this flight. we will update on the status of the people injured. >> much more on this. alex is going to be following these developments. much more developments throughout the day including president trump will be speaking at a preferenss conference this afternoon. thanks for joining us, everybody. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this busy news day with us. bernie sanders has two stents inserted to treat an artery blockage and cancels campaign events until further notice. meantime, the stock market is getting slammed today over fears the president's trade war now causing a u.s. manufacturing slump. and high impeachment drama on capitol hill, new subpoenas from democrats, an urgent request from the state department watchdog and tough words from the speaker of the

house. >> this president of the united states is stooping to a level that is beneath the dignity of the constitution of the united states and our founders. since the chairman mentioned our founders, they put guardrails in the constitution because they knew there might be someone who would overplay his or her power. they never thought that we would have a president who would kick those guardrails over and disregard the constitution and say article ii says that i will do whatever i feel like. >> a busy hour ahead. we begin on capitol hill with a show of force from the house speaker nancy pelosi. you saw right there the intelligence committee chairman adam schiff standing firm in the democratic party's first off with the president of the united states. first and foremost mike pompeo. pompeo accuses democrats of bullying potential witnesses from the state department about the president's july call with ukraine. pelosi and schiff issuing a warning to both pompeo and the white house. >> we do place ourselves in a time of urgency on the threat to

the constitution, a system of checks and balances. we see the actions of this president being an assault on the constitution. >> the white house needs to understand that any action like that that forces us to litigate or have to consider litigation will be considered further evidence of obstruction of justice. we're not fooling around here. >> those comments coming shortly after a group of democratic chairmen announced they are drafting a subpoena demanding the white house hand over key documents about the phone call with the ukrainian president. it's the latest shot across the bow after the chairman said yesterd yesterday pompeo is central to all of this. the secretary confirming that today saying, yes, he was on that call, but he insists it was completely routine. >> as for was i on the phone call, i was on the phone call. i know precisely what the

american policy is with respect to ukraine. it's what our team including ambassador volker were focused on, was taking down the threat that russia poses there in ukraine. it was about helping the ukrainians to get corruption outside of their government and to help now this new government in the ukrainian build a successful thriving economy. >> we'll come back to that. also today among the many moving parts, the inspector general of the state department requesting an urgent briefing with a group of bipartisan staffers from several key committees investigating the president's ukraine policy. let's go straight to our own kylie atwood and manu raju. the inspector general telling these congressional committees i need to come see you. a, it's unusual. what do we know? >> it was an urgent request coming in just yesterday from the state department inspector

general to these committees on the hill saying that they needed to have a discussion as soon as possible. it will be happening later today, but we really don't know what the inspector general is going to focus this discussion on. now, one aide described the request to me as cryptically worded yesterday and highly unusual. we do know, however, that the inspector general received information from the legal advisor at the state department, which prompted this request to have a discussion with the committee members, with the committee aides on the hill today. it did come, however, after secretary pompeo had sent a letter to the hill saying that the state department was not going to comply with the exact timeline that congress had requested for those depositions from those five current and former state department officials. he also said that congress was bullying and intimidating state department officials. now we have finger pointing happening, members on the hill,

the house intel chairman, as you said, is saying that actually pompeo is the one intimidating folks at the state department. and just earlier today he said that those efforts are deeply concerning. so we could have information with regard to the charges from the state department, from pompeo or from the hill. but we are really waiting to see what happens later this afternoon in that briefing. >> we don't know much, but we do know he says he wants to talk to them consistent with the requirements of the inspector general act. if you read the act, the only requirement for the inspector general to go up to capitol hill is when he or she sees a problem. stuff words from the speaker and chairman schiff. >> they're making it very clear this is not going to drag out. democrats have sent subpoenas and letters to the trump administration asking for requests, asking for documents,

demanding it. but the administration has resisted time and again. they've ended up in court. they're fighting to get the former white house counsel don mcgahn to testify before the judiciary committee. that's been tied up for months. chairman schiff made it clear they're not going to let this drag on. if the white house does not comply with the subpoena demanding documents relating to the ukraine matter and other subpoenas such as rudy giuliani providing documents to the house intelligence committee that that would be viewed as obstruction of congress which was cited in the nixon articles of impeachment. i've before hearing from democrats they do not want to get in the same pattern where they get back and forth, letter writing, leading to litigation and things get wrapped up in court where they don't see an end in sight. schiff is making it clear

