good evening from washington. whatever you may think of president trump, the ukraine affair, or the investigation that house democrats are conducting, their investigation appears to be getting under his skin and it is showing. you can see it in photos today. the anger and frustration, the sheer terror or fear, whatever you want to call it, lots of things are written across his face. you can see it in tweets he sent, one referring to house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff as a quote, low life, another calling allegations against him, quote, b.s. his anger was on full display during a press conference this afternoon that was even when judged against past appearances unlike any we have seen before. this was all with the president of finland standing or earlier sitting next to him. first as he read some brief prepared remarks and then during a q & a session that turned more

confrontational than usual. when the president was not attacking, he was evading questions about his july 25th phone call with ukraine's president. >> mr. president, can you just make clear right here what do you or what did you want president zelensky to do with regard to joe and hunter biden? >> well, the president did not answer that question. instead, spending the next two minutes and 22 seconds airing grievances about the country getting ripped off on trade, corruption in ukraine, about europe not paying its fair share, everything but actually answering that important question, which jeff mason then tried to ask again. >> what did you want about biden? what did you want him to look into on biden? >> look, biden and his son are stone-cold crooked, and you know it. his son walks out with millions of dollars. the kid knows nothing. you know it, and so do we. go ahead. ask a question. >> the question, sir, was what did you want president zelensky to do about vice president biden

and his son, hunter? >> are you talking to me? >> yeah, i it was just a follow-up of what i just asked you, sir. >> listen, you ready? we have the president of finland. ask him a question. >> i have one for him. i wanted to follow up on the one i asked you. >> did you hear me? >> yes, sir. >> did you hear me? ask him a question. >> i will. >> i've given you a long answer. ask this gentleman a question. don't be rude. >> no, sir. i don't want to be rude. i just wanted you to answer the question i've asked you. >> i've answered everything. >> except he didn't answer everything. he actually didn't answer the one question that actually was asked of him. and on top of the evasion, the anger and many falsehoods that are, i mean, normal but totally abnormal, or should be, there was something else that was hard to fathd only. the president's characterization of the ukraine transcript not as a liability, but instead as some kind of trapeze sprung on his adversaries. >> i thought i would finish off the first term without the

threat of people making false claims. but this one turned out to be incredible all because they didn't know that i had a transcript done by very, very talented people, word for word, comma for comma, done by people that do it for a living. we had an exact transcript. >> okay. i mean do i even need to say this? don't you all know what i'm about to say? it's not word for word, not comma for comma, not word for word, or as the document itself warns on the very first page, quote, caution, a memorandum of a telephone conversation. tell kom is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. but even if it were, it would be strange how it helps the president. he repeatedly says it is perfect. the conversation is perfect. clearly it is a marketing idea that if he can repeat it enough, you will just start to believe that it is a perfect

conversation, perfectly normal, perfectly presidential, perfectly appropriate, and is none of those things. so there's that and new reporting on vice president pence and growing tension within his circle. cnn's jim acosta joins us with that. jim, what is the latest you're learning about the white house and ukraine? >> reporter: yeah, anderson, it does seem though at this point as we're all talking about what happened between the president and president zelensky of ukraine, with respect to that july 25th call, that that story is starting to draw in the vice president, mike pence. he is getting tangled up in all of this. we have some new reporting tonight along with my colleague, pamela brown. the vice president met with president zelensky, as you know, anderson, last month. it was during that conversation the vice president passed along the administration's concerns about corruption. we're told he did not bring up vice president joe biden during that conversation, but after he had that meeting with president zelensky, he came back to washington, talked to the

president, and it was after that conversation that the aid was released. we're told by multiple administration officials, anderson, that vice president pence did help persuade the president to release that military aid that president zelensky wanted in ukraine, and so he's been drawn into this to some extent although aides close to the vice president will say he has been a part of this effort to malign joe biden and hunter biden. the other thing about all of this, anderson, is this is causing some anxiety inside pence world. we're told by sources familiar with the matter that the vice president is going to be on the road for some time often over the next several weeks in an effort by some of the vice president's team members to keep him out of the mix, keep him away from this scandal, keep him away from the ukraine story. and i'm told by a source familiar with the matter that when the vice president handles his calls with foreign leaders, quote, everything is buttoned up, and everything is, quote, squeaky clean. so not only, anderson, are the

