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 of all the cameras for all of the world to see.

>> i would think that if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the bidens. it's a very simple answer. they should investigate the bidens, because how does a company that's newly formed, and all these companies -- and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens, because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. i think biden is going down, and i think his whole situation, because now you may very well find that there are many other countries that they scammed just like they scammed china and ukraine. >> while suggesting that china investigate a democratic presidential candidate, trump also announced that chinese trade negotiators are coming to washington next week for critical talks. kaitlan collins is live for us at the white house, and kaitlan,

now the president wants china to dig up dirt on the bidens as well. is he admitting here to what he's likely going to be impeached for? >> well, it was a pretty remarkable moment to see on the south lawn. the president is facing this impeachment inquiry over his request to a foreign leader that they investigate his political rival, a request he made in private but then became public when the white house released the transcript of that call. but then today, as you noted, in front of the cameras. president publicly called on another foreign leader to also investigate the biden family. it was kind of a stunning moment out there where reporters asked had he already communicate such a request to the president of china? he said he hadn't yet, but he made clear that he was open to doing so, and of course it's raising questions because the u.s. and china are locked in the middle of this trade war right now. and just moments before the president had called on china to investigate the bidens, he had noted that, yes, the chinese trade delegation is coming to washington next week for another round of talks, talks that have

really been at a standstill for months now without a lot of progress, and the president made clear that he was rather ambivalent about whether they will make any progress when they come here next week. of course, it's stunning because you've seen aides and allies of the president insist that when he was talking to the ukraine president, it was just about corruption, there was nothing wrong with that request, but then the president point blank made another similar request in front of the cameras today. the president has been saying and insisting that he doesn't think there was anything wrong with what he said to the ukraine leader, but of course there will abe lot of questions on capitol hill now that the president is doing so once again with china. >> yeah, it doesn't fit in with what they have been saying to defend the situation. kaitlan collins, thank you so much for that. we're going to keep an eye on the president's speech in florida this hour. we'll bring you the highlights from that. congressman brendan boyle is joining us now. he's on the house ways and means committee, the tax committee in

the house. brendan, what does it say to you while you're seeking impeachment that the president has flat out admitted what he's done and would do it again. he clearly doesn't think the reporters care and maybe he's right. how do you sway people? >> thank you for having me again. we already know we don't have to take any whistleblower's word for it. the statement, what they call a transcript of the president's own words with president zelensky of ukraine, showed first and foremost that the president broke numerous laws in that conversation, soliciting something clearly of value from a foreign national. then today he actually doubles down on it and repeeats that o'ferno offense, only this time it's a different day in a different country. whether you watch the president with the president of finland or you see president trump today right there on the south lawn of

the white house, this is a president who is increasingly becoming unhinged. it is deeply dangerous the further this goes on. i strongly favor this impeachment inquiry, and today's comments only further strengthen my resolve to make sure that we uphold the constitution and fulfill our duty. >> congressman, he doesn't seem to think that many people, a lot of his supporters, all of his supporters may be enough to reelect him. we don't know at this point in time. he seems to think they don't care. he's saying the very thing that he's been accused of doing, that the transcript shows him doing, and he doesn't seem to think that it's going to make enough of a difference to oust him. so how do you deal with a situation like that, and how do you convince voters that that's incorrect? >> yeah, i don't know what's going on in the president's mind. that's perhaps the understatement of my career.

but i will say this. if he believes that ultimately the american people won't care, i think he's wrong. we've already seen a dramatic shift in the polls over the last week and a half. support for impeachment was somewhere in the mid to high 30s just a week and a half ago. now it's polling over 50%. that is a remarkable change in polling numbers that otherwise when it comes to president trump had been remarkably stable for the last three years. i would also just point to the count even in the house of representatives. a week and a half ago, support for impeachment was somewhere in the 120 range. it's now well north of 220. so if the president thinks he's going to be able to get away with this, i think he's clearly wrong. >> with the u.s. and china in the middle of this trade dispute and chinese officials heading to washington next week for these trade talks, do you think the president is linking these two things, the trade negotiations and this request? because this issue of quid pro quo is really what's at the heart of the ukraine scandal.

