afraid of confronting it and trying to help people. don't miss the season premiere sunday at 10:00. thank you so much for joining us. "a.c. 360" with anderson begins now. good evening, the whistleblower warned about it, and tonight cnn has reporting to back it up. our sources telling us that white house efforts to restrict access to president trump's conversations with foreign leaders were not limited to his call with ukraine's president which was put into a code word classified system meant for the nation's top secrets. other conversations were also roped off, though it is not yet clear exactly how. specifically we're talking about phone calls with saudi arabia's crown prince and russia's president, vladimir putin. tonight we also learned that the president's ukraine special envoy named in the whistleblower complaint and tangled up with the president's attorney general, rudy giuliani -- excuse me, the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, has

resigned. cnn's pamela brown starts us off. what are you learning fireman about the resignation? >> reporter: we've learned the white house, the resignation of volker -- sorry, is that what you're asking me about? >> actually, let's start with how the conversations themselves were handled. >> reporter: the conversations, okay, there's a lot of news. let's talk about the conversations because we have learned that efforts to limit access to president trump's conversations with foreign leaders extended to phone calls with crown prince mohammed bin salman and russian leader vladimir putin, according to people familiar with the matter. now those calls were among the presidential conversations that aides took remarkable steps to keep from becoming public. in the case of trump's calls with prince mohammed, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one. according to one of the sources. instead, anderson, a transcript was never even circulated at all which the source said was highly unusual. particularly after high-profile conversation like that one. now the call which the person said contained no especially

sensitive national security secrets came as we'll recall, anderson, as the white house was confronting the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi which u.s. intelligence assessments said came at the hand of the saudi government. now with putin access to the transcript of at least one of trump's conversations was also tightly restricted according to a former trump administration official speaking to my colleague, jim sciutto. it's not clear, though, if aides took the additional step. placing the saudi arabia and russia phone calls in that same highly secured code-word system that held the now-infamous phone call with ukraine's president and helped spark the whistleblower complaint made this week, though officials confirm that calls aside from the ukraine conversation were placed there even thoughy that didn't meet the criteria. administration officials are saying the practice of taking these unusual steps to conceal began more than a year ago after other head of state calls leaked out. anderson? >> and so that's the white house

response, essentially? is that what they are saying about about these latest reporting? >> reporter: yeah, so the white house isn't directly commenting on the saudi and putin calls. they are saying that, look, though, if we try to restrict access, it's because of all these other leaks that happened early in the administration. and we should note, anderson, that a senior white house official did acknowledge earlier today that nsc lawyers moved the now-infamous call to the highly classified system. the official said it was handled appropriately. but we should note while classified, the ukraine call didn't contain the top-secret information like intelligence secrets that would necessitate the move. but all of this is raising further questions tonight, anderson, about how else in the white house was involved, and why the white house selectively put head of state transcripts like the ukraine one in this code-word system and not other transcripts. the white house just has not provided an explanation for that. still a lot to learn, anderson. >> yeah. pamela brown, thank you so much.

as we said, this is a fast-moving story. these developments just happening. it's not the only major development tonight from the whistleblower complaint. a key figure named in it has just resigned. kurt volker is his name. the u.s. special envoy to ukraine. our national security reporter, kiley atwood, joins us now with that. what have you learned about the resignation of this official? >> reporter: well, we should note that kurt volker is probably the key player when it comes to looking at if the state department was helping rudy giuliani a little bit too much with his partisan, politically motivated agenda in terms of encouraging ukraine to investigate joe biden, right. so what we know is that kurt volker had actually met with giuliani. he'd talked with giuliani. he had even, according to the whistleblower complaint, met with zelensky, president zelensky of ukraine, and talked about how to navigate the demands made by president trump over this summer. so clearly kurt volker was in

the center of it. we still have a lot of unanswered questions because the study has said on the record that kurt volker did, indeed, connect a zelensky aide with rudy giuliani. but they haven't gone any further than that. so we ned to hear from the state department about what kurt volker was doing, and he clearly had had enough of it. the state department hadn't come out defending him in the last week. instead, we had rudy giuliani on fox news waving his cell phone, showing off text messages he said were from kurt volker. he said that he was doing everything he was doing because the state department told him to. and now we have kurt volker, the person he was talking to, resigning from the state department. >> the other question, of course, is what secretary of state mike pompeo knew or knows now, secretary pompeo has been subpoenaed by the house. is there something specific that we know has precipitated that? and would he be forced to comply? do we know what his response has

