saying at this point this is a good resolution for these people who have been affected by the worst shooting that we've seen in modern history in america, kate. >> 58 people killed, hundreds -- hundreds -- injured in this. >> hundreds. >> stephanie, thank you very much. i really appreciate it. thanks so much for joining me, everybody. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, kate, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing this busy news day with us. an impeachment witness being questioned on capitol hill this hour. kurt volker resigned as special envoy to ukraine just last week. he knows details of rudy giuliani's search for 2020 election dirt. plus, the president's anger is raw and very public. in contrast, the vice president's team is working frantically but behind the scenes to try to shield him from any ukraine backlash. and if you think maybe, just maybe, the president would have

second thoughts asking for foreign election help, well, think again. >> i would think that if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into biden. it's a very simple answer. likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. so i would say that president zelensky, if it were me, i would recommend that they start an investigation into the bidens. >> a packed hour ahead for us, but we start right there with that remarkable moment. president trump on his way to florida telling reporters standing outside of the white house that ukraine and china should launch investigations into the bidens. this at the very same moment house intelligence committee members are questioning a potential impeachment witness about that exact same topic, using presidential power and the

leverage of official policy of president of ukraine to dig up election dirt. rexless, unfounded smears against joe biden and his son. again, what the president is saying isn't true, but the formfor former vice president feels compelled to fire back. >> let me make something clear to president trump and his hatchet men and his attacks against me. i'm not going anywhere. you are not going to destroy me, and you're not going to destroy my family. i don't care how much money you spend, mr. president, or how dirty the attacks get. >> already a lot of moving parts going on today, some on the substance, some in the political debate. chairman adam schiff getting some blowback from a "new york times" account saying, schiff got an early account of the whistleblower's claims.

the whistleblower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report his complaint. the committee staff advised the whistleblower on the proper procedures but schiff's office denies the committee saw in advance the complaint against the president. president trump is now saying, of course, he thinks schiff helped write that whistleblower complaint. there is no evidence of that, however, but because schiff didn't disclose the contact has some democrats frustrated. kaitlan collins and manu raju. kaitlan, the president outside the white house asking foreign governments for help. >> reporter: it literally happened as there is an impeachment inquiry over what he said to the ukranian president to inspect the bidens. we didn't need any of that today when the president on south lawn of the white house said in front of reporters surrounded by

microphones and surrounded by cameras that he believes china should launch an investigation into the bidens. just pretty openly what we were trying to figure out, if he had pressured other countries into looking into mr. biden. he said he hasn't talked to president xi about this but it's something they should talk about, leaving open the possibility that's something they could start doing in the future. it's going to be pretty interesting to see how republicans respond to this. of course, it's coming after the president congratulated china on their communist anniversary the other day. and, of course, as the president himself noted, the chinese delegation is coming to the united states next week for another round of those trade talks as we've been locked in this trade battle. you've seen this playing out between the united states and china. whether or not it comes up then is going to be another question, but it's certainly going to be something on everyone's mind. >> fascinating, and as you said, it will be interesting to see if any senior republicans say anything critical about the

president of the united states standing on the grounds at the white house asking foreign governments for election dirt, lessons not learned. kaitlan collins at the white house, appreciate that. let's get up to the hill with manu raju. today the house committee is talking today to the first impeachment witness, kurt volker. what do they hope to learn? >> they want to know exactly wha what happened as rudy giuliani came to the ukraine to talk to ukraine officials. giuliani himself left text messages saying they were in communication as they were trying to set up an emissary of the ukranian government. they have named volker as one who tried to alleviate concerns from the ukranian government about conflicting messages coming out of the trump administration, as well as from the president and his personal attorney about what exactly the ukranian government -- the u.s. wanted from the ukranian government, namely that investigation into the bidens. there are going to be a lot of