vice president's people trying to keep him out on the road away from this unfolding scandal, they're also trying to draw a distinction between the way he handles his phone calls with foreign leaders and the way the president does. >> it was pretty extraordinary to see the president say both in the sit-down with finland's president and then also later on at the official press conference. we saw that exchange with a reporter where he wouldn't answer the question, and then finally when the reporter kept pressing, the president sort of tried to pivot and say you're being rude to the president of finland. >> reporter: right. >> it's remarkable that was his excuse for not answering the question given the fact that he spent the entire press gaggle when he was sitting with the president of finland in the oval office railing about everything ukraine-related and the democrats-related, and i mean the poor president of finland, you know, looked like he would rather be anywhere else but sitting right there. >> reporter: absolutely, anderson. and i think what you saw unfolding in the oval office and during that press conference in the east room of the white house with the president of finland is

as close as i've ever seen donald trump looking like he has painted himself into a corner, that he is backed into a corner. he was firing in all directions today, and he did not answer, as you said, that question from reuters' jeffmati mason about w he wanted out of that phone call with the president of ukraine with respect to joe biden. there are a couple of us in the press in addition to jeff mason as you saw in that one clip, who were also trying to press the president, answer the question, answer the question. he just has not answered that very essential question. what did the president mean when he said, would you do us a favor, though in response to president zelensky talking about military aid. but when you talk to people close to the president, anderson, it is like that guy, you know, in the naked gun saying "nothing to see here. please disperse." the fire is going off in the background, but people around the president are trying to make the case that nothing is going wrong here. i talked to one trump adviser earlier this evening who said once again the president is a

great messenger. it is a bit alice in wonderland over here, anderson, the way that they're trying to describe the president as staying ahead of all this when is very clear he is backed into a corner tonight. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. chris murphy met with ukraine's president shortly before the transcript of that phone conversation with president trump came out. he joins us now. i want to ask you about jim acosta's reporting. i'm wondering what your assessment is of the vice president's involvement is here. he, i believe, met with zelensky. he's clearly tried to stay out of the fray. do you have any sense of what his involvement may be? >> well, if your reporting is correct, it's pretty extraordinary that the vice president has chosen to skip town over the course of the next few weeks to stay out of this story. i think it may also be a little bit of reconstruction of history to suggest the vice president is the one that persuaded the

president to release the aid. the president released the aid right after the whistle-blower complaint was lodged and shortly before the appropriations committee was going to require that the next year's aid be spent. but remember everyone in trump's orbit knew what was going on dating back to may. in may, rudy giuliani was openly bragging about going to ukraine to try to convince that government to interfere in the 2020 election. and so vice president pence as well as everyone else in this administration had the opportunity starting in may to either put a stop to this or come out publicly and expose it, and none of them did it. so i understand that pence and many others are going to try to wash their hands of it, are going to try to put the best potential spin on it, but all of them are implicated in this scandal because it has been ongoing for months. >> it's interesting when the president was refusing to actually answer the question that the reporter asked and then continued to re-ask, i must say under tremendous pressure from the president not to do that,

and then told, you know, to ask something to the president of finland, it's interesting to me that the president did not want to answer the question, which was what were you trying to get out of the president of ukraine? what did you want them to do about the bidens in terms of investigation? and i'm wondering if the president didn't want to answer that because he doesn't want to have on camera himself saying essentially what he said in the transcript, which is, you know, i wanted the president of ukraine to investigate the bidens, to investigate joe biden, get, you know -- find out information about what i believe is corruption and, you know, about the server, the phantom story about the server being in ukraine and the ukrainians being behind the whole hacking of the dnc. i'm wondering -- obviously you don't know this, but it's curious to me that he didn't want to say specifically what he wanted. >> there's no way for the president to offer an adequate