been? >> reporter: yeah. the house foreign affairs committee actually asked the state department for these documents related to ukraine weeks ago. and they didn't get them. they sent multiple letters to the state department asking for these documents. but once they didn't get them, they said they would be subpoenaing secretary of state mike pompeo if they didn't get them. that's what they did today. it is shocking, though, that to subpoena a secretary of state, this is no small deal. but what they are expecting is that they will get these documents by the end of next week. that is the time frame that they have given the state department to comply with their request. and we should note that they want these documents from the state department regarding ukraine, but they also want to hear from state department officials. one of those officials that they expected to hear from, that they said that they were scheduling a deposition for next week, was kurt volker who resigned today. the question is, how are they

going to learn from him? are they still going to talk to him? and congressional aides tell me, one said that they expect to hear everything that kurt volker knows about this scandal. they still want to hear from him because he is in the center of this all. eventually they'll want to hear from secretary pompeo himself. >> also i would assume from the former ambassador to the ukraine, u.s. ambassador who was basically pushed out early from when she was supposed to leave, that, of course, remains to be seen. >> that's right, she's on the list of folks that they're going to be talking to in depositions over the next two weeks. >> yeah. appreciate it. thank you. want to go next to the white house. cnn's jim sciutto joins us from there tonight. excuse me, jim acastroa. sorry -- jim acosta. sorry, jim. you heard the report of the other transcripts that the white house apparently took efforts to conceal.

we don't know exactly how. any sense of how the president and his team are dealing with this? >> reporter: well, i talked to a source who is familiar with the discussions inside the president's legal team earlier this evening who said during the mueller investigation they were at def-con one, tonight they're at def-contend. they claim they're not worried about the development. i will tell you, anderson, what is going on with these calls and -- between the president and foreign leaders is interesting. it's something we've been reporting on for some time. ever since the leaks started coming out -- this goes all the way to the beginning of the administration when the president's call with enrique pena nieto, the former president of mexico, leaked out. they started to shrink the number of officials inside the white house who would be on these phone calls. and that was essentially to limit some of the leaks, some of the embarrassing leaks about these phone calls coming out of the white house. i will tell you, anderson, much of these activities to shrink the number of people familiar with what the president is doing on these calls and his interactions with people like

vladimir putin, this has alarmed officials inside the national security team for some time. i talked to a senior administration official this year who said i can't tell you whether or not the president is advancing u.s. interests when he's having these dealings with these foreign leaders. and this official went on to tell me, anderson, he just can't make heads or tails of the president's relationship with putin. this falls in line with all of that reporting, anderson. >> and the idea that this conversation with saudi arabia's ruler, the idea that that didn't have anything to do with national security and yet was -- was limited in terms of who actually got to see it, that obviously raises a lot of questions about why these things are being moved over. and now the guy who's the state department envoy who rudy giuliani's been pinning much of his explanation on about the state department directing him, what does the white house, how are they going to deal with this

development? >> reporter: it certainly looks like the dominoes are falling to some extent. i will tell you that the president did meet with his legal team. my colleague pamela brown reporting this earlier today. met with his legal team and his outside attorney, jay sekulow, about this. i learned earlier this evening that rudy giuliani was not a part of that conversation. according to a source familiar with these discussions going on inside of the president's impeachment team, rudy giuliani is still the counselor to the president, is how he's described. the outside counselor to the president. but as it relates to this impeachment inquiry and whether or not rudy giuliani will be part of the discussions among the president's lawyers, that remains to be determined. and so it looks like at this point because rudy giuliani is in some potential hot water right now, he may not be a part of the legal strategy that goes on inside the president's team because they know at this point he may be testifying in all of this. so it may be wise counsel for them to keep him outside of the circle when it comes to some of these discussions. but a source that i talked to