they'll use it as evidence of obstruction and move forward with impeachment. they're going to try to get as many interviews as they can from former and current state officials to begin with the current inspector general of the intelligence committee among others. the question is if they don't get compliance in other regards, do they just pull the plug and decide to move forward with articles of impeachment. it sounds like that's exactly where they're going. so we'll see how this turns out in just a matter of weeks here. >> sounded very much like they were going there as fast as they believe they can responsibly do so. there's a lot to talk about. there is important substance, the witnesses who are coming up, the fights over additional witnesses, the threats for subpoenas. beneath that you have the politics and the rhetoric. fascinating how tough the speaker's words today. she came to send a message to

the president of the united states and he was watching and live tweeting as it goes. i want to start with one of those, because there is no one who gets under his skin like her. we've seen that consistently throughout the presidency. she knows it. she knows it. when she talks tough, she's expecting a response. here's one of the president's -- forgive my language here. among the tweets the president said to do-nothing democrats should be focused on building up our country not wasting everyone's time and energy on bs. the president of the united states using that word in all caps. get a better candidate. this time you'll need it. some of these tweets are shoivig back. you see an effort by the president to play the republican card. he is trying to keep his base from wavering here, to get everybody before we get deep into the facts, before we know more about what happened to already be locked into your corner. it's his strategy so that he

doesn't lose anybody. >> one of the other tweets that came out was him talking about this impeachment nonsense in his words actually driving the stock market and your 401(k)'s down. this is playing out in the absence of a war room which we knew the white house was considering having at one point when this first broke last week, but it never came to fruition so president trump is now controlling his own message and going straight to his voters and saying they're making this up and they're impacting you by stalling on all of my policies, by driving the stock market down. this is what he has chosen to do sort of as a republican messenger for the party. >> it's another thing he's doing that is misleading. if you talk to traders today, the markets are down today because there was a report yesterday about manufacturing, a slump in american manufacturing that the president wants to blame the fed for normally. today he'll blame the impeachment inquiry for but it's directly tied to the president's trade policies.

whatever your views, that's the source of it, not impeachment. we'll come back to the politics of this a little bit later. kurt volker is going to testify. he left the government, he was the special envoy. he is going to testify. that's one witness. the former ukrainian ambassador asked for a delay, but said she is coming back next week. these are the people who can fill in the building blocks of what was rudy giuliani up to, how much of this was about american foreign policy and how much was about the president's obsession with trying to get dirt on joe biden. those are the critical building blocks for the democrats and important to focus on as we have this war of words back and forth. >> the administration with those key witnesses doesn't have absolute control over this right now because the agreements from volker and the former ambassador of ukraine came after pompeo said you're intimidating our department, we're not going to stand for this. but yet these former officials

agreed to speak to congress after pompeo had made that statement. i would also not underestimate what the i.g. is doing here too, because as we know, the inspector general has a lot of independence, has a lot of leeway. and what they tell congress later today will be really important to watch. they don't need permission from pompeo to sign off on what kind of information they can give to congress. that's really important to remember. >> remember, we learned about the whistleblower complaint because the trump appointed intelligence community inspector general went around his boss because he thought his boss was ignoring the law and not telling congress about something that the law requires them to tell congress about. now you have the state department inspector general n this case an obama appointee who's a holdover. i r when you look at requirements for the i.g. to report to congress, they're required to send a semiannual report and they're required when there's a fire alarm to be pulled. we don't know what this is about

but his invitation says consistent with the requirements of the inspector general act. the inspector general does not go up to capitol hill to have tea and cookies. >> in august he put out a really blistering report accusing specific state department appointees of the trump administration of bullying, intimidating and otherwise harassing career diplomats. he could pull on that thread if he wanted to. he is holdover adjacent. he's not actually an obama holdover. he was held over by obama from the bush administration from another role. he actually has a long career. he is widely respected by people in both parties. >> he's a professional watchdog. >> in thkurt volker, interestin figure, bush national security council staffer, someone i would characterize was a foreign

policy professional. never signed onto the never trump letters but was not exactly a vocal supporter of the president. really eager to hear what he has to say. >> when we come back, the 2020 news. senator bernie sanders hospitalized. what it means for his presidential campaign. we'll have the latest in a moment. ihere to tell you about the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i just turned 80. what's my price? $9.95 a month for you, too. if you're age 50 to 85,

