♪ playing defense. the white house and its allies are all in full force defending the president from the whistle-blower fallout. a presidential aide calls the situation, quote, disturbing. also ahead, full responsibility. the crown prince of saudi arabia accepts the blame for the murder of journalist khashoggi but says he had nothing to do with this. a stunning scary sight in the state of california. update from the weather center on that. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, we welcome our viewers in the united states and all around the world. i'm george howell. the "cnn newsroom" starts right

now. it's 3:00 a.m. on the east coast. the u.s. president continues to fight an impeachment inquiry. democrats came out on the talk shows and several insisting president did nothing when they say he froze military aid to ukraine and republicans say he did nothing wrong when he asked the president to investigate joe biden, a political rival. and let's listen. >> president trump is trying to look into the interference by russia so it doesn't happen again. i thought you would be want to be concerned to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> shocking evidence? that is a collusion they claim happened in ukraine and it happened in ukraine and hillary clinton and george thoos company was funding?

>> you accept it's not true? >> i accept it is true. >> it is based on hearsay and we will not impeach a president on hearsay. this is a sham. this is a political smell to this. >> well, they had a lot to say but the democratic chairman of the house intelligence committee isn't buying it. adam schiff is defending the inquiry and says the whistle-blower is planning to testify. listen. >> all that needs to be done at this point is to make sure that the attorneys that represent the whistle-blower get the clearance thats they need to be able to accompany the whistle-blower to testimony and that we figure out the logistics to protect the identity of the whistle-blower and our concern here. a breach of the president's duty of the country that endangers our security and he has got to be worried about his own security right now with the president issuing threats like he did the other day.

>> the u.s. president let the fingers do the talking on twitter there. he had a lot to say. calling the whistle-blower, his accuser, and says he wants to meet him. he is also calling schiff a lier and wants him questioned for fraud and treason for exaggerating an account of the july phone call with ukraine's leader. a lot happening this week. cnn sarah westwood has more on the ukraine scandal from the white house. >> reporter: allies of president trump were out in full force on sunday defending trump and questioning the motives of the whistle-blower as democrats house intelligence committee adam sheachiff says his committ rah reached a tentative agreement for the whistle-blower to deliver testimony and they have been in talks with lawmakers from both parties in the house and senate to make that testimony happen. but top aide to president trump

steven miller on sunday continued to attack the whistle-blower as partisan and accuse that person of undermining trump's administration. take a listen. >> the president is the whistle w blower. this individual is trying to undermine a democratically individual. all know we have to focus on the real scandal which is three years of state sabotage. >> reporter: rudy giuliani the president's personal attorney is he is center of the ukraine controversy and he is mentioned several times in the whistle-blower's complaint and president trump brought up giuliani in the infamous phone call with ukrainian president zelensky. despite telling cnn on friday he would be willing to testify on friday before congress if trump gave him the all-clear, giuliani

muddied the waters when asked again on sunday. >> i wouldn't cooperate with adam schiff. i think he should be removed. put someone in a neutral who hasn't expressed an opinion yet, if i had a judge in a case and he already had announced i'm going to impeach, if he already went ahead and did a whole false episode, would i move to recuse that? >> that is your answer? you're not going to cooperate? >> i didn't say that. i said i would consider it. >> you had you would not do it. you said you would not cooperate. >> i said i would consider. i have to be guided by my client. i'm a lawyer. his privilege, not nine mine. if he decide he wants me to testify, of course, i'll testify. >> reporter: the house democrats are ramping pressure on the trump pressure to hand over documents. on friday issuing a subpoena for secretary of state mike pompeo and giving him a deadline only of until october 4th, that is friday, to provide documents that they have sought since