about all of this this evening, anderson, insists the president is in good spirits, he's not panicking at this point. but certainly, anderson, when you talk to people in the president's circle of advisers, talked to one earlier today who said, you know, during the mueller investigation, yes, there were times when they were worried. this one feels different. this one feels, quote, worse than usual. anderson? >> jim acosta, appreciate it. thank you so much. some perspective from a national security professional, cnn legal and national security analyst, also former fbi special agent. cnn chief political analyst gloria borger, as well. this is shaping up to be obviously another political bombshell of a night. gloria, in this reporting of the white house restricted access on at least two other calls. i mean, what's fascinating about it is this is what the whistleblower himself had said. though he didn't specify which calls were -- had been -- had been limited in access. and a lot of republicans have been saying this person didn't have any firsthand knowledge.

it's all hearsay, all secondhand. pretty much everything it seems like this was -- the whistleblower said turns out to be true. >> everything turns out to be true. and i think we'll probably discover there's more that the whistleblower did not put in his report because perhaps he couldn't confirm it. it seems to me that when he mentioned this wasn't the first time, it seemed almost inevitable that it was going to be something like khashoggi, discussion about khashoggi perhaps with the crown prince, or something with putin, about the russia hack of the election. as you know, in is a president who disagrees with american intelligence assessments. and so if you're working in a white house and you have a president who's paranoid about leaks as jim was mentioning, leaks about his phone calls with the mexican president, for example, or the australian prime minister, you know, he was paranoid about it. the white house people, they want to protect the president, and when they see these

discussions on what was in the discussions specifically that are troublesome with saudi arabia and with russia, they're going to try and limit the access to it. and it is unprecedented. >> and i should point out, gloria, that cnn's reporting is that access was limited on these -- on the putin and the mohammed bin salman call. we didn't know exactly how in the whistleblower complaint, the whistleblower said they -- they understood that other phone conversations or transcripts had been placed in this highly -- the code word-level secure server. again, we don't have that. >> we don't know. >> don't have that verified at this point. asha, the muhammohammed bin sal call never circulated at all. how unusual would that be considering it was a high-profile conversation and, according to the reporting, did not deal with national security issues per se?

>> well, it would have affected our national security in the sense that people who may have had action items or things to follow up on would not know how to follow up on them. whether it's on the diplomatic front or in other channels. but i think as you said, anderson, this not only corroborates a key piece of the whistleblower's complaint, it also highlights a pattern of misuse of the classified systems which is against the law. you're not allowed to put things into a code word system that are not related to that only to, you know, to hide things that are politically sensitive or embarrassing. and i think this goes to another question about the office of legal counsel that said none of this fell under the director of national intelligence's jurisdiction. i can't see how it won't. and finally, i think that one thing that can't be lost here is that we need to know what happened in those conversations

with president putin. remember that part of the complaint is alleging that the president was trying to, you know, pursue threads that would ultimately place the blame of 2016 election interference on uvain, to dis-- ukraine, to displace it on ukraine rather than russia which, of course, helps russia. so you know, we can't -- we can't forget that this complaint alleges something that would ultimately be beneficial to president putin. >> right. and the other thing that's important to putin is not supplying military aid to ukraine in their fight against russia. asha and gloria, stay right there. we're going to take a break. we'll expand the conversation when we come back and get unique insights from carl bernstein, of course made his bones covering another white house in crisis. later tonight, more on kurt volker's roam in this affair -- role in this affair and rudy giuliani's outburst. it's the sleep number 360 smart bed.

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it is one remarkable night at the end of a historic week. and two more breaking stories tonight. the resignation of a top diplomat in the whistleblower complaint and last word that the white house -- late word that the white house restricted access to other calls in addition to the one with ukraine's president. that includes conversations with russian president vladimir putin and crown prince mohammed bin salman from saudi arabia. back with asha, gloria, and joining us, political legend carl bernstein. first of all, your reaction to this u.s. special envoy to ukraine resigning, does it surprise you? i mean, the fact is he was named in the whistleblower complaint, and he was the one who was in contact apparently with rudy giuliani and put giuliani in touch with zelensky adviser. >> we need to know more about the circumstances and doubtless