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campaign front. senator bernie sanders taking an indefinite break from the campaign trail after being hospitalized overnight. the vermont senator found to have a blockage in one artery in his heart. he had two stents inserted. the senator is conversing and in good spirits. we are cancelling his events and appearances until further notice and we will continue to provide appropriate updates. dr. gupta i just want to talk with you. walk us through how serious is this and what is the normal recovery timeline. >> there's no question there's a degree of seriousness about this. what sounds like happened, the senator had some discomfort. how long he's been having that discomfort, we don't know, but certainly it was serious enough that he decided to go to the hospital. what they typically do at that point is inject some dye into the blood vessels that lead to

his heart to try and see if there's blockages. in this case, it sounds like they found one that is significant enough to put in a stent to open up that blockage. basically you're putting in a balloon holding open the blood vessel and then putting in a cage to keep that blood vessel open. we know he had a second stent placed as well. what likely happens at that point is the senator starts to feel better. when you're not getting enough blood flow to a muscle, it hurts. when you open up that blood flow, it starts to feel better and that can happen pretty quickly. he's up, he's talking now. he probably needs to be on blood thinners for a period of time. but the recovery, typically they say 7-10 days. john, you know better than anybody, candidates are different than most human beings. maybe shorten that by half, 4-7 days instead of 7-10 days would be a reasonable recovery time.

>> to that point, candidates not only is he aggressive, not only does he want to get back out there on the campaign trail, not only is he a very vigorous campaigner, he travels all the time constantly. you're talking about 18-20 hour days, airplanes and bus rides. what is the doctor going to say? >> i think one of the things to keep in mind is the reason these procedures are done is to get someone back to their way of life. it's to make them feel better, it's to ultimate lly lengthen their life hopefully. the recovery, this is not open heart surgery. you know, people have referred to this as heart stent surgery. that's really not the right way to think about it. at no point did he actually have an operation. the recovery from that part of it should be pretty quick. he's likely to be on blood

thinners for a period of time. that shouldn't prevent him from doing any of the things you just mentioned, but it's something they're going to have to be more mindful of certainly. even cuts can turn into something more serious. it's not to say that he'll need to be on it the rest of his life necessarily but that's going to be one of the considerations going forward. >> grateful for your insights. what is the campaign saying? how much do we know about what happened and what do they expect in terms of the impact on the campaign? >> at this point they're being pretty tight lipped about how long it's going to be before senator sanders gets back on the campaign trail. yesterday he arrived at las vegas, he went to visit the memorial for the victims of the mass shooting that took place there. then he had a fund-raiser at 7:30 las vegas time last night. it was at that event where he

started to have those chest pains. normally at the end of an event like this, he'd hold a picture line. this time around they just didn't do that. that's when he ended up talking to his aides saying that he didn't feel well and he eventually went to the hospital and had that procedure. i think the important thing to point out here is that his campaign to great fanfare yesterday announced a $1.3 million ad buy that was set to start tomorrow in iowa. they have put that ad buy on hold. his campaign has told me today that is just a postponement as they evaluate the situation. i think it's fair to say this is going to be at least a 24-48 hour period of reflection for bernie sanders and his campaign as they decide what the next step is for the candidate and whether or not he'll be able to get back out on the campaign trail soon. >> appreciate that report. we certainly wish senator sanders the best as he recovers here. up next, we go live to the white house and talk to our panel. the president is in the oval

office right now meeting with his finnish counterpart. he's talking about a lot of domestic news including attacking chairman schiff. ed memory support brand. you can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

the president's in the oval office with his finnish counterpart speaking to reporters. we're getting notes from that conversation and there are a number of impeachment inquiry related attacks including on