questions about exactly what transpired in the aftermath of the president's phone call with t ukranian president zelensky. documents have turned up in capitol hill about those communications, and we expect the members and staff members to go through those documents individually. now, members who have left this closed door briefing which is being led by the house intelligence committee staff, the democratic members who have left have not commented, but we have gotten the first comment out of this briefing from a republican member who sits on the house intelligence committee. that is, mike turner. turner calls this a, quote, show trial. he's criticizing the way this transpired, and also he is suggesting that so far this testimony has done, in his view, nothing to advance chairman adam schiff's impeachment agenda. the republicans believe that so far volker hasn't done anything to add to the evidence against this president. we'll see how the democrats ultimately respond, but john, this is just the beginning. we expect there to be a full day of questioning behind closed

doors. we'll see what they ultimately learn. john? >> it will be interesting to see if we get to see at least parts of this deposition as it plays out. manu raju, appreciate it. big day on capitol hill today. julie hirsch feld davis of the "new york times." somebody help me. if it's everyday blaiehavior, h can you impeach him for it, right? we'll go around the world, and by the time we're done, he would have asked 170 or 80 countries for help and then he'll say, what's the big deal, right? >> he's essentially trying to normalize this and say it out loud, making the assumption that if you do that, if you're not hiding it behind closed doors in private conversation that there's nothing wrong with it. he's wrong on that front. i think the fact saying it in front of a camera doesn't make it right, and it certainly bolsters the idea that his actual intention in the private phone call with ukraine was not just, oh, here's an example of

corruption with the bidens, again, unproven example, but it was actually a direct request to a foreign government to help him in his reelection bid. >> and the biden campaign jumping right into this. this is kate beddingfield. what he said last night was equivalent to the "rush, are you listening" moment from 2015. they are letting rudy giuliani use the state department, use tax resources, official government facts and influence to people to gather personal, political information. you have the president again, i get the politics of it, he's trying to say, what's wrong? i'll keep doing it. >> but by him repeatedly doing it and repeatedly saying it out loud, it emboldens house democrats and emboldens their inquiry and adds, potentially further, another checkmark of,

oh, this is an abuse of power, saying it on front lawn exactly what was in the transcript and exactly what they're pursuing in their inquiry right now. >> i'll come back to this in a second. it also makes it harder for republicans. >> to the extent you could point to what's in the whistleblower complaint, you could say we don't know the extent of the conversations, we don't know the full extent of the transcript even though we have a partial transcript, how can we say what the tenor of that back and forth were. they can cast some doubt that's objectionable in those conversations, but when the president says the very same thing out loud, they'll be faced with the conversation, is that okay with you, that the president is asking for ukraine, asking for china to go ahead and investigate joe biden? is that something that you think the united states president should be doing? and to the degree they don't have a good answer for that, it's going to make it much harder for them to be vigorous defenders of him as this goes forward. >> i agree with that, but i also

think it's not a hypothetical strategy he's never played out before to try to normalize this. it worked with the mueller investigation in a lot of ways. he spoke so many words about it. he literally made it such an everyday occurrence that by the end of it, people were kind of numbed and it was normal and -- >> he exhausts you. >> right, and it's not impossible to imagine the same thing could happen here where, a week from now, two weeks from now, a month from now, two months from now, we're all just sick and tired of ukraine. >> i do think this one, though, is potentially different because it all does circle one very specific question, which is, is it right for the president of the united states to be asking a foreign government to investigate a political rival? that is one simple question that is now on the table, and he vocalized his desire to do that on camera. >> is it right, or how wrong is it, is the way i would put it.

is it an impeachable offense? this term gets way overused, trump being trump. he's been president for three years now. done with that. you sort of excuse some things. how wrong is it, i think, is the question here. and part of the democrats' challenge is to build a case, build a corruption and abuse of power for political gains. kurt volker is behind closed doors. you heard manu with the original reporting, and no offense, congressman turner, people will come out and go forward with it. he resigned this week. that's what's interesting, he resigned suddenly last week about conversations on whether he should cooperate. he mentioned the whistleblower complaint. he connected giuliani with top officials. giuliani released the text, volker does not dispute that. i call this the central witness. this is a man who has worked for two decades in republican politics. he worked for senator mccain.