he's going to be subpoenaed in the impeachment investigation. but i think we can start from the premise that what we're seeing once again is that donald trump is toxic. as people who have done business with him know, as one security official after another who worked closely with trump has come to recognize. now if you read the whistleblower's complaint carefully, you'll see how volker became involved in the middle of all this through giuliani, whether or not he was an innocent bystander or an active participant in trying to hijack an american election through foreign, you know, foreign intervention in our democratic election process we'll have to wait and see. but look, what we know is that this president of the united states from one national security official after another, mattis, mcmaster, tillerson, et cetera, et cetera, these people have all said the president of

the united states is a danger to the national security of our country. and what this is about including whatever it is that mr. volker did as described by the whistleblower is part of that dangerous process that the president has launched by involving in this instance this foreign power in our elections. >> carl, part of the -- a lot of them haven't said he is a danger, they have certainly -- they have left and distanced themselves from him which one can interpret that. but isn't that part of the problem, that not enough people have spoken up who have personal experiences with this? i mean, if it wasn't for this one whistleblower, i mean, none of this would have come to light. >> you're absolutely right in terms of the reluctance of mcmaster, mattis, tillerson to be forthright and out loud about what they have whispered to others about the president being

a danger to the national security. but those whispers have been accurately reported on the air, in books, by reporters for many publications. but indeed, part of the problem has been that until this whistleblower has come along, we have not had the kind of documentary evidence that is front and center in that summary that shows the president in his own words, without an intermediary, absolutely undermining the national security interests of the united states. and undermining our electoral process. >> to carl's point, gloria, how does this resignation -- i don't know if you know this, but how would the resignation of volker affect how he might or might not cooperate with investigators? >> well, he's a private citizen. and he can testify freely. he can decide he wants to cooperate with congress. what we don't know from -- from

reading the whistleblower report really is that he was -- he was giving zelensky advice about how to, quote, navigate the president after the phone call. the president had with zelensky. what kind of advice was he giving him on that? was he just trying to work out a way to secure the aid for ukraine and work around rudy giuliani? i mean, don't forget, volker is somebody who's a mccain guy. and he would have been personally very much in favor of aiding ukraine against the russians. and that's where he comes from politically. so we have to hear from him, and i think it's much more likely that as a private citizen we would hear from him a lot more freely. >> asha, do you agree with that? just from a legal standpoint, his resignation makes it more likely for him to cooperate? that he's not under some state department restriction? >> yes, he definitely has more

freedom. i mean, the white house could try to invoke executive privilege, but they don't really have anything to hold over his head should he choose to, you know, to speak. i mean, it's not like what are they going to do, fire him? he's already gone. so you know, he has the capacity to speak freely. >> in normal times, i mean, there's attorney/client privilege between rudy giuliani and president trump, and you can argue executive privilege. but from giuliani to people talking in the state department, that doesn't seem to be covered by anything, would it be? >> absolutely not. exactly. the executive privilege would cover advisers to the president. and you know, giuliani talking -- giuliani in this entire complaint is like the international man of mystery. i mean, what is he doing? he's going and, you know, speaking to foreign officials, he's -- >> no mystery -- >> ostensibly gathering intelligence for the department of justice and their

investigation. you know, so i think that the state department here -- volker has an interest in clearing up exactly what the role was of the official channels that rudy giuliani may have been working through. >> and that won't necessarily be good for the white house -- >> yeah. i haven't seen too many international men of mystery appearing on television every night, giving details and showing text messages from people he's interviewed. asha, gloria, carl, thank you. strange days. just ahead, a lot more, more on how the white house and specifically the president's attorney are responding to what is now been days of crisis. we'll discuss it with a reporter who just spoke again with rudy giuliani and be joined, as well, by the man who once spoke for the state department. we'll be right back. my grandfather had an amazing life, but ancestry showed me