adam schiff and on anyone the president calls them spies who spoke to the whistleblower whose complaint is central to this. kaitlan collins is live. >> reporter: we're seeing the president once again go after the house intelligence chairman adam schiff after he appeared at that press conference with nancy pelosi earlier talking about the stonewalling happening from the state department. the president called for slifch to resign, accused him of treason and said he couldn't carry mike pompeo's blank strap. the president is immplying that adam schiff went after the secretary of state earlier when he was saying if the state department doesn't make those individuals available for depositions they are going to consider it obstruction coming

from the administration. the president is also talking about this whistleblower. he's being asked by reporters about republicans saying that this whistleblower should be heard out and protected. the president said he believes whistleblowers should be protected but only if they are legitimate. he was once again insisting his call with the president of ukraine was perfect, going on at length about it. what we're seeing from the president and getting from this appearance in the oval office with the finnish president is that president trump seems to be in a combative mood. now he seems to be gettinga aga sta agitated by it. the president tweeted that the, quote, do-nothing democrats should be focused on building up our country. he said, not wasting everyone's time and energy on all caps

bullshit, which is what they have been doing ever since i got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306, an incorrect number we should note. he said get a better kanld thca this time. you'll need it. people behind the scenes are telling us just how frustrated the president is, how he's trying to frame it that democrats are not going to do anything else other than try to impeach him, something democrats pushed back during the press conference earlier today. clearly the president is agitated by it and he's making that obvious in the oval office. >> agitated might be an understatement. kaitlan collins live for us. look, there are a lot of facts that are going to be in dispute here for weeks and months. there will be a lot of debates about does it reach the bar of impeachment. what is indisputable is the fact that these attacks on the

whistleblower are dangerous, especially from the president of the united states sitting in the oval office. we depend on people in government to raise their hand when they see things that they believe are wrong. now, maybe sometimes they file a complaint and we prove the facts are otherwise. but for the president to be attacking this person and saying anyone who cooperated with this person is a spy, not only is that dangerous but the president is sending a signal there. there could be other people who might want to raise their hand right now and the president is sending a signal don't dare. >> kamala harris has explicitly called for twitter to suspend his account and really publicly made this pitch of hers. we heard from the white house earlier today. they told us they thought that was rather authoritarian of kamala harris and that in many ways they defended his use of twitter, praising the fact that he takes his opinions directly to the public and he shouldn't be criticized for doing that. to me, what's been fascinating is in the broader poll of public

opinion amongst republicans, we could look at his fund-raising numbers from yesterday. there doesn't seem to be cracks in that broader public opinion. >> i think he is becoming more and more aware of the fact that this impeachment inquiry is real. he also watched the speaker of the house, who gets under his skin. we have seen this on policy issues in the past, on the mueller investigation in the past and now on impeachment. here's what she had to say. the president is talking about the whistleblower. we'll play you the tape when we get it in. here's what the speak eer said the subject. >> the intelligence community recognizes the importance of whistleblowers. protecting whistleblowers who see wrongdoing of any kind in our government is essential. the president probably doesn't realize how dangerous his statements are when he says he wants to expose who the

whistleblower is and those who may have given the whistleblower that information. >> leaks have long been an issue that gets under the president's skin since the day he took office, but certainly this particular incident with this whistleblower where an impeachment inquiry was triggered, it's on another level for him. we hear from aides inside the white house this is something he's stewing over in private. he's talking about ways to try to find out the identity. he wants to know who this person is and anyone who helped him is collateral damage as well. >> chuck grassley's statements yesterday for very significant. while he didn't explicitly name the president in his statement, the intention was clear. now, there aren't that many more republicans speaking out and defending the whistleblower. remember, the acting dni also made this case too defending the act of the whistleblower

himself. in terms of this whole situation and protecting the whistleblower's identity, grassley seems to be a lone voice right now. >> anyone who criticizes the president, if you're a whistleblower or a partisan hack or you're not to be trusted. up next we're waiting to hear from the president directly. we'll play that tape when it comes in to us. he's in the oval office with the finnish president. from the couldn't be prouders to the wait did we just win-ners. everyone uses their phone differently. that's why xfinity mobile let's you design your own data. now you can share it between lines. mix with unlimited, and switch it up at anytime