was an ambassador, has a republican pedigree. if he brings evidence to the table that they were wrongly using the instrument of power, government taxpayer resources, that's a credible witness. >> what democrats want to hear from him is to what extent was he involved with rudy giuliani, because giuliani has played up volker's involvement in this incident, and also potentially to what extent did giuliani try to recruit other government officials to also engage in this with ukraine and ask ukraine for these favors. that's what they're going to be asking volcker, all those details, what giuliani was doing. there is also some speculation about, as you mentioned, the timing of his resignation and whether or not that was done so that way he could cooperate with the committees. >> and yesterday we were all focused on what would the state department inspector general bring to capitol hill? the reviews of that were kind of confusing. democrats were somewhat disappointed. this is a statement from the three committee chairmen involved in this.

the documents provided by the inspector general included a package of misinformation, debunked conspiracy theories and baseless allegations in an envelope marked "white house" and containing folders labeled "trump hotel." these documents also reinforce concerns that the president and his allies sought to use the machinery of the state department to further the president's personal politics. >> he got it in there somehow. they had it sitting somewhere in a file cabinet, and it's an open question of whether they were actively engaging in trying to corroborate it or pursue other threads of the investigation. there is a timeline in there, interview notes. some of it are conspiracy theories but some of it is actual information the "new york times" reported, actual meetings that took place between ukranian officials and giuliani in some cases and others to try to build

this case most of which has been debunked up till now. i think what it shows is the degree to which giuliani was kind of freelancing this but also, you know, had a conduit to make this part of the united states government activities, whether that meant they were going to follow up and investigate or that it was just sitting around ready for someone to pick up if there were a reason to do so. i think what the committee really wants to know -- what the committees want to know from volker in addition to all the other issues is, what did he know about this effort to hold back the military and security aid, and whether that was at all connected to these other issues that giuliani was trying to inject into the bloodstream here. >> was it quid pro quo, not just a call? there were meetings for months and months and months and we're trying to piece it together. up next, some republicans say they're getting more and more nervous watching the president react to this impeachment inquiry. e crohn's d,

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but we're also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes, and keeps you healthy your whole life. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. the president is both the target of the impeachment inquiry and the sharpest critic. yesterday the president asked ukraine and china to investigate a political opponent. that is investigatable, and yet the president is asking for more and more republicans to go out and defend him. a growing number of republicans instead are expressing quiet

concerns. they are not getting good guidance from the white house. one republican source complaining to cnn that relying on the president's reelection campaign alone to shape the counter-narrative will notten enou -- not enough. there is no white house war room. why are we the ones that have to defend him? you have a president heading into an election year. their faiths are largely tied to him and where are they? you have his most reliable allies out there, but even they are more attacking the democrats or saying the democrats are overreaching than trying to defend the president. >> it's far-reaching for republicans because they don't know the full body of evidence right now, so they have to make this choice over how force fortunateliforcefully they want to defend him and risk it coming back at them. they've been in this place

before, this is the typical dynamic where the republicans look to the white house and say, what's the playbook, what's the plan here? they don't get much guidance. in this case i think the difference is they're more likely to stand back right now and take a more wait and see approach. >> if you're a republican, and even if you're a republican who wants to go out and defend the president, you have this issue. one of the things nancy pelosi has said to her members is, be careful, be serious, don't give them an opening. there are a lot of republicans who think the chairman of the intelligence committee did give them an opening. there is a story in the newspaper today that the whistleblower called, and the way adam schiff describes it and the way the whistleblower's lawyers describes it is that this person was going to file a complaint. that takes lot of guts and was looking for help. how do i do this, what's the form, what's the process? schiff did not proactively say that. he did not come out and publicly say that. it's printed in the newspaper, so the president says, aha.