explanation for what he did. he had two asks of president zelensky in that phone call. one was to help him destroy hillary clinton. the second was to help him destroy vice president biden. you cannot do that as the president of the united states. you cannot use the massive power entrusted to you to try to destroy your political opponents, and what we know now is that the effort was much broader than just that phone call, that in fact for months the state department itself and the president's personal lawyer were involved in this effort as well. so the president is not going to be able to offer an adequate explanation for the corruption that he engaged in in that phone call or that the rest of his team has been engaged in for months. >> initially, the president's defenders were saying, look, this whistle-blower doesn't have direct knowledge. it's all hearsay. and then everything the whistle-blower said essentially is proven within a matter of days and the white house releases the transcript, and it's what the whistle-blower

said. everything basically the whistle-blower has said has turned out to be accurate. i'm wondering the argument now from a lot of trump supporters seems to be, well, there was no quid pro quo quoted in the conversation, and it was a totally normal conversation to have between world leaders. is there -- just because there is no, you know, you give me this, i'll give you that, the sword hanging over the president of the ukraine is the need for military aid for an active conflict against russia. and i'm wondering do you believe there's any validity to the argument that there was no quid pro quo because it wasn't in the kofrgs, and also the other argument they make is the president of ukraine has said, oh, i wasn't under pressure. i don't put much stock in that given he may have to continue to have a relationship with president trump moving forward. >> well, of course. you listen to zelensky at the

u.n., and you read the transcript of his remarks, and you can see him bending over backwards to try to get along with this president. why? because ukraine is totally dependent right now on the united states for their security. without the united states, they would have to be back under the thumb of the russians. and so there is an implicit threat. there is an implicit quid pro quo in every single demand that the united states makes of ukraine. the president doesn't need to say it out loud. there are always going to be consequences if you don't do what the united states wants. but if you read deeper into that transcript, it does actually seem as if there's a quid pro quo in the way trump is talking to zelensky. he says, oh, we do a lot for ukraine. we don't get a lot in return. and i have these two asks of you. help me destroy hillary clinton. help me destroy vice president biden. if you are zelensky on the other end of that phone call with zero leverage over the president of the country that essentially keeps you independent and

sovereign, of course you're going to do what the president wants. of course you're going to come to the conclusion that the president is going to hold you accountable. and of course we know that the president did suspend the aid. so whether or not there was an explicit quid pro quo, people in ukraine could easily come to the conclusion that you didn't do what the president wanted, and you paid a consequence. >> lastly, you continue to be focused on getting gun safety legislation passed. the president has indicated impeachment will be a big hurdle. of course, you know, he also, even before the impeachment, clearly had backed off the talk he had immediately after the latest mass killings, which echoed what he had said in previous mass killings, that he would be looking toward significant some sort of legislation. all that seems to pretty much be gone from this president's vocabulary. now he's blaming the impeachment, saying they wonder why they don't get gun legislation done. then they wonder why they don't get gun prices lowered because

all they do is talk nonsense, end quote. do you worry that substantive legislative action on gun is, as far as the white house is concerned, off the table? >> well, if we don't get a background checks deal done, it's only because the president decided to walk away from the table. i'm wearing my anti-gun violence t-shirt today as i'm talking to you because we had nine democratic presidential candidates here in las vegas talking about their bold plans for action. and on the day that i announced my support for an impeachment inquiry, the white house reached out to me and said, hey, you know, we still want to stay at the table. we'll see if that's true, but i have been very open that i believe that congress needs to pursue impeachment at the same time as we pursue a legislative agenda. so i will be sitting at the table, waiting for the president to engage on a background checks measure. i will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. i want universal background checks but i will settle for something less if the president is willing to come and talk to us. but it has been two full weeks since the last time we

substantive engagement from the white house on background checks. i will be waiting for as long as it takes to get this done because we can't let a chance to save lives be stalled by impeachment. >> senator murphy, i appreciate your time. thank you very much. >> thanks. breaking news next involving the highest profile member of the president's team, his tv lawyer, rudy giuliani, and his -- i guess we should call him his kind of go-to guy regarding this latest thing. what we're just now learning about his role in the still puzzling affair that sent the state department's inspector general to capitol hill to brief congress this afternoon. a lot of questions about why that even happened. later, more breaking news. new reporting on the pressure being put on other foreign governments to discredit the russia investigation as well as reaction to it from james clapper, former director of national intelligence. with advil liqui-gels,