september 9th. they also want depositions from top state department official, including from former u.s. envoy to ukraine kurt volker. he is slated to appear before three congressional committees this week so the pressure on the white house so provide the documents is intense this week. . sarah westwood, cnn, the white house. >> let's put it in perspective with that tanatasha lynnsteady. >> thanks for having me. >> reporter: looking ahead what is promising to be a pivotal week. the inquiry will get under way and we know the whistle-blower will likely testify. given what we know so far about the situation what is the impact of hearing from the very important who ignited this storm? >> well, i think that there is going to be more details that will come out and that solidify for the democrats what exactly

took place. but i think that the democrats already feel that they have plenty of information. they feel that trump leveraged, you know, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order for his own political gain. and he admitted it even on the rough transcripts. i think what they are hoping to find out from the whistle-blower is a little bit more who was involved and when did everything take place and just how deep this actually went. i think they he already know that trump, obviously, directed this to take place but they want to know how extensive this goes. >> you speak to the evidence there. let's say that is point one. point two certainly will be public opinion, critical in this and if this latest poll is any indication, it seems that americans are open to this process. take a look. 55% of voters approve of an impeachment inquiry into

president trump. 45 business disapprove but the numbers still fall on a division that is clear in america on a knife's edge there. the question here, is there a threat of overreach for democrats here? >> well, i don't think so, because this is very different than pushing for impeachment over the mueller probe because it does involve a national security issue. as the poll revealed, you know, you have 55% that are in favor of pursuing the process. and almost all democrat, up to 90% of democrats are in favor of this. so for democrats, they do have to do what their constituents want. on the other site 85% of republicans not in favor of the impeachment process. when the process takes place and as more information comes out, it's likely that the independents and the independents, at the moment, are 49% are in favor of the

impeachment inquiry, might shift their opinion and they feel maybe more information need to come out. maybe it's too soon to tell yet. but it's not likely to bring about information that will look good for trump. >> let's also talk about the pressure on republicans, those who might say one thing privately but fall in line publicly. is this crisis enough to push those own members of president's party to force those when on the record? >> that is a great question. if they decide to support trump through this process, what they are doing, essentially, is saying if a democratic president did something similar, that that is essentially okay, that they want to erode democratic norms and processes in order to to go with trump and that is really a lot there. this is different than the

mueller probe where mueller wasn't super clear about whether or not a crime had taken place. he said that there was obstruction of justice but he didn't say there was collusion and he left it to congress and a lot of what if's and a lot of interpretation. here is evidence of trump can you do me a favor? can i use taxpayer dollars essentially to get you to investigate a political opponent and undermine the credibility of our elections? if this happened to a democrat, how would republicans feel about this? i think that is something they have to ask themselves and what is likely is we are going to have a couple that will defect, but what we have seen with trump, he has just been like teflon. he has been able to retain the support of his republican allies, no matter what. >> natasha lindstaedt, with protest for us. thank you. >> thank you for having me. a former adviser for trump is deeply disturbed by the entire ukraine scandal.

tom bossert, the president's former homeland security adviser called the situation a mess that has him frustrated. he slammed mr. trump's legal team for repeating a conspiracy theory suggesting that ukraine somehow used cyber security, a firm to frame russia for interfering in the 2016 u.s. election. >> it's not only a conspiracy theory, it is completely debunked. i don't want to be glib about this matter but last year retired former senator wrote a piece in "the hill" magazine saying the three ways are the five ways to intech one's self and the third way was hiring rudy giuliani. at this particular time i am deep pri frustrating what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunk theory to the president. it sticks in mind and for clarity, george, let me again repeat it has no validity. >> one of mr. trump's staunchest

reporters is defending the call with president's ukraine's president. he repeated mr. trump's false claim that the former vice president of the united states joe biden wanted a ukrainian prosecutor fired for investigating a company with ties to biden's son. jordan was challenged and fact checked by my colleague jake tapper. let's watch. >> reporter: i think you came here and leveled a bunch of act sayingses and allegations about hunter biden. >> i did not. i just said the fact. he paid $50,000 a month. >> he was patid by a foreign company but joe biden was trying to get a prosecutor who was not pursuing corruption fired and it was supporting -- >> you guys go through to defend -- >> certainly it's not -- >> the facts and i would think somebody who has been accused of things in the last year or two would be more sensitive about throwing out wild allegations. >> i am not throwing out wild