>> i think it's a scandal that he knew before. i would go a step further, i think he probably helped write it. that's what the word is. and i think it's -- i give a lot of respect to the "new york times" for putting it out. >> this is the challenge for the democrats. this is right, this is wrong, he didn't help write it. but this is why democrats have to be extraordinarily careful. that's an opening. >> absolutely it's an opening. the story itself -- i think it goes without saying, but i'll say it, anyway, that there is no evidence that adam schiff or his staff helped this whistleblower file the complaint. what was going on behind the scenes, we understand from my colleagues' reporting, was that the whistleblower was afraid this was not being taken seriously and wanted to make sure that his concerns got seen and addressed, and so went to get guidance where he thought he could get it. the whistleblower procedures are pretty clearly laid out, and it's very important in those

situations to follow the law. and it could be that adam schiff was worried that if he did voice this or proactively come out and say, hey, i know about this, that he would be somehow circumventing that process. we do know now looking back, it seems a lot less mysterious why he was raising this letter that he got from i.g. saying, this complaint is out here. we can't share it with you because we've gotten guidance that we can't. he clearly didn't come out and say, i have this. but they really have to be careful with how they talk about it. >> it's politics 101. if they have something they can use against trump, they have to get out ahead of it. the other concern about republicans is what about the vice president? they told the vice president not to go to the zelensky inaugural. the vice president staff, as we all know from reporting, is they're in a bit of a tizzy.

they're trying to get information, what's going on, is the vice president exposed here? officials said pence and his staff weren't aware that the call had provoked alarm inside the white house, even though his national security adviser had been monitoring it. it's also not clear whether pence failed to read the accounts of the call in the briefing book or read it and found it unremarkable. the challenge for the pence people is he likes to say he's always in the loop. he did go meet with zelensky and a rough transcript of that call was in his briefing book. if you read it, it is hard to not be alarmed by it, and yet they say his national security adviser not alarmed, the vice president not alarmed or in the loop? >> this is also one of the land mines that keep popping up for the different administration figures as this goes along. you try one story and then something else comes out, and that story doesn't work so well anymore. it is -- even just with the publicly available information, it's hard to imagine the vice

president wouldn't be aware of what was going on, given the fact that rudy giuliani was on television on this network and everywhere else, talking about what they tried to do in the first place. like you say, the vice president doesn't go to the leader of a foreign leader without being briefed by the president in the previous days and weeks. they are scrambling in pence's office to figure out a narrative that avoids all these land mines and still makes him, in the end, look okay. >> in the whistleblower complaint there is a footnote that trump ordered pence not to go on the trip. sources tell us that is true. the pence people now say it's logistics. it's kind of difficult to imagine if the president did ask the vice president to not go on this trip that he wouldn't say why. why don't you want me to go on this trip? they're scrambling with logistics. they couldn't set a date by a certain time, secret service wasn't ready for it. it took them a week to come up with that explanation. >> kurt volker is on the hill

testifying. one of the ranking members came out and said he is impressed by the testimony so far. we want to bring you the bits and pieces that we get. coming up, are there frustrations in the democratic party as they finesse their own issues with impeachment. -the-go, try listerine® ready! tabs™

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too. speaker nancy pelosi defending the democrat we just discussed a few moments ago, the house skbel intelligence chairman adam schiff. but there is frustration between some democrats who warned the party has to be perfect not to play into the president's hand. one democrat who just signed onto the impeachment inquiry today making clear his issues with fellow democrats he says are not handling this with the calm and the gravity it deserves. >> but what's most important here is that we do not jump either to any conclusions. this is a sad, sad day for america. no one should cheer this, no one should applaud it. there were democrats that signed onto impeachment before they were even sworn in. that's absolutely wrong. >> we can't sell "impeach the mofo" t-shirts any longer, we can't bring chicken to hearings. this has got to be a solemn and serious process. >> impeachment is a political

process. it is a political judgment the house democrats are going to make. there you have a congressman from a tough district in staten island who is worried about his own prospects back home. this is what he's talking about. congresswoman rashida talib from detroit is selling t-shirts saying "impeach the --." you can figure that out yourself. and they are mocking bill barr eating chicken. again, number one, this should be taken seriously by everybody, anyway. number two, because it is a political debate heading into the reelection year, you see max rose here, and he says, if i'm going to do this, i need you liberals to protect me and not mess this up. >> rose is in trump plus 10 district, i believe, so he's really on the fringes on the democratic majority which means he's in a very difficult seat. republicans are going to go after him aggressively, so yerks

there a -- yes, there are a number of democrats like him that won the majority which are afraid to go into impeachment but feel that they have to, and now that they've started seeing polling backing tup has made them more comfortable going there. >> and what they don't want is for them to say this is all a joke to the democrats, trying to raise money or whatever. the speaker has tried to contain this. we've watched republican speakers when they are in the majority on different issues. as we go forward on this, let's bring as much dignity, as much solemnity, as much prayerfulness that is worthy of the constitution and save some of our, whatever we feel about trump, for the election. >> this is a process of impeaching trump, and they do need to be near perfect to try to pull this off, in part because trump is just so good.