>> it's not just a matter that i think it, it's that president trump in his own words is linking these things. we already have that in the zelensky call, linking the aid and the purchasing of further javelin missiles. the very next sentence is trump saying, i need you to do me a favor, though. then we have this morning when the conversation turned to trade. 30 seconds after the president saying that he has an incredible number of tools to deal with china on trade, literally 30 seconds later, if you look at the transcript, the president then said he believes that china should open an investigation into vice president biden. and by investigation, we mean just basically come up with any sort of dirt, manufactured or not, to help trump in his campaign. so the president basically is impeaching himself by his own words and by his own actions. >> earlier this week we learned

about another whistleblower, a claim from another whistleblower that there were efforts to improperly influence the irs and their mandatory audits of presidential tax returns. you were on the tax writing committee. is there anything else you can tell us about this? >> i really don't know anything further about this other than what's in the public domain. i do think, though, that we need to keep focus on the ukranian matter and what we had in front of us. while there certainly are many other instances where president trump has behaved poorly, unethically, perhaps illegally, i think it is actually in our best interest in terms of this process that we keep the focus on one area rather than running the risk that we focus on too many things and we essentially lose the public. >> congressman brendan boyle, thank you so much. >> thank you. meanwhile, right now behind closed doors, the very first official is testifying on the

whistleblower's explosive accusations, and this official is not known as someone who is on the so-called trump train. instead, kurt volker, the former u.s. envoy to ukraine who set up at least one meeting between rudy giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, and the ukra e ukranian official serves as the executive direct nor the mccain institute, the late john mccain. some have talked to reporters saying volker's testimony is not helping the impeachment narrative. rachel is live for us on capitol hill. rachel, what can you tell us? >> reporter: hey there, brianna. quite a circus, a lot of reporters sitting and waiting to hear what's going on behind closed doors now. we are about three and a half hours into this first deposition of the democrats' impeachment inquiry over the president.

you're right, a long-time gop official who basically found himself ensnared between the president's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, and his campaign to have the foreign country question biden and his son. this morning we saw giuliani try to put out a couple text messag messages, saying, this gentleman, kurt volker, did anything to protect biden. i'm hearing he's pushing back on that and saying he was there to sort of mitigate any potential damage, and sort of make sure that the relationship between the u.s. and ukraine could move

forward and was on a politics direction but hopefully to keep politics aside. >> those texts, rachel, that rudy giuliani was saying, look, i'm doing thanksgiving at the state department's behest. another way to tlaed, ingratiating themselves to rudy giuliani? >> that's right, they didn't know how to take giuliani's insistence that they need to investigate biden. how are they supposed to handle that? how does this factor into the military aid being held up and a longtime meeting between president zelensky and president trump getting canceled and delayed over and over and over

again. clearly he was in the middle of all this and hoping to make sense of what they heard from giuliani versus the actual state department policy. that's what he's taking lawmakers through right now. what did he see, what did he hear? did he think it was kosher that giuliani was pressuring ukranians and how did it affect the u.s. relationship with one of our top allies, ukraine. we have more on this extraordinary story we're following, this breaking news. the president just admitting to the offense that democrats are looking to impeach him over, asking ukraine and now china to investigate joe biden. plus, team pence is distancing the vice president the from the president's pressure on ukraine. but his national security add d ld -- adviser is protecting him.

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zelensky, if it were me, i would recommend that they start an investigation into the bidens. >> well, that was president trump urging two foreign leaders now to investigate his political rival, joe biden, the very thing the president is currently under an impeachment investigation for doing. we've got former deputy assistant attorney general harry lipman with us, dana bash and chief political analyst gloria borger as well. gloria, i wonder how republicans, if not trying to defend the president's actions, they've been kind of trying to change the subject on what they were. if this doesn't make their job a whole lot harder. >> no, and i think some may duck and cover pto a certain degree. they may want an investigation into the bidens, but i doubt they want china to do that investigation. somebody else ought to be doing it. this is so reminiscent to me of

donald trump during the election saying, russia, if you're out there and you've got hillary clinton emails, i think you ought to release those emails. i also have a question of whether the president, in a way, is trying to inoculate himself against further stories about phone calls and whoever else he might have spoken with, and he could say, look, i said that publicly, why wouldn't i say that privately? >> inoculate himself and normalize it. >> right. >> by saying it over and over again, he's trying to send a signal to reporters, this is obviously no big deal because i'm talking about it. this is not a bad thing i'm doing this. why would i admit it if it was bad? well, it is. it is not normal, and it is not right, and just because he's saying it out loud doesn't make it so. >> and yet that tactic works. we know that in terms of simple, like, persuasion, it is effective. >> it is effective. >> it works to the core base, maybe, but that's really not the

audience now. we know that 35% will never abandon him. but that really looked like, you know, impeachment in plain view. and to gloria's point, when he said that in the 2016 campaign, mueller, despite looking hard, was not able to stitch it up with actual conduct from russia. here we have the july 25th conversation, much more coming out that actually shows this wasn't a casual overture, this was foreign policy. >> and he wasn't on the phone, he was on the white house lawn saying it to the world. >> and i think it's important to point out ukraine is one thing. china is the country that he's in a massive trade war with right now because of practices that he calls unfair. china is -- makes it a habit of stealing american intellectual property, on and on and on. that's the country he wants to look into his opponent? >> he is enlisting --