allegations. i'm throwing out the facts. >> the prosecutor was not pursuing corruption. that is why the entire west wanted him fired, including anti-corruption activists in ukraine. i don't understand what don't get about that. >> i get that. i'm talking about this specific case that there has been reporting on and the facts of that specific case are what he was paid per month, 50,000 dollars more than the folks i get the privilege of representing in the fourth district of ohio get paid in a year. he is getting $50 on,0,000 a mo >> the president's daughter right now is having all sorts of copy rights granted in foreign countries and that doesn't alarm you? >> come on on. >> president's sons are doing business all over the world that doesn't come on. >> come on. >> what is come on? >> even a principle that the people should not benefit from their connections or isn't? >> the previous administration's fbi went after this president on july 31st. >> they did open a job to them

because they didn't acknowledge until after the election. >> they spied on two americans associated with president trump's campaign. they put peter struck in charge of that. the guy who said trump should lose $100 million to zero. they allowed jim comey leaked documents. they allowed a dossier. >> now we are back to dossier? >> i said that happened to president trump and none of that worked. none of that worked. >> i understand you want to change the subject but the president was pushing the president of ukraine to pushing a political rival. i can't believe it's okay with you. >> it's not okay but he didn't do that. >> it's in the transcript. we all read it. >> you have to read. you guys don't read things in context. the context is that that comes up when zelensky is talking about all opening investigations. >> jake tapper there fact checking laurmt jim jordan. the impeachment inquiry to turn into a diplomatic nightmare

for ukraine and that may be why official there are tight-lipped and not saying much, at least publicly. that country relies heavily on the united states for assistance to financial and military and diplomatic reasons and any rift in a relationship could be disastrous for the country's conflict with russian-backed rebels. ukraine not saying much about the american crisis but the president's aide said it really isn't ukraine's business. >> translator: these are the internal affairs of the united states. we see in the usa our friend, our strategic partner. what happens there is their internal political kitchen. we will not take part in this in any way. our friendship and our support is bilateral. it is there. it is very powerful. and i am sure that it will continue to be so. >> now live to ukraine as cnn's

chief international correspondent is cla ris ka ward. this leaves ukraine in a very uncertainty situation jo that's right, george. ukrainian police stations, members of the government really desperate for this to all disappear because, frankly, it leaves them in a deeply uncomfortable position. as you heard there in that excerpt of the interview on ukrainian tv with the aide, he is a senior aide to president zelensky and is mentioned in the whistle-blower's complaint because he actually met with rudy giuliani in madrid back in august. what he was basically saying is ukraine is not going to pick side. ukraine is not going to get involved in the u.s.' domestic political issues. this is very difficult for ukraine because, as you mentioned, it relies heavily on

the large funding of the u.s., particularly military funding, some $400 million from the u.s. and military aid and going to a war fought in the eastern part of the country against prorussian separatists. really this is an existential matter for ukrainian official and they cannot afford to have any political fallout. they cannot afford to be seen to be taking side in any way, shape, or form and that is why we have not seen really any meaningful commentary or insight coming from ukrainian official as to what happened after that conversation that, that now infamous conversation between president zelensky and president trump and whether zelensky believes there was real pressure for him to go ahead and begin investigating president trump's political opponents. >> ukrainian official there will continue to walk that tight

rope, that tight line as, again, the storm clouds gather this week in washington with this inquiry. clarissa ward, thank you for the reporting. one year after the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi, the crown prince is speaking out on the journalist's death. we will hear what he has to say. stand by. who's dog is this? it's my special friend, antonio. his luxurious fur calms my nerves when i'm worried about moving into our new apartment. why don't we just ask geico for help with renters insurance? i didn't know geico helps with renters insurance. yeah, and we could save a bunch too. antonio! fetch computer! antonio? i'll get it. get to know geico and see how much you could save on renters insurance.