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we're ending a week of breaking news with multiple breaking stories tonight. the state department's special envoy to ukraine has resigned. sources tell cnn the white house tried to limit access to more potentially controversial phone conversations other than just the one with the ukrainian president including one with crown prince mohammed bin salman and vladimir putin. joining us is cnn military and diplomatic analyst and former state department spokesman, retired rear admiral john kirby, and cnn political analyst and correspondent for "the atlantic" elena plod who recently spoke with rudy giuliani. admiral kirby, what do you think the special envoy's resignation says about -- what do you think it says? >> look, i don't know mr. volker personally. what i think it says is he wants to make himself available to investigators and to the

intelligence committees, and he wants to have the freedom to do that without having -- being micromanaged by the white house or by the state department. i think to me when i heard he resigned, it seemed to me like it was very much i'm doing this because i want to get out from under the yoke of the administration and be able to fully cooperate. >> and admiral kirby, earlier secretary of state mike pompeo received -- why do you think we haven't heard much from pompeo or the state department this week? >> that's a good question. i don't know. i fully expected coming in to talk to you that we would see some sort of statement out of the state department that just acknowledges the request and, hey, we're going to cooperate, we're going to -- you know, we're going to do what we can to show that there was nothing inappropriate done at the state department. but not a word. it's very unusual. and i can't tell whether that's pompeo holding his cards close and doesn't want to be transparent about, this or whether they're getting directed by the white house to shut everything down. either way, i think the state

department loses here. i think even a blanket statement of we got 'em, we're going to look at it, cooperate, would be helpful. >> elena, at the center of this is rudy giuliani. you spoke to him yesterday. is it clear to you what his strategy is assuming he has one? >> well, this is why rudy giuliani and trump make such a great pair. complementary pair in many ways. i can discern no media strategy whatsoever. a as the "washington post" reported earlier this evening, rudy giuliani was to speak at a security conference next week that was linked to the kremlin. putin would be in attendance. immediately after the report he told me he was no longer attending that conference, that he would no longer be speaking at it. when i asked why, he told me he had been informed by the reporters that putin had been there, despite the fact that it's listed on the website of

the conference. he said he didn't want to give the swamp press, those were his words, any more distractions. so it's the sort of thing that to me is emblematic of the fact that not only does rudy giuliani not have a strategy, the white house doesn't seem to have a strategy. you know, over the course of my reporting this last week, it's become pretty clear to me that with the myriad media appearances that giuliani has done on behalf of this president, from the time that he was a candidate, none of those are ever cleared by the white house. this is something he just sort of does on his own accords. he'll let trump know most likely that he's going to go on a show. but other than that, it's -- it's very disjointed. and in a moment like this, i mean, just -- with so many moving parts, you would want the white house, you would think, to know that that sort of event is on your schedule so they could preempt it somehow. but we're seeing none of that. >> admiral kirby, what are other countries thinking now when they look and see rudy giuliani as

sort of the president's bag man, you know, traveling around, you know, trying to hatch these various schemes going on? >> yeah. this is one -- this is the thing that worries me deeply about the whole scandal, aside from the content of it and what we're investigating and learning. is the message it sends around the world that maybe the state department doesn't really speak for the united states foreign policy. maybe mike pompeo doesn't really have the influence and can speak for president trump. now i don't think that's true, but that's sort of the message. i'm sure foreign leaders are scratching their heads wondering should we schedule a meeting with giuliani, is that the way to get in good with donald trump, or is that just a more efficient, faster way than going through the state department bureaucracy? and it hamstrings our diplomats around the world. whether they're career foreign service or political appointees, they're reporting american foreign policy -- representing american foreign policy interests. no matter what country they're in, they're being undermined by the scandal. >> it seems there's a third role there, elena, that admirable

kirby, he had two alternatives, pompeo's not connected with the president and, you know, and the state department doesn't really speak for the president, or pompeo is connected to the president, and they're kind of a cabal, and the people in the state department, that's cut out. and that makes, you know, pompeo and trump and giuliani out there and other just kind of doing their own foreign policy. >> the reality is that that's why volker's testimony ultimately will be quite interesting because i think the state department's role in giuliani's communications with ukrainian officials is still, you know, pretty murky in terms of what we do know. giuliani has put out text messages showing that volker was, you know, a key conduit between him and ukrainian leaders. so it will be incumbent upon volker to sort of explain was the state department trying to contain the damage as the whistleblower alleges of giuliani's communications, or did they play a more instrume

instrumental role in pushing this forwards. >> yeah. fascinating testimony if it gets to that. elena, appreciate it, john kirbi. coming up, another break could story, yes, it could be big, what the "washington post" is reporting on what the president told the russians in that closed door meeting, specifically what he told them about russian interference in the 2016 election. what does it take, to call yourself an explorer? traveling to the darkest depths of the ocean. pushing beyond the known horizon. passing through... "hey mom," "can we get fro-yo?", >>"yeah, fro-yo." "yes." the all-new 2020 ford explorer st. with intelligent 4wd and terrain management system. it's the greatest exploration vehicle of all time. the amazing new iphone has arrived. and so has t-mobile's newest signal. no signal goes farther or is more reliable. get up to 50% off the new iphone,