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take you straight to the oval office. the president of the united states with his finnish counterpart. >> things to discuss including trade and military and purchases and a lot of different very exciting events. so we'll have a long time together today. we'll then be having lunch. i think we're going to be seeing the media right afterwards and say a few words. it's an honor, mr. president, to have you with us. thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much. i'm waiting for our discussions. >> yes, yes. see, he's a man of few words and

he gets it done. that's what i like about him. anyway, okay. thank you all very much. >> you are putting the whistleblower's life in danger -- >> the whistleblower is very inaccurate. the whistleblower started this whole thing by writing a report on the conversation i had with the president of ukraine. and the conversation was perfect. it couldn't have been nicer. i saw rick scott, many of the senators talking about it, many of the congressmen talk about it. not a thing wrong unless you heard the adam schiff version where he made up my conversation. it should be criminal, it should be treasonous. he made it up, every word of it and read it to congress as though i said it. he should be forced to resign from congress, adam schiff. he's a low life. he should be forced to resign. he took a perfect conversation, realized he couldn't read it to congress because it was a very

nice conversation. i knew many people were on the phone. not only were many people on the phone, we had stenographers on the phone taking it down word for word. he took that conversation, which was perfect. he said, i can't read this, so he made up a conversation and he reported it and said it to congress and to the american people and it was horrible what he said and that was supposed to be coming from me, but it was all fabricated. he should resign from office in disgrace. frankly they should look at him for treason because he is making up the words of the president of the united states. not only words, but the meaning and it's a disgrace. it should not be allowed to happen. >> your own dni said the transcript was complicit with the complaint. >> no, no, he didn't say that. you have to take a look. no, no, no, he did not say that. in fact, if you look at what he said, he found everything to be very normal. he's a good man, joe and he found it to be very normal. i saw schiff trying to -- call

him shifty schiff. we don't call him shifty schiff for nothing. he's a shifty dishonest guy, who by the way was critical of one of the great secretary of states, graduated number one in his class at west point, graduated one of the top of his class at harvard law school, the most honorable person, mike pompeo. this guy was negative on mike pompeo. he can't -- you know, there's an expression he couldn't carry his blank strap. i won't say it because they said it was so terrible to say. that guy couldn't carry his blank strap. understand that? so you're dealing with bad people. you know, i watched china over the last few days and i watched some of these other countries build up, build up, build up and we built up more than anyone because of me. no help from the democrats. they're a disaster. they're to do-nothing democrats. they don't do any work.

all they want to do is win the election in 2020. so they come up with this impeachment nonsense, all based on one phone call that i had where i'm talking to the president of ukraine. you'll hear from our ambassadors, you'll hear from some of the folks that know all about the call why the call was set up and everything else. it's perfect. the call was perfect. lindsey graham said i didn't know you could be so nice. there was no quid pro quo. remember before they said the only reason i put that out and i did it with the approval of ukraine, otherwise i couldn't have done it, was because the whistleblower was so dishonest. the whistleblower said terrible things about the call, but i then found out he was secondhand and third hand. in other words, he didn't know what was on the call. no. these are bad people, these are dishonest people. when the american people find out what happened, it's going to be a great day. you know what? we have to go back to building our country, because 99% of nancy pelosi's time is spent on

this. she should worry about lowering the price of drugs, which i've done. it's hard to do it without the help of congress. about creating border security, which i've done. we now have hundreds of miles of wall under construction on the southern border. she should worry about infrastructure. she should worry about the usmca. she's not doing it. i just saw part of the press conference before the president came -- and i'm sorry to bother you with this, mr. president, because we have other things to talk about. i have to tell you, i just watched, she says oh drug prices. she's been trying to get drug prices down for how long has she been in congress, for years. she should focus on her own district. you see what's happening in our district? we call it tent city. it's terrible. we just sent a violation to the city of san francisco, unsafe water, unsafe kwnconditions. our epa is sending nancy pelosi with all the talk about the epa,