the schiff example we were talking about in the last segment is just a perfect example. he is so good at picking one thing from one member and painting the entire party with that. and pelosi knows that. he's successfully done that for months. >> the tools at his disposal, if you think back to the clinton administration during the impeachment -- that impeachment process also fought back vigorously. but the tools at president trump's disposal with social media and the skills that he has at amplifying, we've all seen it, you know, how much he amplifies one little thing. that means, as julie said, they need to be perfect. >> i want to show you two examples here. the democratic base is angry. the democratic base is motivated for a number of reasons against this president. the democratic candidates for president see this at their events and have to deal. >> no, no, no.

no, no, no. >> we need to be able to successfully prosecute the case against four more years of donald trump, and it's going to take a prosecutor to do it. there is a theme to this event. >> "dude's got to go" at the harris event. but the warren thing was interesting, "lock him up" which was similar to "lock her up" and warren was sarks ying, no, no, because she didn't want to encourage this action at her rallies. >> the democratic base, there is so much pent-up urgency and eagerness to see donald trump go among the progressive left, that now that this inquiry is actually on track, they spent so much time complaining that it wasn't and that the democrats

and congress weren't reopening an impeachment inquiry, but there are a lot of people saying, we want impeachment now. forget all these hearings, let's just go. we have this transcript, we've heard what he says in public. a lot of democrats, i think, feel that way and nancy pelosi has to factor that in as well, and understanding, which she does, but maybe not all of the members of her caucus do, that if they don't have an ironclad set of articles of impeachment, they won't get to that, much less removal, if they even get that far. coming up next, there is no place like home unless at the moment you're senator kamala harris. you wouldn't do only half

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topping our political radar today, some breaking news from the senator bernie sanders campaign. sanders now confirming to cnn he will indeed participate in the next debate here on cnn. that debate is less than two weeks, october 15. this came after the sanders campaign announced that he had to cancel because he was getting

a stent put in. a new democratic poll released today has senator harris plummetting to fourth place, now behind elizabeth warren, joe biden and senator sanders. that was a question. the sanders campaign, they announced that he had a stent inserted. they didn't give us a lot of details about the medical condition, but now we know are his plans to get back on the debate stage, which is a signal to his supporters that they were waiting to hear. >> this does come at a difficult time for sanders, because on the one hand, he is highlighting his continued fundraising prowess but his standing in the polls is ready to dip, and there is a real feeling in some of these early states that he just doesn't have the same momentum, that his supporters are looking elsewhere. certainly his age has been a question, the same way it's been a question for joe biden, and a

narrative is a powerful thing in politics. so when you already have questions about age and you have a health scare like this, those questions are only going to deepen. >> and with news of his hospitalization, the campaign also canceled the big ad by they had set to start in iowa. that raised some alarms and the campaign had to very quickly say, no, it's just a postponement. we expect those to go up soon as well. >> senator sanders plans to be at the debate, that's good news. when we come back, joe biden has a message for the president. no, sir, you will not destroy me. restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes, and keeps you healthy your whole life. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you.