>> joe biden as responded. he said, what president trump said on the lawn of the white house was this election's equivalent of his infamous "russia, if you're listening" moment from 2016. a grotesque choice of lies over truth and self over the country. >> all are adversaries he's trying to get to shake loose some dirt on the bidens. this is volume 1 of mueller. if we were in that stage that we were in a year ago, there would be plenty to look at. of course, it would still hit the brick wall of you can't indict the president. the reason there isn't now is there is no way the department of justice would green-light anything, and also we're in a clearly political moment. his exposure now, same with pence, same with pompeo, is political. you could state a potential crime, but it's going to be judged within the political

sphere. >> it also is this notion that the president really doesn't understand or care to understand that he did anything wrong in that ukraine phone call that he calls beautiful and perfect. well, it was so beautiful and perfect, he just did it again, as dana points out, on the white house lawn, only this time he was imploring somebody who was not a friend. ukraine, at least, is an ally. this is not a friend. and imploring them to effectively provide his opposition research for his political campaign. >> let's talk about the vice president, dana, because the "washington post" says president trump told vice president pence not to attend the ukranian president's inauguration, which he was going to do, and it was this crucial time when the newly elected leader was obviously looking for signs of support from the u.s., and then the president, as we know, would go on to hold up the aid to ukraine

and then ask for a favor. the paper also says trump had pence deliver the news to ukraine that their aid was going to be withheld at the same time the president was asking ukraine to investigate, quote, unquote, corruption. which, by the way, can we just put out there, ukraine has clearly had issues with corruption, but it actually has made some improvements. and i think that's the context at which -- >> part of it was biden getting the former prosecutor out of there. >> yeah. so does the vice president have d deniability here? >> we don't know the answer to that, because the vice president's security adviser was on that july 25th phone call, heard the president's "do me a favor" comments to the out crth ukranian leader. that phone call happened, the vice president's aide was on that call. after that -- >> can i interrupt for a second?

is that a miscarriage of your duties as national security adviser to advise the president, if you do not inform your boss what happened? >> our colleague sources are saying it didn't immediately raise a red flag. and maybe it never did because the vice president then went, on september 1st, a month and a week later, to meet with zelensky -- >> with briefing paper. >> -- with briefing paper talking about the need to tamp down on corruption. at that time in zelensky's mind, corruption means investigate joe biden. whether or not the vice president did that knowingly or not, wittingly or unwittingly, or not. >> in his briefing book, we need

to wonder whether his national security adviser didn't flag it because he didn't think he was doing anything wrong, whether they told pence or whether pence paid attention to it. >> there are so many crises in trump world and he tends to -- hear no evil, see no evil. >> dana, you've covered him. i covered him on the hill, you covered him for longer on the hill. knowing mike pence and just what mike pence knows and what would make sense to mike pence, you would suspect that if he read this transcript that this would be -- >> dangerous. >> exactly. this wouldn't raise a red flag for president trump, but it would for mike pence. >> what's interesting now about the call is it's brazenous. this was set up for months with our secretary of state, and by

then zelensky clearly knew corruption equals giving something on biden. so why was trump so blatant and brazen in the call to not speak in any kind of code but just come right out, you know, eight times, investigate, investigate and really draw the lane. >> and we know trump would tell anybody, and he says it 50 times a day, that the bidens should be investigated for corruption in ukraine. you don't think when he canceled pence's visit that he said to pence, you know, i'm cancelling your visit because blank? >> we're sending rick perry. >> because of corruption, because they're not investigating the bidens? i mean, that strains credulity. >> thank you so much. we thank you so much for joining me and my colleagues here. a former clinton supervisor says the president is totally

unprepared for what's about to happen. a group of historians weighing in on the president's behavior as something they've never seen before. saturdays happen.