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one breaking story after another. this is another big one. the "washington post" has it, just went up on their website. i want to read the lead from the story. i'm quoting, "president trump told two senior russian officials in a 2017 oval office meeting that he was unconcerned about moscow's interference in the u.s. election because the united states did the same in other countries. an assertion to prompted alarmed white house officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter." joining us now is cnn national security analyst and retired cia chief of russia operations, steve hall. steve, first of all, this is the -- the story is just now breaking. i'm wondering what your reaction to this, if the "washington post" reporting is correct, the president telling, you know, two russians, russian ambassador kislyak that he's unconcerned about what russian shah did in

the election -- what russia did in the election. >> anderson, i mean, the word "horrific" comes to mind. i mean, first of all, it's tacit acknowledgment that the president was aware or understood that the russians had indeed done this, and then secondly, simply decides to sort of blow it off and say, well, you know, it's not that important because i guess we do that sort of thing, too, according to the president. remember, he's said things like this in the past. you know, when he was confronted with russia's, you know, authoritarian approach to killing journalist and that sort of thing, the president said, you know, we've done things like that, too. this is sort of a common theme apparently in this president which is to say, ah, don't worry, everybody does bad things. you know, whether it's bad people on both sides, whether we do things that we accuse the russians of. i don't understand how this is in any sense presidential or good for u.s. national security. it's appalling. >> it also -- when he was in helsinki on the stage standing next to vladimir putin after having a private meeting with putin, with just an interpreter

present, he said that he didn't understand why russia would have done this, that he doesn't -- essentially he was siding with putin over the belief of the then-d&i dan coates. so to your point, he's saying publicly, he's muddying the waters, says he doesn't think russia did it, he doesn't understand why they would do it. and yet here he is saying directly to the russians something seemingly different -- i want to bring in shane harris now, from the "washington post." he's a reporter on this story. shane, this is extraordinary. can you just explain exactly what you are reporting tonight? >> sure, we're reporting that in 2017 when president trump met in the oval office with the russian foreign minister and the ambassador to the united states, he told them that he was not concerned about moscow's interference in our recent election because the united states does the same things in other countries. this alarmed senior white house

officials who believed first of all that the president was falsely equating what happened in 2016 but also that he might be giving some kind of a green light or a kind of acquiescence to the russians to try this again in other countries. and the memo of that conversation was then highly restricted so only very few people were allowed to see it, which was also very unusual at the time. >> i haven't seen the writing -- is that an actual quote, or is that a paraphrase of what the president said? >> right, exactly whatter wh we reporting is he was unconcerned because the united states does the same thing in other countries. that's a paraphrase. the import of what he was saying, multiple sources told us he was clear, he was making the equivalency and saying don't worry about it. we do these kind of things, too, which, of course, the united states does not. >> to steve, steve hall was saying he has said similar

things publicly. you know, when talked about vladimir putin's a killer. a lot of people are killers, there's a -- a lot of people do a lot of things. it is extraordinary to hear the president saying that directly to the russian ambassador and the foreign minister. is it clear to you how that conversation was limited? the reporting that cnn had earlier, cnn was only able to say that the -- the distribution of it or the access to it was limited. do you know any more details on how it was limited? >> sure. we know that essentially this was no longer available to people who might actually have access, ordinarily have access to it. now the white house -- what i mean by this, if you're a country expert or an issue area, you ordinarily would get access to conversations from that area. other senior nsc people who might have security clearance could get it. at the time this conversation happened, the white house had already started restricting

these memos fearful of press leaks. we're told that this memo about this conversation with lavrov and kislyak was restricted even more tightly so that only for view officials could see it. that said, clearly an understanding of what happened in that conversation did get around. and i would note that this is the same conversation in which the president revealed a highly classified source of information that the united states had about isis operations and also remarked to the russian officials that after having fired jim comey day before that he had relieved a lot of pressure on him at the time. remember that when the president fired jim comey, there was suspicion that he had done that because the fbi was investigating him and his campaign for connections to russia. and then of course that firing ultimately leads to a special counsel being appointed. >> this is just incredible reporting. share harris, appreciate it, from the "washington post." the story's up now. next, the republican take on