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trump knows there is no truth in the charges against me. none. zero. every independent news organization that has reviewed the charges at length has found it to be a flat-out lie, his assertions, every single one of them. >> well, the vice president is right. almost everything president trump says about joe biden and his son is untrue. but as you see there, biden sees no choice but to push back. we have seen this before. remember the 2016 republican primaries, and even more so, in the trump versus hillary clinton 2016 general election. the president over and over and over again repeats conspiracy

theories or mistruths in an effort to smear his rivals or take them off their game. and guess what? it works. do you think joe biden put pressure on ukranian officials to get them to investigate his son's business dealings, as trump claims? 43% of americans say he probably did. this is a documented falsehood. the sequencing of when biden joined the board, when the investigation happened, but 37% of americans think he did. >> they don't know when things have been debunked, which it has, and that's why there is so much warfare when trump is willing to go out and say these things that have been proven false, that we know don't hold any water, but if you're joe biden, you're not going to accuse things of president trump because you'll be called a liar. >> what's the sweet spot of

biden pushing back without this snowballing it actually hurting him? >> i don't know if he has found it or if any democrat has figured out the sweet spot in these situations. we saw the clinton campaign struggle with that. this is not something that is unexpected, particular formal joe biden but for democrats in general that something like this would happen where trump would find a falsehood to try to promulgate here. it's how you combat it. because to julie's point, they're not going to do the equivalent during a lie at him. but there is a huge risk. what's joe biden going to do, give an hour-long speech point by point debunking what his son did? that only gives more oxygen to it as well. >> i think a big piece of this which democrats are still figuring out is the social media aspect. republicans are increasingly, and there have been evidence of other republican firms putting out misinformation, putting out falsehoods across social media, across platforms, and it's

something democrats don't know how to respond to quite yet, and they almost have to build it in house. so whether they're trying to figure out fighting back against this permeation. president trump says the book was a lie. you won't believe who was interviewed for that same book.

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said, sir, there is a book or something being written. it's written by "washington post" people, so you know it's inaccurate. these two reporters wrote this book and said, i want a moat with alligators and electric fences so people get electrocuted when they touch it, with spikes on top. i put something on the media today that, i'm tough on the border but i'm not that tough. okay, it was a lie. >> julie hirschfeld davis and michael shear of the "new york times." trump's assault on immigration, there's too much to do. i want to start with his treatment of kristin nielsen who else always trying to find a way to please him and stay within the law, stay within the rules. she said, let me explain it a different way. we legally can't, and that's why

we need this law. we need your support because -- >> kristin, you didn't hear me the first time, honey, trump interrupt interrupted. shoot them down. >> this was an effort to allow the government to bring down drones that could pose a national security threat. the fear was a terrorist could have a biological agent or a bomb on oy droa drone and the u states government didn't have the authority because you need to use wiretapping and technology that they were not allowed to use at that point to bring it down. so the homeland security department decides they need the president to sign off, the president's really strong support to get this through congress, and it's up to jikirsn nielsen to get his permission.

all you hear is "honey" and sweetheart." >> in the sexist and condescending language that he used, he wasn't focused on that they wanted lejgislation. it was as if there was a drone headed their way and he said, go ahead and shoot it down, which reflects a lack of focus in front of him that you see repeated. >> you guys documented brilliantly that the president wants something, says something and his aides scramble around and say, no, no, we can't do that. trump greeted the men with " "atta boys." for the great job they were doing and repeating to them what he had told mcaleenan on the plane. they should start turning away

migrants at the border. my message to you is, keep them all out, the president said, okay? every single one of them. that's a way of the staff saying, don't listen to the president of the united states. you have another example where kirsten nielsen, the homeland security secretary, brought a mock-up of him. she didn't really mean it, right? and he wrote, a design of our steel slat barrier which is totally effective while at the same time beautiful. with spikes on top. >> the spikes he said he didn't want. so he casts out all the possible slu solutions to this, like directing border people, just say no to them. >> or shoot them in the legs. >> and he wanted them to throw

rocks. there are laws about that. you can't use lethal force unless you're facing lethal force. can we try it another way? can we shoot them to wound them? these are ways he was trying to get his hands around the problem and they kept telling him no. >> remarkable work. the book comes out tuesday. thank you for joining me on "inside politics." brianna keilar starts right now. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now it's a truly extraordinary moment as the president of the united states not only is admitting to the very offense at the center of his impeachment battle, asking a foreign country for dirt on a political opponent of his, he's also doing it again. president trump now asking two foreign powers, ukraine and communist china, to investigate his political rival. and he did it on the white house lawn in front