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there's breaking news tonight in the ukraine investigation. the growing pressure on the vice president as well as his standing within the administration. also the president's airing of grievances today even as he shared the moment with the president of finland. another late breaking item involves the president's tv lawyer, rudy giuliani, and it might clear up the mystery of what was a very kind of bizarre and chaotic scene after that so-called urgent state department inspector general briefing today. this is a complicated story. i'm not sure i fully understand what happened today regarding this. can you just lay out what we know happened? >> reporter: that's right, anderson. so the state department inspector general made a very abrupt announcement that they would be briefing lawmakers today. they did that, and in that briefing, the i.g. provided a large tranche of documents that included in that tranche a number of allegations, a sort of outline of allegations against

joe biden regarding ukraine, also some allegations against the now former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, left a lot of lawmakers and staff on capitol hill wondering exactly what this had to do with anything. now cnn is reporting -- rudy giuliani spoke with me just a few minutes ago, confirming that some of the information in that -- in what the i.g. presented originated with him. >> okay. so rudy giuliani -- do we know how -- i mean rudy giuliani, what, handed it to somebody in the secretary of state's office, or do we know? >> reporter: so what giuliani told me is that he somehow routed this information. again, this is at the end of march earlier this year. he said he routed that information to secretary of state mike pompeo. it's kind of unclear exactly what that means, but he did say that he received a call a couple of days later from pompeo himself, who said that he had gotten these documents and that he would refer it for

investigation. and giuliani telling me he was very frustrated that he never heard anything back from the state department thereafter. >> so the three chairs, chairmans sheriff, engel, and cummings released a statement tonight on the state inspector general briefing that happened today, which is when these documents were handed over by the inspector general to them in congress. i want to read you a paragraph from what they said. quote, the inspector general stated that his office interviewed secretary pompeo's counselor, who informed the inspector general that secretary pompeo told him the packet came over and that brechbuhl presumed it was from the white house, end quote. does that match with your reporting or how -- yeah. what does that mean to new. >> reporter: it's an open question. again, giuliani not being very forthright about exactly how he got these documents, he says, to the state department. but, look, you have to remember, anderson, that rudy giuliani is in the inner circle of the present. he's talking with the president

a lot. we've seen, again, from the whistle-blower report that this seemed to annoy a lot of the national security team around the president that giuliani had such access. so it isn't determined exactly if that came from the white house, but that suggestion from those chairmen suggested it very well may have, and the white house may have been the conduit for rudy giuliani to get those documents to the state department. >> and, michael, just so i'm clear, the documents that were all handed over, i mean was there more of a briefing, or was it just handing over these documents, and are they all just, you know, things alleging stuff about the bidens and ukraine and, you know, the whole conspiracies that giuliani has been pushing? >> reporter: so this is interesting. some of the documents giuliani says he was unfamiliar with, and included in that tranche from the i.g. at the state department are a number of emails from state department officials essentially taking those allegations that giuliani has been, you know, propagating

through conservative media and other media for the past several months, and saying it's bad information. so it really does seem to me that the state department is really trying to make an effort here. the i.g. is to say the state department had this information and really urged each other to say, it's not true. >> okay. michael warren, appreciate it. a lot to talk about tonight although it's still confusing. joining us, former state department spokesperson, obama white house communications director jen psaki, gloria borger, carrie cordero, and elliot williams. jen, i mean we were sitting here last night trying to figure out what this could be. >> mm-hmm. >> it seems to be nothing of any of the things we possibly thought about. >> we theorized, right. >> and unclear exactly what it is. i mean it sounds like someone emptied out their desk drawer in pompeo's office about all the stuff that was in there. what do you make of this? >> it sounds to me like an old-fashioned opposition research book you'd see in a political campaign, but about ambassadors serving the united

states and a political opponent of the president. now, there are propaganda packets that are put together about ambassadors serving in authoritarian countries all the time, and i'm sure there were those floating around about yovanovitch in ukraine as they are in russia and other places. this is unique, and i think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that these are exactly the components and the items that were being pitched in that phone call that we've seen the notes of the transcript from, in what giuliani has been pushing. we also know there has been a kind of mudslinging campaign against yovanovitch as well. so what we don't know right now is the origin as was noted in the reporting. did it come from the white house? did it giuliani write it himself? was it in trump tower? was it somewhere else? that's almost the most interesting piece of information and will probably tell us a lot more. >> the i.g. made the call over to congress to inform them they have this stuff they wanted to basically bring over shortly after pompeo made the