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it meant nothing? counterattack, wait for public attention to wane, rinse and repeat. so far the president's preferred style of crisis management has worked for him the last three years. he survived the "access hollywood" tape a month before the election along with revelations of robert mueller's special counsel report. but will this formula work in an impeachment inquiry? this man served as special ex-impeachment adviser. what do you think will happen? >> the only thing they have is the president's twitter feed. there is no political apparatus,

there is no coordination between the rnc, between the campaign, between the white house staff. and who is running the government? during the clinton operation, there was a full, discreet team that dealt just with impeachment, and everybody else including the president ran the government. and there was much discipline, especially from the president, in what was said, when it was said, who it was said to and the entire context. what we're seeing, as we saw on the south lawn a little while ago, it's just kind of a stream of consciousness. he's now asking another country to get involved right in front of the world, and that's clearly unconstitutional and illegal, and this -- the thing is that the american people can see this. you see it in the polls, and trump's base, where he is right now, his base, they're not going to change. the people with the red hats, they're not going to change. but if you look at the polls around the edges, it's chipping

away at the base and he's not expanding it. >> so when you look at him today and he not only is saying, yeah, i did this, i asked ukraine to dig up dirt on the bidens and they should do so, but he says that china should do so as well, he's clearly very confident that this doesn't matter, it's not going to register for enough voters. why should he not be that confident? >> well, this is for all the ma marbles. if the house actually votes articles of impeachment, and they probably will, there will be a trial in the senate. suddenly those senators are going to be facing the constitution, not just the politics of it, but the constitution. and they will have to answer the question, what if your opponent was getting negative information about you from france or peru or egypt, is that okay? well, some of the people in their states will think it's

okay, but what we're seeing in the polling is that group of people who think it's okay is contracting. so even if trump -- and this is his danger -- even if he is acquitted in a trial, he is severely damaged for reelection. so he's in a world of hurt, and he doesn't know what to do about it. >> so bill clinton, who you saw through this process, proved, at least, that he could hang in there and wait this out and weather it. >> well, he didn't just -- >> go on, sorry. >> i'm sorry. he didn't just wait it out, he continued to run the government. remember, he was very popular and he had a big roaring economy also. but he also was highly disciplined. he didn't just run his mouth on the south lawn every day about it. he was very disciplined. >> and so because of that, is that the reason why you say the same strategy doesn't work for

trumpl? because actually he's not even proepg this. the waiting it out kind of thing or the hanging in there, it matters how you hang in there is what you're saying. >> i think the evidence of it not working is the deafening silence from the united states republican senators who aren't saying anything. and you guys, cnn has been reporting that they're very worried. what's the next shoe that's going to drop, i think was the headline earlier in the cycle. and we don't know what the shoe's going to drop, but what we do know is the shoes that are dropping, they're going to be good shoes for donald trump. there are always rocks that are going to be overturned from the whistleblower complaint and all these other things we're suddenly learning about. remember the russian thing the other day, right after trump threatens the u.s. diplomats at the u.n., 24 hours later the "new york times" has a revelation about whthat he saide

didn't care about russian interference to the russians in the oval office. >> he said that a long, long time skpag finago and finally t information came out. guy smith, thank you. >> thanks for having me. the president and his allies have targeted joe biden, bragging about taking on corruption in ukraine, but cnn has recovered a letter by some republicans echoing biden at the time. plus, a group of historians calling the president. i'll be talking to one of them. tylenol®. you should be mad at leaf blowers. [beep] you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. and you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated.

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the simple truth is that those are the same issues the president raised with president zelensky in their call. the president spoke about lack of european support, he spoke about corruption, and he tasked me to go and meet with the president of ukraine and carry our concerns about those issues. and anyone that looks at the president's transcript will see that the president was raising issues that were appropriate, that were genuine interest to the american people. and as more facts come out of this, as people take time to read the transcript of the president's call skpand reflect these facts, they'll come to

realize this is more of the same of what we've seen from democrats in the last two and a half years. they've literally spent two and a half years pushing an impeachment of this administration, this president, on a theory of russian collusion and obstruction. and when that didn't pan out, they briefly tried to talk about impeaching justice kavanaugh of the supreme court. and over the last ten days, we're back to talking impeachment. i think the people of america are saying enough is enough. i mean, people of this country want us to focus on issues that matter most to them. these endless investigations should end in washington, d.c., and speaker pelosi and the democrats ought to be focusing on issues of security, of prosperi prosperity, infrastructure, the usmca, lowering drug prices. whatever they want to fight about in washington, d.c., i promise you president trump and i will keep fighting for the

