the double standards. you people ought to be ashamed of yourself, and not all. we have some great journalists around, but you've got a lot of crooked journalists. you're crooked as hell. >> lieutenant colonel ralph

peters joins me now. when you hear language like that from the president of the united states, he's talking in front, by the way, of the president of poland, i wonder what you make of it. what does it say to you that the u.s. -- >> it truly is an utterly, utterly unprecedented situation and shames us. it shames us all. it doesn't just shame democrats. it james all americans. and the founding fathers, of course, never foresaw anyone like trump. how could they? and when he talks -- you know, there are many sides to government corruption. i personally know of nothing for which joe biden could be accused of being corrupt. trump, on the other hand, is a paragon of corruption in every possible respect in his presidency, in his life before the presidency. that said, you know, i'm not a fan of elizabeth warren. she can't do basic math. but she is absolutely right

about the pervasiveness of corruption, including what i would call legal corruption in our government. so while joe biden appears to be above reproach, it is a legitimate question for we, the people, to ask what qualifications did his son have to sit on a ukrainian gas corporations board? trump is something new. he's a low point in our history. he does such damage on a daily basis to our image. the only saving grace is our allies have already written him off and are just hoping for change. >> and yet, first of all, there's something about saying that kind of thing in front of the president of poland that is interesting to me because it does give license to a president of poland or any regime that wants to crack down on reporters or just label any kind of information that they don't like, you know, fake, wh. when the president of the united states is doing that, i feel like it gives license to thugs

around the world. >> well, of course it does, and there is plenty of fake news. and it's primarily on the internet and sponsored by extreme right-wing sites although extreme left-wing sites get their share too. but trump -- the biggest mistake people make about trump is using the word "leader" or "leadership." trump is not a leader of any sort. trump is an entertainer, and he is a brilliant entertainer, one of the most successful entertainers in history. but leadership, you know, i think about this a lot in relation to trump. you know, the military rules apply. a leader should put his mission first, then his men before himself. and trump is just the opposite. you know, in the military, there's a rule that officers eat last. when you're out on maneuvers, you make sure every single soldier is fed, and then if there's anything left, you get the cold powdered eggs in the winter. and trump is just the opposite of that. trump eats first and eats as

much as he can. he doesn't care if there's any leftovers for anybody else. so from my experience of leadership -- and i have been privileged to work for and with some magnificent leaders, and trump doesn't qualify as a leader on any single count. >> the president said he's the most transparent president in u.s. history. clearly his white house is not. he is transparent, probably not how he means, in that he is the most -- it is so clear what he is thinking, and he says all the things he is thinking whether it's on twitter. he told george stephanopoulos he would have no problem taking information from a foreign government to use against an opponent if it would help him in an election. this is just one step beyond that, and it doesn't seem like he has a problem with the idea of, you know, asking a foreign government to do something that's going to attack his own political opponent and help an election, and why not use, you know, the weight of not giving

military aid. i mean if you believe in the first one of accepting information from a foreign government, morally why not just then request it? >> no. trump cares about trump cares about trump kacares about trump and that's where it ends. he doesn't care about others, maybe a little bit about his family. but, you know, it's telling that donald trump doesn't seem to have a single intimate lifelong friend. he must be in his own peculiar way a terribly lonely man. nothing really makes him happy. when do you see trump looking genuinely happy or delighted with life? you know, he may be president of the united states but, by god, every morning he has to get up and be donald trump. and that's a curse upon anybody. >> lieutenant concern ralph peters, appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you. still to come tonight, did the president's tv lawyer, rudy giuliani, expose himself to some legal jeopardy by asking a foreign government to meddle in the u.s. election? we'll look at that ahead. be fir?