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the crown prince of saudi arabia says he takes full responsibility for the murder of jamal khashoggi but bin salman denies ordering the killing. khashoggi was a "the washington post" columnist critical of the saudi government and disappeared nearly a year ago last year going in a saudi consulate. he did not come out of that consulate. he was allegedly murdered by the saudi agents there. here is what the crown prince told cbs' "60 minutes." >> did you order the murder of jamal khashoggi?

>> translator: absolutely not. this was a heinous crime. but i take full responsibility as a leader in saudi arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the saudi government. >> reporter: what does that mean that you take responsibility? >> when a crime is committed against a saudi citizen by official working for the saudi government, as a leader i must take responsibility. this was a mistake and i must take all actions to avoid such a thing in the future. >> our senior international correspondent ben wedeman has been following the crown prince's comments and he joins us live in beirut, lebanon. what does it mean for bin salman to come out and say he is responsible but didn't order the murder? >> reporter: well, certainly in the sense that he is the crown prince of saudi arabia and he also says in that interview it's a country with 20 million

people, 3 million civil servants, as and the crown prince basically de facto head of the government, he is responsible for whatever he has done by his civil servants. but beyond that, really this interview doesn't advance the story really because saudi government long ago conceded that, in their words, it was a rogue element that killed jamal khashoggi and dismembered him on the 2nd of october in the saudi consulate in istanbul and some members of the hit team are, indeed, on trial but that is not a public trial to which the public or journalists have access to, but i would refer you back to comments by president donald trump who said that this is the worst cover-up ever. we have heard the cia say that it is their determination that the crown prince was aware of

this murder. in a country like saudi arabia, you cannot send a hit team in saudi government claims to the saudi consulate and murder a man who has had intimate ties to the saudi royal family going back to the 1980s without the knowledge of the head of state, and rather than the "60 minutes" interview, i would refer our viewers to the pbs front line special on crown prince mohammed bin salman. it's two hours long, but it gives viewers a much better idea of the role of the crown prince in saudi arabia and perhaps his role in the murder of jamal khashoggi. >> ben wedeman on the story. ben, live in beirut, thank you. we have been following events in hong kong and a march is cancelled that was planned for tuesday after police

rejected their permit application. the civil human rights run has organized some of the biggest raer rallies this year there. they picked tuesday to march because it is china's national day the seventh anniversary of the country's communist government. it doesn't make the crowd stay away. hong kong officials are bracing for possible violence like we saw over the weekend. protesters hurling gasoline bombs. you see the chaotic video throwing bricks at police and blocked off the streets with fire and barricades. officers responded with tear gas and water cannons. around the world, if you're watching on cnn international, thank you for being with us. innovate africa is up next for you. for our viewers on cnn usa, the news continues after this. stay with us. what are you doing back there, junior?

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xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. not my thing. live coast-to-coast across the united states, you're watching "cnn newsroom." i'm george howell. a pivotal week ahead in washington. the president is on the defensive. he wants the democratic chairman of the house intelligence committee questioned for fraud and treason for exaggerating his account with president's july phone call with the leader of ukraine. donald trump's attack on adam schiff comes as democrats move toward with an impeachment inquiry. president wants to meet the whistle-blower at the heart of the ukraine scandal. the ukraine government is staying tight-lipped with that

scandal and trying to distance themselves with the battle here in the united states. ukraine is fighting a war against russian-backed rebels and relies heavily on military aid from the united states. an adviser to the ukrainian president says his country maintains a powerful friendship to the u.s. adam schiff is saying a tentative agreement for the ukrainian whistle-blower to testify before the house intelligence committee and says unfiltered system and they won't tell the whistle-blower what they can or can't say. mr. trump's allies are staunchly defending him. they say there is nothing in the ukraine call that rises to the level of impeachment but the house speaker nancy pelosi, she disagrees with that and she spoke to "60 minutes" on cbs about it. let's listen. >> they are wrong. and remains to be seen because it's not just what happens in