announcement saying about the democrats are bully essentially. >> right. and we assumed as a result that maybe it was related to that letter. >> right. >> that perhaps it was evidence of what pompeo was accusing. perhaps it was people in the state department who were saying, i want to testify or i'm not being treated fairly. there's also ongoing i.g. investigations happening now under this same i.g. about political firing. so we made all of those assumptions. my best guess is that he wanted to unload this information and didn't want to have it in his desk -- the i.g. >> oh, not pomp -- so does this say something about the relationship between pompeo and giuliani? >> yeah, direct to direct phone call. you know, that apparently pompeo called giuliani and let him know, you know, we're looking into this. the question that i have is pompeo may have passed it along to the counsel. did the counsel sit on it because nobody was really taking it seriously. apparently, according to the committee chairman, some of it

was wrapped in like trump hotel folders and came in trump hotel folders. so maybe they didn't take it seriously until all the rest of the story started breaking, and suddenly maybe that was then passed on to the inspector general, and the inspector general said, eek, i've got to do something. >> and the emails to state department officials are very interesting because there's been this accusation that state department officials were pushing this, you know, leaders in ukraine and other places to find this information -- >> right. giuliani said he was basically working on the behest of the state department. >> exactly. and that's never sounded right. so i'll be very interested to see these emails. >> so it's the counternarrative. >> and they're not classified. this information is not -- >> none of it. rudy giuliani talks about it every night on fox news. why would it be classified? >> carrie, is this normal? i don't -- i still don't understand why this was such an urgent thing in such a strange, cryptic way that it raised all sorts of alarm bells on capitol hill. >> yeah. so it's a mystery right now, i

think, why the inspector general from the state department urgently went up to congress to provide this information. normally an inspector general would vet information, would say they have conducted some kind of investigation, would have made some kind of assessment like we've seen with the dni whistle-blower case, that the information was credible. normally inspector generals don't just dump garbage on congress. >> mm-hmm. >> so i think there's more to learn about the motivations from that. what i will say, though, often, you know, in the last couple years we hear a lot about whether or not the institutions are holding up under this intention political pressure from the president, who wants to use the instruments of the executive branch for his personal benefit. and i think it's another example potentially of the institutions not holding up quite so well. if we service rudy giuliani, the president's personal lawyer and

sort of everything guy providing information to the state department and state department, the secretary of state, the inspector general, the general counsel all spending time on this -- >> well, also the -- >> if it's frivolous information, that shows that the institution of the state department is being manipulated for political purposes. >> it's quite clear also that the secretary of state is not an institutionalist and not aligned with the personnel of the state department in terms of protecting them, though he said he's trying to protect them from bullies in congress. he certainly has not been protecting the u.s. ambassador to ukraine. elliot, i think giuliani was on lou dobbs earlier tonight, and i'm told he referred to himself and attorney general barr in tandem saying, quote, they're going after both of his attorneys, meaning the president's attorneys. they're going after barr, who is his government attorney, and they're going after me, who is his private attorney. barr is not the president's attorney. he's not supposed to be. >> and the problem here is as much with how the president

regards the role of attorney general and who all these people who happen to have law degrees but are serving the president. barr is not the president's attorney, and i think that's a big misunderstanding as to how the role works, how the role ought to work. we talked about this last night too. what exactly is rudy giuliani's job? you know, getting on with what carrie had said, maybe this information that he presented is frivolous, and it very well might be. congress still has a duty to look at what he's presented, but the problem is you just can't take him seriously anymore because they brought so much nonsense up to begin with. >> gloria, the thing with the press conference today, where the president would go into this long answer, which was a non-answer to the question he was asked about what he actually was trying to get from the president of ukraine about biden, what did he want the president to actually do. to me, it is just fascinating that that is the question he would not answer because, i mean, if he speaks the words that he said even in the