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today the democratic heads of the foreign affairs, intelligence, and oversight committees threatened the state department with subpoenas if it

did not turn over documents related to its efforts to aid rudy giuliani in his meetings with officials in ukraine. guiliani's role in the story has not gone unnoticed in large part because of the by design crash and burn interviews he's once again conducted as part of the president's defense strategy. take a look. >> your answer should have been yes. >> let me finish, chris. don't try to interrupt because you don't like the answer. >> i don't like evasiveness. >> don't distort what i'm saying. if joe biden actually bribed the president of the ukraine, which he -- >> that's a big allegation. >> it's not an allegation. it's a prima facie case. we could look at motive. we could look at intent. >> did the president threaten to cut off aid to the ukraine? >> no. no. that was a false story. >> 100%? >> well, i can't tell you if it's 100%. >> well, joining me, our cnn legal analyst and senior fellow at the center for american security, carrie cordero.

has giuliani opened himself up to any kind of legal action? he's not a public official. the president obviously is. still unclear who knew what and when and what giuliani himself said to various ukrainian officials he has been meeting with. >> so it's a question whether or not he has exposed himself to criminal liability or not. if the president -- the president is the person who is the public official. so if we're looking at the criminal federal bribery statutes, then if the president sought a thing of value from a foreign government official in exchange for some type of official act that he could have participated in, that he could have given, then that would fall under the federal bribery statutes. and if rudy giuliani is helping him do that, then is either aiding and abetting, or there is an argument that he could be involved in some kind of conspiracy. >> but it's a tough argument to make. i mean if the president's line is, well, look, i was talking about corruption in ukraine, and my concerns over it, and i mentioned biden eight times according to "the wall street

journal," but it's corruption in ukraine that i'm concerned about because, you know, we're going to potentially give a lot of money to them. >> well, this is where we start to go down the rat hole of are things that the president is doing that's a national security problem, i.e. potentially implicitly, whether or not explicitly using instruments of foreign policy and national defense in exchange for political favors, we get into weather that foreign policy and severe national security problem is a technical violation of criminal law. and so i think depending on the way the facts play out -- because, again, we don't have all of the facts at this point because that whistle-blower complaint has to be provided to the intelligence committees of congress in order for them to vet the facts. but because we don't know all the facts, could there be, if they play out that way in a ten waited way, that rudy giuliani could be implicated? it's possible. >> you say it has to be provided to congress. is there a mechanism for that? i mean if the dni says, you

know, i've talked to the justice department. i've talked to the white house. i'm not going to forward this on and the whistle-blower isn't going to come forward directly to go to congress, what happens? >> well, right now it's a stonewall because the administration is throwing up a whole bunch of different explanations for why they think they don't have to provide it. what needs to happen from my perspective is the four chairs and vice chairs or ranking members of the intelligence committees -- this would mean that republicans and democrats would have to demand from the executive, from the president, that they be provided with that whistle-blower complaint. they might all have different motivations, and i know people think, oh, there's no way that they would agree to request this information. but there actually have been instances where the chair and ranking member of the house intelligence committee have joined together to request certain information in other contexts from the executive branch. if those four chairs of the senate intel and the house intel committee got together and

demanded from the white house, i think it would be very hard for the white house to withhold that information. >> and as a former national security attorney, you testified before the house judiciary committee on lessons from the mueller report, hoping that lessons would ensure foreign interference in our democratic institutions would be looked back on as an aberration. i mean it seems like as soon as the mueller testimony was done, this call was made. the timing is kind of stunning. >> it was the next day, and the mueller report was a warning. what it showed was that the president in his campaign in 2016 openly were willing to receive assistance from a hostile foreign power. and what the current facts are starting to look like is that in the present time, right now, as we move from day to day, they are again actively seeking foreign information to harm their political opponents. >> yeah, which the president told george stephanopoulos he wouldn't have a problem with if they approached him with information. >> they're doing it in the wide open. >> carrie cordero, appreciate it. still to come, why the new