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in just the last few moments, we've had another breaking news story. "the washington post" reporting tonight just now the president told those russian officials, the russian ambassador and foreign minister that he met in the oval office in 2017 that he was not concerned about moscow's interference in u.s. election because he reportedly said the u.s. does it, too. that's according to "the washington post." that prompted white house officials to limit access to the transcript of that conversation, a pattern mentioned in that damning whistle-blower complaint. joining us former house republican intelligence committee chairman mike rogers and eric ericsson. chairman rogers, what do you make of this new "washington

post" report now? >> it's very concerning for me if it in fact is true. the president seems to have a very hollywood, sinister struvif what american intelligence is about and not concerned with the russians and how they conduct themselves around the world. a, it's absolutely wrong and, b, it's a little offensive because you're telling our adversaries it's kind of okay to do what you do, keep at it. that is, in my mind, a little bit dangerous. the russian, by the way, will take it that way. >> eric, just from your standpoint, i'm wondering how you see just the events of this past week. i follow you on twitter and stuff. there's so much to talk about but what do you make of this? how serious do you see this from your standpoint and do you think other republicans see this? >> i definitely think the white house has to be concerned.

i keep hearing citizen fox news pundits echoed in the president's voice in what he says. the president needs to be concerned. the white house also needs to be concerned. the president has been paranoid about the intelligence committee and this is going to play into that. that should be concerning to all of us if the president doesn't think he can trust the intelligence community. what should keep the white house up at night are the 18 or so republicans night how who aren't up for reelection and don't particularly care for them and they may give the democrats the legitimacy to moved forward to probe this stuff. >> do you see the possibility of republicans breaking away? we haven't seen that. >> not yet. but give this some time. the democrats aren't in formal impeachment now. the problem for the white house is the whistle-blower clearly has names of people who can be subpoenaed and documents that can be requested. he's provided essentially a path

to impeachment. i talked to a republican senator who said the worst part about this is that the democrats now are able to focus their probe on a limited number of people and documents they want to begin to build a case, and you drag that out over time, you may see some of these republicans who they don't have to be held accountable by voters again and they may say let's go forward. >> chairman rodgers, if you were heading the intelligence committee, who would you want to talk to -- are there -- how many people would you want to talk to? who would you want to talk to next? >> as an old investigator, i can tell you conducting investigations through the intelligence committee, that list starts out a certain size but it gets bigger because once you get into those conversations, as that picture starts to form of what you think happened, you start to go through and ask for those folks. you can immediately understand that volcker will be important, ambassador sondland who was part of the meetings in ukraine will

be important. the folks in the white house surrounding the activities, who got their feelings hurt when didn't get access to the documents. i hope if it's a nonpartisan or bipartisan investigation, will you get both sides of the story, i hope. >> i wish we had more time. we got our time messed up today because so much is happening. eric, love following you on twitter, we'll talk. you can catch an all new season of "declassified" here at 9 p.m. eastern and pacific on sundays. we'll be right back. ronger. nothing gentler. nothing lasts longer. flonase sensimist. 24 hour non-drowsy allergy relief you may be at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia - a potentially serious bacterial lung disease

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>> big news. "the washington post" just reported remember that weird meeting at the white house with president trump and the russians and rex tillerson where the russians kind of laughed at the american media as they sauntered into this meeting with the president and other officials? well, the post reports that our president told the russians in that meeting that he wasn't concerned about moscow's interference in the u.s. election because his reasoning went the u.s. did the same thing in other countries. let me quote directly from the post reporting. here's what we're -- well, look, that's the gist of the story. all right? well, why does this matter now? here's how it fits in. it's part of the bigger story. it seems that it's not just the call with ukraine that the white house tried to keep secret. the memo and the readouts about what the president said to these russians was also something that was secreted away. so you can