there's needles and drugs all over the street, there's tents, there's people that are dying in squalor in the best location in san francisco. it used to be a great city. now you have to see what's happened to san francisco. you have to see what the democrats have allowed to happen. as an example, what they've allowed to happen, just take a look to los angeles, great cities. one other thing, yesterday as you know i was sued by the governor gavin newsome. i was sued by him so that i can't get on the ballot in the state of california. it was a massive story. it was the biggest story, mr. president. it was headlines all over the place. trump gets sued but this do-nothing governor in california. it was big. here's what happened. yesterday i won the case very convincingly, a very tough,

smart highly respected judge, not a trump person at all, not appointed by trump, appointed by somebody that you would call the opposition, came out with a scathing and tough opinion. i won the case. i didn't see one story that i won that case. not one story from the fake news. i didn't see steve write it, i didn't see you write it, i didn't see anybody write it. let me just tell you just to finish, nancy pelosi and shifty shift who should resign in disgrace, by the way, and jerry nadler and all of them, it's a disgrace what's going on and we should be focused on making america great again and keeping america great, because that's what we have to do. when i look at that parade with military and millions of people and everything else, we better get smart. we better start focusing on the right things. because what they did with this nonsense, think of it, you have

a perfect -- i mean perfect conversation with a president of another country, ukraine in this case, and they try and say, oh, let's impeach him. they've been trying to impeach me from the day i got elected. i've been going through this for three years. they've been trying to impeach me from the day i got elected. you know what? they failed. this is the easiest one of all, because this one is based on one conversation. what about obama's conversation with the president of russia where he says, hey, hey, tell vlad i'll talk to him after the election is over. nobody reports that, right? that's stuff you should report. but you people should be ashamed of yourself. we have the most dishonest media that you could imagine and you should be ashamed of yourself. okay. i think i've answered most of your questions. >> finland is the happiest country in the world.

what can you learn from finland? >> if you got rid of pelosi and shifty schiff. finland is a happy country. he's a happy leader too. >> are you going to cooperate -- >> no republicans have raised concerns. >> that the identity of the whistleblower should be protected? >> i don't care. i think a whistleblower should be protected if the whistleblower is legitimate. but when the whistleblower makes a big report on the conversation i had with a president of ukraine and it was a great conversation. we talked mostly about congratulations on your win. we talked about corruption and we're really referring mostly to 2016, because what the democrats did in 2016 was corrupt. let's see what happens. they're more concerned with that than they are with me and impeachment. they're trying to hide what maybe is coming. i let our great -- if you look,

i let our great law enforcement take care of it, okay? attorney general barr, i guess is working on it. i hope he's working on it, because what happened in 2016 is a disgrace to this country. and they're more worried about that because they know they're guilty as hell, all right? they're much more worried about that. >> the whistleblower immediately illegitimate if they are reporting misconduct act ybout sir? >> are you ready? i heard the whistleblower's report from you people and how bad it was about just a simple conversation. by the way, this whole thing revolves about a simple conversation. if you remember at the beginning, it was quid pro quo. that's all you heard about. i think he said seven or eight times quid pro -- in other words you're going to do that or we're not going to give you money. i never said it. when i heard these horrible stories come out, i had no choice but to release a conversation which i hate to do

and i hope i don't have to do it again, with the leader of a country. i asked a certain person to call up a certain person in this country to get permission to do it. otherwise i wouldn't have been able to do it. if i didn't do it and i appreciate ukraine for allowing us to release the conversation, but it was so innocent it didn't hurt them. if anything, it helped them because it was a very innocent conversation. when a whistleblower takes a very nice -- lindsey graham said i never knew you were that nice a person. he said you never asked him for anything, you were really, really nice. lindsey said i never knew you were so nice. that was a perfect conversation. i heard rick scott today say that was a perfect conversation. how can they impeach him on that conversation? he read it. he's a very smart guy from florida, rick scott. the whistleblower wrote not that conversation. he wrote a vicious conversation. in other words, he either got it

totally wrong, made it up or the person giving the information to the whistleblower was dishonest. and this country has to find out who that person was, because that person's a spy, in my opinion. you ready? so when a whistleblower purposely or not gives something that's totally erroneous -- now, here's where i fooled them. they never thought i'd release the conversation. they never thought in a million years that i'd release the conversation. when little adam schiff saw the text, when he read it, he couldn't believe it. when nancy pelosi, who worked a day early, nancy pelosi called for essentially impeachment. let's impeach the president. before she saw the transcript -- and this is an exact word for word transcript of the conversation, right, taken by very talented stenographers. listen to me. so when she saw that, she -- i heard she went crazy. she said, we can't impeach him