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check in with chris, see what he's working with for "cuomo prime time." i wonder what you thought about the president talking about your interview with rudy giuliani. he claims he took you to the cleaners. he also claims he never watches cnn. but i'm curious to know your thoughts. >> i think that wasn't the right place for him to be making those kinds of comments at the u.n. he is incapable of being distracted from himself. and i think that the giuliani interview speaks for itself. and i think the actions that we're seeing in congress and the questions about what mr. giuliani was talking about speak for themselves. we've got lashenko on tonight, the ukrainian member of parliament and the journalist that he said was out to hurt trump and that's why he went after manafort. you will get the answers to all the allegations from giuliani and some facts he neglected to share. >> you also did an amazing breakdown of the interview and

giuliani's strategy the other week which i just thought was fascinating to watch. we'll be watching tonight eight minutes from now. coming up she's been on the job since the summer, hasn't held a formal briefing even though that is technically her job or at least what the job used to be. the white house press secretary stephan stephan stephanie goes to bat. forks the ridiculist is next. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns, we're with you. because life can take you almost anywhere, t-mobile is with you. no signal goes farther or is more reliable in keeping you connected.

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so you can be too. try our new warm grain bowls today. panera. food as it should be. time now tomorrow "the ridiculist." and tonight we want to introduce you to white house figure of dolly madison. we are talking about the white house press secretary stephanie grishim. you haven't seen much of her even though she's been on the job since july. she hasn't been hiding in a bush like sean spicer. she just has never actually held a formal briefing. she did however give an interview with the white house press department main office otherwise known as fox and friends. >> we saw all of his press secretaries in front of the podium. sean spicer, they made fun of

him on "saturday night live." >> before she answers that question, let me just point out the anchor isn't even pretending to be independent of the white house pr machine. no longer are we doing that, right? the briefings. we are not doing that anymore. not you aren't doing that, not the administration, not the white house. but we. i mean, i guess at least she's owning it. it tells you really all you need to know about the information being dispensed each morning from that f&f crescent-shaped novelty couch. >> not right now. ultimately if the president decides it's something we should do, we can do that. and to be honest the briefings have become a lot of theater. and i think that a lot of reporters were doing it to get famous. they're writing books now. they're all getting famous off of this presidency. so i think it's great what we're doing now. >> oh, my god. ah.

fricken reporters. couple things to unpack there. by the way, did you notice how quickly our fox and friends -- is it fox and friends or fox 'n friends. reporters were doing it to you, and then you hear get famous, they wrl were. grisham's really concerned that the reporters were frying to get famous off the president. it's not like anyone at fox would try to write a box on president and make money off said book. jason chafitz, laura ingram, oh, judge jeanine again. a lot of books inspired -- she should do a book trolley to hell because that's the best line she ever used. a lot of books inspired by the president. it's not like anyone in the administration would seek to profit off their time in the white house. just ask sarah sanders who is now a contributor on fox. okay. that's different.

i mean it's not like she's writing a book about her time in the white house, right? i mean -- oh. she's writing a book. oh, well. and, yeah, sean spicer did parlay his lie which i guess pays and he's now doing the old herky jerky twerky. maybe stephanie grisham is wise to keep a low profile. she may actually be able to get a job if she's ultimately ousted and or resigned. no one would ever know she works for the white house because no one knows who she is or what she looks like because she is not doing briefings. and she's claiming the briefings are ended because the reporters were pointing out facts and asking tough questions. >> i think that it's so important that, you know, the spokesperson for the president can adequately speak to his policies and get the message out there. and i think that what the president saw that's not what was happening. it became theater. >> it's hard to adequately speak for policies when the president

undercuts what you've just said from the podium. that happened a lot. and plenty of people are being treated badly in the white house. i'm not sure it's the reporters who are to blame for that. i think there's a lot of, uh, nastiness going on in the white house, and it has nothing to do with reporters. ms. grisham might want to ask her boss about that one tonight and evermore if they can find each other on "the ridiculist." all right. trolley to hell continues. let's go over to "cuomo prime time." doo-doo. >> anderson, thank you very much. i am chris cuomo, and welcome to prime time. we have breaking news on our watch once again. it involves the next steps for democrats as this whistleblower mess widens. have democrats finally crossed the rubicon? is speaker pelosi starting to soften her stance on impeachment? we also have former dni james clappert here tonight for the first interview on the scandal.