issues that matter to the american people. >> what was your biggest takeaway? >> my biggest takeaway is how proud the hispanic community is here in this country. when you look at the growth of this conspiracy that's happened since 2016 in the state of arizona and you understand the role that hispanic americans have played in that, it was a real cause for celebration today. and we're going to take this whole month, this spanish heritage month, to talk about the incredible cultural contributions and economic contributions that hispanic americans make every day. my big message was as we've seen in the economy, this created 6.3 million new jobs. >> this is a moment that kind of perfectly encapsulates what the trump administration is dealing with here, right? mike pence, the vice president, is in scottsdale, arizona. he's there during hispanic

heritage month. clearly this is an area that president trump would like to expand for his voters coming into this election, and he's been asked these questions, pence has, about this call that president trump had with the ukranian president. let's actually listen back in. >> let me say that i'm vice president of the united states. and i was elected to this job along with president trump for many reasons. one was to rebuild our military, one was to revive our economy, another was to see conservatives appointed to our courts. another was to secure our borders. but one of the main reasons we were elected in washington, d.c. was to drain the swamp. and i think the american people have a right to know if the vice president of the united states or his family profited from his

position as vice president during the last administration, that's about looking backwards and understanding what really happened. the fact that my predecessor had a son who was paid $50,000 a month to be on a ukranian board at the time that vice president biden was leading the obama administration's efforts in ukraine, i think, is worth looking into. the president made it very clear that he believes our other nations around the world should look into it as well. the simple fact is that, you know, when you hold the second highest office in the land, it comes with unique responsibilities. not just to be above impropriety but appearing to be above improp

rirks riety. we're going to continue to ask the questions of whether the vice president or his family profited from business. you can see there is clearly quid pro quo. if a prosecutor was not fired, who, among other things, was investigating the company his son was on the board with that he was going to withhold a million dollars. contrast that with the president's phone call with president zelensky. there was no quid pro quo, there was no pressure. it's why most americans want to get answers about what was going on and to have ukraine particularly, as the president said, to get to the bottom of it. i think that's what the american people would expect and anticipate. but this administration is going to continue to advance the policies and the agenda we were

elected to advance. it includes draining the swamp and it includes demanding that our allies acted in this gho government in an upright way as well. >> thanks, guys! thank you! thank you! >> let me say, we're going to be in and out of arizona a lot, because we've got a winning message. hispanic americans here in arizona are winning under the policies of president trump and the policies that center mcssen mcsally has supported. our country is growing, our military is stronger than ever before. and let me say that the values this administration have stood for of faith and family and the sanctity of life and freedom, those are all values that are synonymous with a hispanic-american community. we're going to come here and talk about the progress that

we've made for security, por prosperi prosperity, but also about the values that spanish americans cherish, that this president has championed, and i know we're going to bring home a great victory for senator mcsally and president donald trump in november 2020. >> thanks, guys, thank you! >> all right. vice president mike pence there in arizona for -- this is a very pivotal, interesting moment in all of this. he is all in with president trump on what the president has been saying and as the president admitted, that he asked out crane yan preside -- the ukranian president for dirt on joe biden. also asking china to investigate. pence is saying president trump raised issues that were appropriate. so even as pence's staff has tried to distance the vice president, give him a little bit of political cover, the reality

for the vice president is that he is linked to the president and he is going all in there. he said the american people have the right to know whether the vice president or his family profited off of his position. okay, well, look, we can tell you because we have fact-checked this extensively as have many here is what the president is alleging that vice president joe biden was doing something for the behest of his son hunter biden does not bear out. right? i want to talk about this now. this key moment with chris cillizza and dana bash who are here with me. this encapsulates what the trump administration is dealing with. a couple other questions pence got about hispanic voters in arizona. trump won arizona, he wants to hang on to it.

has done a lot to offend hispanic voters, that's a key constituency but trying to hang on to it and pence is there as an emissary to help him do that but that's not what pence is really talking about. he appears to be in discomfort as i look at him having watched him -- >> i think he would rather be having a root canalants about what it looked like. >> yeah. i was running back up here to be with you. maybe you can answer this question. my question for him beyond what did you think of it, did you know? when you met with president zelensky did you carry the same message that you heard, that we've heard the president make with the ukraine president? he wasn't asked that question. right? >> he was not -- as far as i can tell -- >> that's a key question. one thing to say, there's there there. another question to ask, were you complicit in it? did you carry out these orders? >> seems to me, he did -- i was listening honestly in the makeup