with this conversation that's a great conversation. she went by the whistleblower. and the whistleblower was so bad, i would even think about it. but here's what happened. the whistleblower was wrong. the only thing that matters is the transcript of the actual conversation that i had with the president of ukraine. it was perfect. we're looking at congratulations, we're looking at doing things together. we're looking at corruption. and i believe in 1999 there was a corruption act or a corruption bill passed and signed between both countries where i have a duty to report corruption. let me tell you something. biden's son is corrupt and biden is corrupt. and i'd rather run against biden than almost any of those candidates. and i think they'll all weak, but i think biden has never been a smart guy and he's less smart now than he ever was. thank you very much.

thank you. [ inaudible question ] >> let me do that again. it's a fair question. so this morning -- and last night my comms people came to me. listen to this one, president. i'm glad they're interested in finland. i'm interested in finland much more. but my comms people came to me and they said, sir, there's a book or something being written. it's written by "washington post" people so you know it's inaccurate. you know it's probably a fraud. so two reporters of the washington -- and they said, president trump started screaming, ranting and raving that on the southern border where we are right now building a tremendous wall -- it's unbelievable what's going -- army corps of engineers -- we're doing a lot. we'll soon have over 100 miles completed. we're going to end up with 400

to 500 miles. that i wanted a wall that i wanted a mote, a mote, and in the mote i wanted alligators and snakes and i wanted the wall to be a fence and i wanted it to be electrified and i wanted sharp spikes at the top so if anyone gets it, it goes piercing through their skin is somewhat the way they said it. skin piercing spikes. but i want that whole wall to be electrocuted. sir, you never said that. they came to me, the comms people. they came to me yesterday and they said, did you say this? i said why are you asking that stupid question? because the fake news media is saying that you said this in a book. i said what book? they said "washington post." i said well obviously it's fake because almost everything the "washington post" does is fake. it's a fake newspaper. it's owned by a rich guy for the purposes of giving him power in washington. it's a lobbyist. i call it the lobbyist

"washington post" for amazon. he ought to be ashamed of himself because what they do to his reputation -- i think maybe it's probably no good anyway, but what they do to his representation with t reputation with the "washington post" is a disgrace. these two reporters wrote this book and they said i wanted a mote with alligators, snakes and electrocuted with spikes on top. never said it. i actually put something out on social media today. i said i'm tough on the border but i'm not that tough. it was a lie. you asked the question. it was a total lie. it was corrupt reporting, okay? i don't even use fake anymore. i call the fake news now corrupt news because fake isn't tough enough. i'm the one that came up with the term. i'm very proud of it. but i think i'm going to switch it largely to corrupt news because the media in this country -- not everybody. we have some great reporters, some great journalists. but much of it is corrupt. you have corrupt media in this

country. it truly is the enemy of the people. thank you very much. thank you. >> will you release the transcript, sir? >> thank you. [ inaudible question ] >> thank you very much. >> you're watching the president of the united states, a lengthy discussion with reporters in the oval office. one of the challenges of covering this statement is the president constantly and repeatedly lies including in that session you just saw right there. at the end he was attacking two very professional "new york times" reporters who just wrote a very good book on immigration. the president questioning that. he cooperated with that book. he sat down with an interview with the two reporters. now he's trashing that book. he was talking about how the whistleblower gave a very inaccurate description of his call with the president of ukraine in the whistleblower complaint. the president himself released

the transcript. the whistleblower complaint is public. it's not a transcript. it's a memo. it's a rough transcript you might call it. take the whistleblower complaint, match it up to this, the whistleblower got it spot on. the president also said when he was reminded that his own director of national intelligence, acting director, said the whistleblower got it right, said that the description of the call tracks what is in this white house memo. the president of the united states saying he did not say that. yes, he did. that's one of the challenges here. the president is talking to his base and the republican party and he's trying to tell them it's not wednesday. that is one of the challenges as you cover this story and you try to be fair to the president, is that some of what he says, this is his transcript. he released it. the words are right here for anybody to read, including he says there's no quid pro quo. that's a definition you can leave to the lawyers. president of ukraine, we're almost ready to buy more javelins from the united states for defense purposes. the president of the united states, i would like you to do us a favor, though. and he goes on to ask about 2016