transcript, as not word for word as they were, it will not sound good coming out of the president's mouth. i want you to do me a favor, you know, find me dirt on biden. >> right. >> find me information about biden. >> i don't even know that he could answer the question because it's so convoluted and crazy that all he wants to do is say -- you know how the president shorthands everything. joe biden a crook. he's a stone-cold crook i think is what he said. >> corrupt, i believe. >> stone-cold corrupt and hunter biden too. so that's all he wants to say. that's all he could say in the phone conversation to the ukrainian president. you know, there's this bad stuff, and there's this -- >> right. it's the old people are uk taing about. you know about it. i'm hearing stuff. >> crowdstrike and all -- >> on top of that, that's now their legal strategy. their entire legal strategy is calling people names and saying, you know, they're corrupt. but to win something like this or to at least succeed in the

public eye, they have to have both a legal and a communications strategy, and -- >> regardless of all of that, we all have notes from the transcript which he referenced, but he almost forgot what it said, which is very different from the mueller report and other -- >> right. but i mean i think we're discounting the skill of the president as a marketer. >> yeah. >> and, you know, it looks like he doesn't have a communications strategy. he's hammering away at the words "perfect conversation," corrupt. he's now speaking almost monosyllabically in those buzzwords. >> the thing is that can't respond to a subpoena, right? at the end of the day, there are actually legally operative things that are going to be -- >> not responding to a subpoena is something they seem to be doing very well. >> the difference is this is now a judicial proceeding in the way that none of the stuff we saw before was. >> if is a political process. >> they're not going to play this out in court over the

course of months and months. they want this done by october. >> tonight biden is supposed to give a speech where he kind of responds to this. but biden is going to have to really take this on at some point because this is going to be a political fight. >> thank you, everybody. coming up, yet more breaking news tonight. new reporting on other world leaders who president trump believed he could enlist to discredit the russia investigation. more on that i can't believe it. what? that our new house is haunted by casper the friendly ghost? hey jill! hey kurt! movies? i'll get snacks! no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on our car insurance with geico. i got snacks! ohhh, i got popcorn, i got caramel corn, i got kettle corn. am i chewing too loud? believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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in addition to the breaking news tonight on vice president pence and the ukraine investigation as well as state department documents handed over to congress today, there's this on president trump. banking on some new potential

allies in his effort to discredit the russia investigation. it's a report you'll only see on 360. cnn's kaitlan collins has the latest. what have you learned about the president's conversations with other world leaders? >> reporter: anderson, we're learning not only did president trump reach out to the australian prime minister about working with the attorney general to investigate the beginnings of the russia investigation, he also placed a phone call to the new british prime minister, boris johnson, over the summer, hoping that he could do the same. basically when these two world leaders got into office, president trump didn't just see it as a potential diplomatic opening, anderson. he saw it as a political one, one where he could potentially achieve this long-standing goal he's had of discrediting the russia investigation. >> and what did the president tell his advisers about the conversations about these leaders? do you know? >> reporter: he was pretty giddy about it. he didn't just think that politically they were more in line with them. he thought they'd be more cooperative with looking into the beginnings of this investigation, and a lot of that had less to do with them and more to do with their

predecessors, malcolm turnbull and theresa may. president trump had always been dpeeply suspicious of those two leaders based on our sources because he always blamed them in part for the beginning of the russia investigation and the role that their countries played in it. >> today senator graham sent letters, i understand, to the prime ministers of australia, italy, and the uk. >> reporter: a close ally of the president urging these leaders in this letter to continue working with bill barr, the attorney general, on this investigation into the beginnings of the russia probe, which is interesting because of course they did have small parts in the beginning of this like where george papadopoulos was meeting certain officials that they met with. that's really been something that has metastasized in the president's mind. but there's no evidence they were part of this political conspiracy to undermine the president's campaign. but so far he thinks this is a way for him to get vindication and clearly we've seen this is something that the attorney general is fine with pursuing. >> kaitlan collins, thanks very much. joining us now, cnn national security analyst and former director of national intelligence james clapper. he's the author of "facts and