room as i was coming in here. seems he did what is trump is trying to do. take all questions related to ukraine and pivot to biden. the key here to your point, brianna, yes, hunter biden, joe biden's son was on the board of a ukrainian national gas company. it that is true. everything else donald trump has said about, or alleged, is false. there's no connection of any sort in corruption. go ahead. i'm sorry. >> pence is, and i know, and you know, and we all know for having covered pence for so long, that pence is lying, and that he knows that he is, because he says that the president was raising issues that were appropriate. i do not believe that mike pence believes the president, in his heart of hearts or even, you know, just superficially believes what the president was saying was appropriate. >> hard to imagine a governor pence, a house republican pence, under any other circumstances, any other president, seeing this exact conversation would say those things that it's

appropriate, but this is the, this is the cross that he bears. this is what he decided he was going to jump in on when he said donald trump, i will be your running mate. he decided he's going to be loyal. that he, just like lindsey graham, he has decided the republican party he's been a part of, his political life is now the party of donald trump, and he is on that train and he's not getting off. >> yes. mike pences want more than anything else in the world to be president. that's not unique to him. lots of people were vice president want to be president with notable exceptions, dick cheney, though you could make arguments about that, but he wants to be president. to dana's point, when he said, you know what? i'm signing on with this guy knowing that, remember, at the time he says, yes, even then, donald trump is obviously the nominee, even then there are a lot of voices, paul ryan, prominent voices, in the republican party that are like, do we really want to be associated with this guy?

he takes that gamble. it pays off for him and he now understands there will not be a thing that i can imagine where mike pence says you know what? i'm going to have to disagree with the president on that. i just -- i cannot -- >> not publicly. >> not publicly, because he views his fate politically as so wedded. he's not wrong. so wedded to donald trump that there will never be even a scintilla of space between the two of them publicly. >> and that ship set sail so long ago. >> it did. >> just the backdrop of what's happening here, dana, is vice president pence is in arizona taking these questions, i don't know the answer to this, whether this was previously scheduled. just a press avail he would be doing. seemed it was because there are questions on the topic of hispanic voters and hispanic heritage month he was referencing and clearly trying to draw attention to, but he is there as this "washington post" story has come out about the

sort of whether or not, you know, how informed was he? right? this sort of question that's out there, how informed was he considering his national security adviser was on the call? wouldn't he be informed? >> i meant by, was that question posed to him? because it's not just, do you support it or do you not? it's, you had a full briefing book when you went to meet with the ukrainian president in the beginning of september. so a little more than a month ago. >> and the call happened in july. >> the call, we are told, the summer we have all seen was in there. plus, his own national security adviser, pence's, was on that call. so did he read that, was he briefed on it? did he know and did he carry that message? did he also ask the ukrainian leader whether it was explicit or implicit for dirt on the former vice president? >> he was raising issues of corruption and these appropriate

issues that president trump -- >> questions whether the ukrainian leader took that as code for biden's son. >> right, and giuliani paving the way ahead of time as he clearly did in the call with trump, take that idea with trump being the biden connection. >> you are committed to this and we are committed to helping you deal with corruption that has been going on in your government, in your society, and then saying, also, speaking of corruption, funny that this came up, joe biden has done some things over there i want you to look into. i think to dana's point, the question, say mike pence only talked about corruption broadly. that kind of, the latter idea, the former idea not the latter. even so, the context of the conversation between donald trump and zelensky in july, s s zelens zelensky's thinking, biden, bill barr, crouch strike, make americans happy, because of military aid, because of the necessary relationship there.

so, again, a lot of this is, you don't have to say quid pro quo. when you're the united states and you are meeting with the ukrainians you don't have to say i want x for y because it's implicit. >> so clear. >> one other quick thing. to the vice president's right, screen left, was senator martha mcsally, one of the republicans on the ballot in a purple state in 2020 who has been not saying very much at all. the sound of republican silence. she's among the most important to watch there, because, you know, she's the kind of senator who depending how this goes for her own liability given her background in the military, you never know. >> lost the race clearly in 2018. >> got wrap this up. thank you both. basically you just saw vice president pence saying there was no quid pro quo. no pressure, and that the president had been raising issuing appropriate. all of those things false. more on other breaking news.

dramatic new turn. the president publicly urging china to investigate the bidens after a delegation is set to arrive in the u.s. for trade talks.

hi there, i'm brooke baldwin. thank you so much for being with me. president trump has gone way out of his way to downplay the white house's script of his call with the ukrainian president he repeatedly urged to investigate joe biden and his son hunter on trump's baseless claims of corruption. who needs a summary when you can hear it right from the president's mouth. take a's listen as trump revives his ukraine conspir