the call as part of the sequencing of events as well. you withdraw a couple of hundred million dollars worth of assistance to a country and a couple of days later say, by the way, can you help me with my campaign, in other words, there is a sequencing there. >> the president's call with ukraine's leader may have given democrats the ammunition they were looking for to try to impeach him. now the 2020 presidential candidates are weighing in on this phone call. cnn's dan merica has details. >> reporter: democratic presidential candidates continue to debate the possible impeachment of president trump with elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar debating that tauopic. amy klobuchar saying the current state of events around trump could be compared to richard nixon. take a listen. >> to me this reminds me of

watergate. we don't have file cabinets any more. in watergate they sdachdispatch to break in and get information and course of it broke the law and there was a cover-up. in this case, the fact that this president is asking for dirt from a foreign leader for an ongoing political race which endangers the security of our country, to me is the same thing. >> reporter: now warren who is more aggressive on the topic the last few months defendeded the fact she has come to the decision that president trump should be impeached even if she may be asked to take the vote in the senate should the house vote to impeach the president. here is what she said when asked about that topic. >> i am glad for the house to the investigation but looks pretty clear to me what is going on. he wants to mount a defense i'm certainly willing to listen to it but that is the evidence in front of us right now. >> reporter: this comes as a new poll shows cracks in elizabeth warren's rise especially in the critical state of south carolina. now this poll shows that not

only does vice president joe biden have a 21% lead in the state, but the issues with warren are more dire when you get to black voters where she is the first choice of only 4% of black voters in south carolina, compared to 45% for biden. a big issue for warren, especially in a state where 60% of the electorate is expected to be african-american. dan merica, cnn, detroit. the impeachment inquiry has put president trump on a path that few presidents have experienced before him. of the 45 men who have taken the oath of office, only two were ever impeached. neither of them was kicked out. richard nixon, though, gets an asterisk because he resigned rather than face a vote. as the country considers impeachment, cnn looks back at the last time a u.s. president nearly lost his job. >> reporter: what began as a search for evidence in the paula jones harassment case has

mushroomed into another investigation of the president and his personal conduct. >> reporter: a white house intern with bill clinton. >> the white house started to receive subpoenas from the independent counsel kenneth star involve all of the records involving monica lewinsky. >> reporter: clinton was questioned about an extramarital affair with lewinsky. he denied it all and reiterated as much days later to reporters. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman, miss lewinsky. >> reporter: hillary clinton said it's some sort of conspiracy. >> the vast right wing conspiracy has has been conspiring against my husband since the day he was announced president. >> reporter: clinton admits he did have a relationship with lewinsky and withheld information during his deposition. >> while my answers were legally accurate, i did not volunteer information. >> reporter: the information was not so much the affair as the

president had lied about it and concerns he asked others to lie about it too though he denied doing so. still independent counsel kenneth starr investigated and later telling the house judiciary committee saying clinton showed deception. >> the evidence suggests that clinton tried to thwart the process in the legal matter. >> reporter: the house of representatives voted to impeach clinton charging him with lying under only to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. >> they are not regarding the president with president with fairness but impeaching him with a vengeance. >> i say you have the power to terminate that damage and heal the wound that you have created. you, sir, may resign your post. >> reporter: president's trial in the senate, which would decide if he would be removed from office, got under way the following month, january 1999. about a month after his trial

began on february 12th, 1999, president bill clinton was acquitted on both articles of impeachment after the senate failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority vote. >> william jefferson clinton hereby is and is acquitted of the charges in the said articles. >> reporter: the president, once again, apologized to the nation. >> i want to say, again, to the american people, how profoundly sorry i am for what i said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the congress and on the american people. >> reporter: an investigation that cost tens of millions of dollars ended with president bill clinton finishing out his second term. randi kaye, cnn, new york. thank you. still ahead, you could call it an out of this world unveiling. space x-showing off new creation.