fears: hard truths from a life in intelligence." you were obviously in dni during the start of the russia investigation. when you hear kaitlan's reporting that the president is now talking to boris johnson and others, does it make sense to you? >> no, it doesn't, anderson. it just show the lengths to which this administration will go to try to discredit the entire russian meddling, i guess. i recall early on in this presidency when president trump alleged that, you know, the obama administration was surveilling trump tower, which is ridiculous, or that president obama had asked the brits to monitor him, which was ridiculous. in fact, it prompted a rare public statement by gchq, which is the british equivalent of our nsa, national security agency, to completely rebut the president's allegation. so i don't know what the

expectation here is because this reporting was done in good faith by foreign service officers or law enforcement or intelligence officials who thought we should know about, you know, these activities. so do they expect now that because there are political leaders who he thinks are more in tune with him, that somehow they're going to say, oh, april fool, you know, we were just kidding before, three-plus years ago. so i don't see the point of it. one other bad effect, of course, is that i worry that particularly the intelligence services of these close allies who have freely shared information with us in the past will think twice before they do that when it appears as though they're going to be investigated. >> the very fact that the attorney general of the united states, who rudy giuliani tonight on fox apparently referred to as the president's government attorney -- and rudy is -- he's the president's

personal attorney. >> kind of interchangeable. >> yeah, that they're part of the same team essentially. i guess some trump supporters would say there's no problem with him investigating and if the investigation finds up nothing, it finds up nothing. just in terms of the time that -- i mean it seems like the head of the justice department, barr, is dedicating to this, does it infringe on other work that normally a head of the justice department would do? and the president, you know, when clinton was being -- during that whole impeachment procedure, they had very clear lines in the white house about who -- anybody who was focused on the impeachment, that's what they did. but nobody else could talk about it, and clinton could only focus on it when he was meeting with those people so that other work could be done. just watching the president meet with the president of finland today, you had the sense that there's not a lot of other work entering the president's head. it's all this all the time. >> yeah, and that's -- that's kind of -- you step back from the day-to-day madness of what

we see, read, and hear about, you wonder what's being neglected. and all these huge issues that we face both foreign and domestic, well, the president obviously is totally consumed with attacking his opponents. and, you know, we're fortunate. we haven't had a major crisis of the magnitude of the 9/11 attack. god forbid we have another one, but i worry about that, and the attorney general's preoccupation with this, which i can't recall a case where this much time is expended personally by the attorney general in sort of evidence-gathering or facilitate evidence-gather in one investigation. >> director clapper, appreciate it. coming up next, one of the first members of congress to call for president trump's impeachment, maxine waters, and what she is saying now about what else should happen to the president. we'll be right back.

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she's chairwoman of the influential house financial services committee and has long called for president trump's impeachment, and in the process, became a favorite target of the

president, especially at his rallies. now that the possible of impeachment is growing, maxine waters is certainly not going back. congresswoman waters joins us now. i'm wondering, congresswoman, what is your reaction to the president's broadside against the impeachment inquiry today? he's very clearly, i guess, worked up about it would be a conservative way to say it. there's certainly no reason to think that's going to calm down anytime soon. >> well, i don't think so. i think he is really very, very upset about what is happening because he never thought that we would get to an impeachment inquiry. don't forget nancy pelosi had been against it, and she had basically told him that that was not what she was focused on. and she certainly meant that, and i think he became even more brazen in what he was doing because he felt like there never was going to be any impeachment of him. and i think he's very upset about it. >>

>> in terms of the timing of an impeachment inquiry or actually an impeachment if it came to that, how important is time for the democrats in this? are you of the school who believes this should proceed as quickly as possible, or are you wanting it to get as many witnesses as possible, perhaps try to convince republicans in the senate over time to vote for impeachment? republicans in the senate over time for impeachment? >> no, i think we have to missouri swiftly. i think the call, the telephone call that the president made to the ukrainian president put a lot of facts on the table. we know that he made the call, asked for a favor and basically held up the appropriations for the ukraine. there are a lot of facts in here now. and so i think it gives us the opportunity to move quickly. and i'm hopeful that our facts will be such that, you know, the republicans will have to fall in line on some of this.