and then joe biden. >> that's why it's so important for people to actually take a few minutes to read the transcript, to read the whistleblower complaint and basically determine on their own. this was released by the white house. so don't take our word for it if you don't want to. if you believe the president's account, take a look at the transcript and see. he's trying to basically narrow this down into just one element of what this bigger what he calls a witch hunt. he's saying this started from the day i entered office the democrats have been out to get me and this is just one more piece of the puzzle. he's trying to say in his words he's exonerated by mueller and this is just another part of that and you'll see that it will work out. a lot of people around him are much more nervous this time around. >> your point about speaking to his base is so important. he create this is kind of alternate reality or universe that his supporters pick up on. think of how many times we've had to fact check him on his

poll numbers. he inflated what his poll numbers are. he talks constantly about the hundreds of miles of wall when his own administration says it's only refurbishing the fencing there and it's not gone any further. he constantly creates this alternate universe. >> usually it's somewhat difficult to fact check what is happening at the border. it is remarkably easy to read this transcript for anyone who wants to. >> the president said i never talked about spikes on the wall. actually there's videotape of him talking about spikes on the wall. please. >> we got hung up on whether there's a white house war room to respond to this stuff. there is a war room. it's called the campaign. the campaign has been pushing out hundreds of thousands of facebook ads. >> they're full of lies too. >> fair. the point i'm trying to make is

you've got to look at the overlap of what he's saying in the oval and what he's directly saying to his base via facebook ads. i think it's really interesting that we've seen this evolution to i didn't do it to th the i d it, it's fine and normal. this is as close to a transcript as you're going to get about the president's phone call. they used to use voice recognition software to generate as close as possible to a transcript. we have it. comes close to pompeo's comments earlier of all we talked about was russia. we have the conversation now, guys. >> they just want to sometimes pretend this is their own document. the other point he said adam schiff he believes has committed treason. adam schiff should be forced to resign. adam schiff did exaggerate, give a parody version of this call

where he essentially pretended to be a mob boss to intimidate somebody. a lot of democrats think that was a mistake. but he said that adam schiff should be forced to resign because he said something that was not true, sitting in the l oval office -- if that's the standard, you should say resign if you say something that's not true, birther, 6 million people voted illegally. i could go on. >> our fact checker at the post is kept very busy all the time checking his facts. this goes to another point too. for someone who has always had very strong rhetoric, it really has escalated in the last couple of days. he is very easily throwing out the word treason. he's talked about a civil war. he's talked about a coup. this is rhetoric that should be very alarming for the situation that we're in. >> we saw him at the u.s. mission to the united nations

last week using the exact same language, saying that anyone who helps a whistleblower or anyone else to leak information about any of his conversations is treasonous and a spy. this is obviously becoming part of his rhetoric that he's going to use to combat this issue. >> i just -- he said at one point, totally erroneous he said about the whistleblower report. again, two things we've been able to track, the characterization of the ukraine call and the whistleblower saying they used the top secret server for these documents. the president's own transcript which he released confirmed part of the whistleblower. the president's own lawyers have confirmed over parts of the whistleblower. the president says he's totally inaccurate. [ laughter ] >> i mean, i don't know what else there is to say. it's remarkably easy to assess things. he seems stuck on this idea of a quid pro quo. you can read the documents and see maybe there's a missing verb. but i think anybody who's ever really looked into like diplomatic relationships between any countries knows that the

united states and ukraine are not on equal footing. >> and to an important point, this is one phone call. this went on for months. thanks for joining us. don't go anywhere. brianna keilar starts right now. thank you, john. president trump is appearing in front of the cameras in the oval office just moments ago alongside the president of finland blasting the impeachment inquiry which he has called a coup attempt. next hour we will hear from him again in a joint press conference. he's also blowing up twitter today. he live tweeted house speaker nancy pelosi and house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff's press conference on capitol hill. trump seemed irate, even cursing. here's one of the tweets. to