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look at you! you're beautiful! ha ha! >> okay. kind of scary, though! that is the sound of a storm chaser, someone following a tornado in california, of all places. this is near the town of davis, california, near sacramento. residents have been experiencing unusual weather over the weekend. fortunately, no damage caused but, my goodness, look at that. let's bring in meteorologist pedram javaheri in the weather center. what is happening? >> an exciting time. sounds a little funny listening to them but i can relate a little bit what is happening out there. incredible weather here in the past couple of days. about 80 reports of severe

weather the last couple of days across the country and two of which to tornado that particular one across areas of yello county in california, near davis. the first one since march 2014. first tornado in that region since that time. when you take a look at california tornado history, on average ten per year often happens in the winter season and in the spring season. still not unheard of here to see it across this region here in the fall as well. you put the numbers together and 430 since 1951. you small that compared to oklahoma where they see upwards of 4,000 in that same time period and only 5 of these 430 tornadoes have been considered large tornadoes ef-2 or greater. that is the tornado action across california and that is much, much smaller.

notice montana. significant snowfall in recent days and snowfall being measured on the order of feet in a few spots. one of the coldest with highs in the 40s. opposite end of the spectrum across the midwest and south, reports of about 200 record high temperatures the next couple of days. incredible when you see highs in the upper 90s. upper 70s is what you expect places like indianapolis, chicago, on into minneapolis expecting highs to be close to 90 degrees. notice this. we climb into the month of october, come tuesday, and eventually wednesday, temps climb up to 90 degrees in new york city. the hint of fall big-time here returns thursday on. looks like new york city drops into the 60s and much of the south a small taste of with 80s in the forecast.

definitely relief for a lot of people. >> i think new york to atlanta will take it. pedram javaheri, thank you. >> thank you. a story now you could say is out of this world. spacex ceo elon musk believes his space travel company may be able to fly people in orbit within a year for billions of dollars less than he expected. he made that comment on saturday at the spacex launch facility in texas. that is where he unveiled his new interplanetary and made bold predictions to rachel. >> you are to establish a colony on mars. >> yes. >> reporter: the unveiling of starship, is that a turning point in that mission? >> yeah. i think this is the first time we have real hardware of something that is capable of with a little evolution of being something that could create a self-sustaining city on mars and a base on the moon.

>> reporter: you said tonight that you might be flying people in a year in this thing? >> if the development continues to improve exponentially, i think we could be sending people to orbit before the next year, within a year, approximately. >> reporter: spacex hasn't put a human in space yet. how are you guys going to do this in a year? >> we will be putting people in orbit soon and putting in orbit to nasa probably three or four months to the space station. >> reporter: on that point, nasa administrator jim bridenstein tweeted yesterday he was excited about the event today but said, quote, commercial crews is years behind schedule and it's time to deliver. did you take that -- >> commercial crew --? >> ed commercial. >> oh, geez. >> reporter: interchangeable. no. how do you respond to that? do you take that as a dig?

>> well, i mean, first of all, everything in aerospace it's a question which one is more late. the hardware for the allow to abort demonstration for crew dragon will be there in october. the hardware for the first crew lights will be there in november. and so most of the work that is required from now through flight of nasa astronauts is a long series of safety reviews. so it's not really hardware related and it's really going as fast as we can make it go. a way to make it go fast, i would make it go faster. >> reporter: let's talk about funding. you said in the past sharship would cost between 2nd and $10 billion. are you still looking at that price tag? >> big range. i think it's probably closer to 2 or 3 than it is to 10.