the senate will have to, you know, fall in line on some of this. i do believe that we can do this. i think the house can get to this by the end of the year. >> in a tweet yesterday, you said that you were, quote, calling for the gop to stop trump's filthy talk of whistle-blowers being spies and using language that i plies they should be killed. impeachment is not good enough for trump, that he needs to be imprisoned and in solitary confine. in saying that doesn't, he needs to be put in prison and in solitary confinement, doesn't that hurt your cause just in terms of public sentiment? >> you know what? i think that it is very interesting how oftentimes it is focused on a what one of the members have to say. this president has not only undermined and denounced the press constantly and he's

dangerous. he's talked about starting or encouraging a civil war. now, why aren't we putting more time and effort on unveiling what the president is saying, asking him what do you mean by that? how is this going to happen? are you dog whistling to the white supremacists? i mean, i think that's what should be talked about a lot. >> right. >> do you understand how important this is to have the president of the united states talking about a civil war? how dangerous that is? do you know how dangerous it is for the president to talk about what they do to spies and instead of understanding that the whistle-blowers are patriotic people who care about their country, he's calling them spies and then implying that they should be killed. that's what we should be talking about. we don't hear enough about that. the press does not bare down on him on these issues. >> well, i would encourage you to watch more of cnn because i

certainly think we talk about those things a lot. >> not enough. not enough. i really like you and you do a good job but you all do not call him to task and make him accountable for what he's saying. >> they're saying that he should be in solitary confinement. you had speaker pelosi today saying that the democratic caucus saying, i'm quoting, let's bring as much dignity, as much solemnity, as much prayerfulness that is worthy of the constitution and save whatever we feel about trump for the election. essentially she's saying to members of the house, you know what, let's not get over our skis on this and let's let the process play out without essentially using that kind of language. >> well, i think that most people who have watched me over the past two years know that i am a responsible person who have talked about the constitution, who have talked about the fact that this president does not respect the fact that putin is responsible for basically bugging our electoral system, hacking into the dnc. they know i've been serious

about this. i've had the courage to stand up when nobody else would stand with me. so people know that i'm responsible and that i'm serious and, like i said, that impeachment is the imperative. that's how i ended the sentence. so that's what should be focused on. don't forget, focus on trump and the fact that he's talking about a civil war. everybody should be frightened about that. there are these white wing supremacists up in the hills practicing how they're going to have a war against the united states and then you have the president playing into that, dog whistling to that. that's what i want to hear the press talking about. >> chairwoman waters, appreciate your time. thank you. >> i appreciate yours too. thank you. >> any number of things president trump said today could lead a news hour tonight. i want to check in with chris and see what he's work on for "cuomo prime time." >> we expose and congress has the job of holding the president to count. and the voters ultimately during the election. tonight we're going to focus on the new wave of what matters.

we know what the president's defense is. i will argue tonight that it falls on its face, and i'll give you a couple of reasons why. it all centers around that phone call, of course. it's not enough for the house. they have to put meat on the bones if it's going to rise to the level of impeachment. but we have questions. why did the secretary of state be told we know you are on the call, were on the call, before he admitted it? why was the secretary of state taking something from rudy giuliani and saying he would investigate it. after all that talk about the dossier, coop, now rudy giuliani seems to be the seed father of a dossier of their own. >> all right, chris. we'll see you then, five minutes from now. still to come, a medical update on bernie sanders who has had to suspend his campaigning. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting.

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just a short time ago, we learned that jane sanders, wife of senator bernie sanders is now with her husband in las vegas. supporters of the presidential

candidate and practically every one of his candidates have wished him a speedy recovery after he experienced what a senior adviser described as chest pains tuesday night. doctors found a blockage in one artery and two stints were successfully inserted. he has suspended campaigning until, quote, further notice. we certainly wish him the best. i'm going to hand it over to chris for cuomo "primetime." chris? >> thank you very much. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." i can't believe it, but there is another dossier in the mix. the irony is staggering and troubling. we have new information and people to test what they're going to do about it. what do you say? let's get after it. another crazy day. the president happy to answer all kinds of questions about how bad the whistle-blower is, how bad the democrats are, all the things that they did and all you need to do is look at the perfect call. but when he got asked about that call, listen to this.