>> reporter: is that because of the switch to steel? >> the switch to steel is fundamental. i think that is literally that might be the best design decision i've ever made. i can't think of a better one. steel is lighter than the common fiber solution or lighter than -- solution and costs 2% as much. >> reporter: in hindsight, do you wish you would use steel? >> absolutely. no-brainer. >> reporter: the climate crisis, we have seen protests all over the globe this month. mostly led by young people like greta tomberg. does the public outcry, does that increase the urgency for what you guy are doing here? >> well, i mean, i view what we are doing here is making live multiplanetary as opposed to 99% of our resource on earth should be go but i think 1% on the resources on making planetary

and to other planets and for the reason of preserving the light of conscious in the future as well as the adventure, the excitement. i find personally more mo motivating than the defensive argument. >> reporter: you prefer to be optimist rather than a pessimist? >> i think excitement and adventure and a sense of possibility about the future are incredibly important. otherwise, why live? >> possibilities abound. we will be right back. when we started our business

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the impeachment why were use the u.s. president is polarizing both sides of the aisle but five house freshmen democrats have become unlikely leaders in this effort. cnn dana bash explains. >> reporter: even before they were elected. >> you have adopted a label. >> they created their own group the bad asses. >> we were out running for congress across the country and we kept running into each other, bad asses kind of came organically from the group since we had either served in the military or the cia. >> we have a lot in common. we all were working to flip

seats, to be elected in places where voters may not typically vote for people like us or with our backgrounds. >> reporter: navy veterans mikey, cheryl and elaine, air force veteran chrissy and excia officers alyssa and abigail. a band of sisters bonded while storming the unfamiliar terrain of politics. >> being able to text folks and say, you know, i'm really getting hit up on this issue. how have you been handling it? i'm not sure how to translate my service into something that is relatable. how do you guys do that? >> reporter: translating their service is exactly what they did a 180 on starting impeachment inquiry. going from no to yes after hearing president trump admit he to to ukraine's leader about joe biden. others followed suit, including the house speaker. >> the specter of having the sitting president of the united states use leverage over a foreign leader to get dirt on an

opponent. like that very basic idea, i think, cut for us as national security people just close to the bone on, you know, sort of our democratic institutions. >> reporter: they penned an op-ed along with two freshmen male veterans. >> it was a great example of the power of team work and the power of kind of putting country above party. >> reporter: was it one for all and all for one? >> absolutely. >> i think we came to that conclusion together. we text each other and i think we are we were going, okay, i think this has all changed. >> reporter: backing an impeachment inquiry is risky political business for these congresswomen, already some of the most vulnerable in the house. democrats who won in mostly trump territory. >> i believe that if i am out there explaining what these allegations are and why they are so deeply concerning, that the people will understand why we had to take a stand. >> all of us in our prior lives, all the time, had to make hard calls for the reasons we thought were right when we knew that not everyone wouldnd or even know

and that, to me something i feel comfortable doing because i've always had to do it. >> reporter: even though this is a group still trying to find their sea legs in politics. and never said, are you a democrat in are you a republican? it was new to jump into a partisan environment. >> reporter: they represent swing districts. much different from another female group, the squad. i'm going to put it out there, the group of freshmen females that people know about is the squad. are you guys the anti-squad? >> what i tell people in my district, the left wing in our party has created such momentum, such as moving forward on our environment. none of us is going to get in a twitter war with anyone else. if we have a concern, we're going to talk to them about it. and we're not going to add unhelpful rhetoric to a bad tone

coming out of washington. >> i don't think any of us want to be the loudest voice in the room. i want to be the most effective. >> reporter: their previous service taught them to be fearless, which comes in handy now. >> there's not a vertical chain structure. >> reporter: well, there is. but it sounds like nobody is following it. >> no one can fire us, except for the people that elected us. none of us came from a district that wants us to sit quiet and learn the ropes. they want us engaged, they want change and they want it now. >> dana bash, reporting. and thanks for being with us this center. and to new york, we go next, "early start." stay with us. - in the last year, there were three victims

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xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. not my thing. lawyers for the anonymous whistleblower say they are worried for their client's safety as president trump escalates his attacks. >> don't make this any worse than it already is. nancy pelosi with a new message for the white house, about the house impeachment inquiry. plus, new polling shows americans' opinion on impeachment is now shifting. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "early start." i'm christine romans. >> good morning. good morning, everyone, i'm dave briggs. it's 4:00 a.m. in new york, 11:00 a.m. in